How To Guide Updating firmware after unlocking bootloader and rooting - Sony Xperia 1 III

It might be common sense for some, but I didn't see this as a separate post and it might help people get around this.
Once you unlock the bootloader and root with Magisk, you can't have OTA updates from the phone itself.
But what you can do to get these updates is to use the Xperia Companion tool.
You have to go to Magisk first and click on Uninstall and choose Restore images. This will bring back your original boot image from a backup Magisk does when patching the image.
Once this is done, reboot and connect the phone with Xperia Companion. Allow file transfers through USB. No need for USB debugging.
If there's an update available, it will download and transfer it to your phone. You'll see the install process in the status bar.
Once this is done, you can reboot and verify the update was installed. Now it's time to use Magisk to patch the new boot image.
There's a good guide already made - here.
In short use XperiFirm to download the latest FW, get the boot-x... sin file, put it in the folder where you have unsin executable file and just drag it over unsin. This will produce an image file, which you copy to your phone. Start Magisk, Magisk -> Install, it will ask you where the image file is, so point to the location where you saved it.
The result file will be put in Downloads on your phone. Copy it over to your PC.
Reboot the phone to Fastboot (Volume Up and Power buttons, or turn off the phone and press Volume Up, then connect the USB cable), you'll see you're in Fastboot if the LED is blue.
Open CMD, point to the location where you have ADB files copied and type in:
fastboot flash boot_a magisk_patched.img
fastboot flash boot_b magisk_patched.img
Where magisk_patched.img is your image file, so just put in the name and location to that file.
For example: fastboot flash boot_a c:\temp\boot_X-FLASH-ALL-4BA8.img
If the command fails, type in fastboot devices and that should list one device - the phone you connected.
If no devices are listed, check if you have the drivers for your phone. The article link above lists all driver and utilities downloads.
I've used newflasher and it soft bricked my phone. Maybe it's something I did wrong, but using the above is way easier and safer, in my opinion.
Hope it helps you too!

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i tried your guide, and magisk don`t have backup of boot,

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Was there any sort of an error message from Magisk?
It worked straight out for me.
Can't find Magisk's backup folder though, so I can see what I have inside.

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unicastbg said:
Was there any sort of an error message from Magisk?
It worked straight out for me.
Can't find Magisk's backup folder though, so I can see what I have inside.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
yes

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Sakuma_Eitarou said:
yes
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Emm, ok, what was the error message? I can guess one or two, but better ask than assume the wrong thing.

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unicastbg said:
Emm, ok, what was the error message? I can guess one or two, but better ask than assume the wrong thing.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
I did't deal with blocking the bootloader, but I expressed my thoughts

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Let's see if someone else has the same issue.
I found Magisk uses root/data/magisk_backup_xxxxxxxxx folders, where xxxx is a combination of numbers and letters. There's a boot image copy in there.

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When I flashed my magsik patched boot file, I had to factory reset my phone, otherwise on boot android would tell me my file system is currupt.
Any ideas why that might be?

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cheesepuff said:
When I flashed my magsik patched boot file, I had to factory reset my phone, otherwise on boot android would tell me my file system is currupt.
Any ideas why that might be?
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
reflash with newflasher and use 2.4,3 of magisk ad\nd upgrade from that point

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bountyman334 said:
reflash with newflasher and use 2.4,3 of magisk ad\nd upgrade from that point
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
I'm not 100% sure what all that means.
What's ad/nd?
And I'm not sure what 2.4,3 means in regards to magisk

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Pretty sure that was a typo and they meant "and". Plus the magisk Number is the variant for example I'm on 25.2 which should be the latest one...

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unicastbg said:
It might be common sense for some, but I didn't see this as a separate post and it might help people get around this.
Once you unlock the bootloader and root with Magisk, you can't have OTA updates from the phone itself.
But what you can do to get these updates is to use the Xperia Companion tool.
You have to go to Magisk first and click on Uninstall and choose Restore images. This will bring back your original boot image from a backup Magisk does when patching the image.
Once this is done, reboot and connect the phone with Xperia Companion. Allow file transfers through USB. No need for USB debugging.
If there's an update available, it will download and transfer it to your phone. You'll see the install process in the status bar.
Once this is done, you can reboot and verify the update was installed. Now it's time to use Magisk to patch the new boot image.
There's a good guide already made - here.
In short use XperiFirm to download the latest FW, get the boot-x... sin file, put it in the folder where you have unsin executable file and just drag it over unsin. This will produce an image file, which you copy to your phone. Start Magisk, Magisk -> Install, it will ask you where the image file is, so point to the location where you saved it.
The result file will be put in Downloads on your phone. Copy it over to your PC.
Reboot the phone to Fastboot (Volume Up and Power buttons, or turn off the phone and press Volume Up, then connect the USB cable), you'll see you're in Fastboot if the LED is blue.
Open CMD, point to the location where you have ADB files copied and type in:
fastboot flash boot_a magisk_patched.img
fastboot flash boot_b magisk_patched.img
Where magisk_patched.img is your image file, so just put in the name and location to that file.
For example: fastboot flash boot_a c:\temp\boot_X-FLASH-ALL-4BA8.img
If the command fails, type in fastboot devices and that should list one device - the phone you connected.
If no devices are listed, check if you have the drivers for your phone. The article link above lists all driver and utilities downloads.
I've used newflasher and it soft bricked my phone. Maybe it's something I did wrong, but using the above is way easier and safer, in my opinion.
Hope it helps you too!
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Going through relock and using xperia companion to update is way too slow, inefficient and you loose your data in the mean time.
Just download latest fw from xperifirm, get the new bootimage (unsin ), magisk it, flash the whole fw with new flasher in flash mode (usb + vol down), goto fastboot, flash magisk boot image, reboot, done !
You've lost 0 data, didn't lost root, and you have the new fw

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That's nice, but bootlocker remains unlocked during the procedure I wrote about. Therefore no data is lost in the process.
I used newflasher before and softbricked my phone.
And it's always good to have an alternative.
All of the options are way too complicated, compared to using TWRP. But we sadly don't have custom recovery.

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unicastbg said:
That's nice, but bootlocker remains unlocked during the procedure I wrote about. Therefore no data is lost in the process.
I used newflasher before and softbricked my phone.
And it's always good to have an alternative.
All of the options are way too complicated, compared to using TWRP. But we sadly don't have custom recovery.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
I don't get how you soft bricked with newflasher, bad firmware maybe ? model crossflashing ?
I've always used newflasher since it's out, before I was using flashtool by androixyde and didn't had issues too

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It stopped on the very last step. To be honest the first time I used FW for another region. When I realized that, I tried flashing the proper one, but newflasher always stopped on the very last step. Can't recall what it was checking or verifying for.

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Today LSposed was updated and I ended up in bootloop. As @fastbooking was saying why not use newflasher. So I did. And I ended up exactly where I was before.
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unicastbg said:
Today LSposed was updated and I ended up in bootloop. As @fastbooking was saying why not use newflasher. So I did. And I ended up exactly where I was before.
View attachment 5758521
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Try an usb 2.0 port maybe

---

I tried everything the guys proposed on the newflasher xda thread. Sadly it made no difference. I tried different USB ports, cables, Windows, Linux... I'm giving up on an otherwise app with a great potential.

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unicastbg said:
It might be common sense for some, but I didn't see this as a separate post and it might help people get around this.
Once you unlock the bootloader and root with Magisk, you can't have OTA updates from the phone itself.
But what you can do to get these updates is to use the Xperia Companion tool.
You have to go to Magisk first and click on Uninstall and choose Restore images. This will bring back your original boot image from a backup Magisk does when patching the image.
Once this is done, reboot and connect the phone with Xperia Companion. Allow file transfers through USB. No need for USB debugging.
If there's an update available, it will download and transfer it to your phone. You'll see the install process in the status bar.
Once this is done, you can reboot and verify the update was installed. Now it's time to use Magisk to patch the new boot image.
There's a good guide already made - here.
In short use XperiFirm to download the latest FW, get the boot-x... sin file, put it in the folder where you have unsin executable file and just drag it over unsin. This will produce an image file, which you copy to your phone. Start Magisk, Magisk -> Install, it will ask you where the image file is, so point to the location where you saved it.
The result file will be put in Downloads on your phone. Copy it over to your PC.
Reboot the phone to Fastboot (Volume Up and Power buttons, or turn off the phone and press Volume Up, then connect the USB cable), you'll see you're in Fastboot if the LED is blue.
Open CMD, point to the location where you have ADB files copied and type in:
fastboot flash boot_a magisk_patched.img
fastboot flash boot_b magisk_patched.img
Where magisk_patched.img is your image file, so just put in the name and location to that file.
For example: fastboot flash boot_a c:\temp\boot_X-FLASH-ALL-4BA8.img
If the command fails, type in fastboot devices and that should list one device - the phone you connected.
If no devices are listed, check if you have the drivers for your phone. The article link above lists all driver and utilities downloads.
I've used newflasher and it soft bricked my phone. Maybe it's something I did wrong, but using the above is way easier and safer, in my opinion.
Hope it helps you too!
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
hi, I have some questions, could you please help me explain:
1. Uninstalling magisk and rebooting backup boot image will wipe device data?
2. If I can't find back up of boot image, can I use the one downloaded from Xperifirm with the same build number of my device?
3. Is there any other way to update ota without haveing to reset device. Thanks

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dieuluucanh said:
hi, I have some questions, could you please help me explain:
1. Uninstalling magisk and rebooting backup boot image will wipe device data?
2. If I can't find back up of boot image, can I use the one downloaded from Xperifirm with the same build number of my device?
3. Is there any other way to update ota without haveing to reset device. Thanks
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Hi,
1. This won't wipe the device data nor change any system or user apps.
2. Yes, you can use a boot image of the same FW version as the one installed on the phone.
I even did it with a different version, by a mistake, and the phone booted OK. But I don't know what might go wrong so I can't recommend this.
3. OTA doesn't work with the patched by Magisk boot image. So you need to replace the image with the original one, restart, apply the OTA (via Xperia Companion), restart, replace with the patched file of the new FW boot image.
This process doesn't reset your data as it's on another partition. If you have a custom boot animation (the first one), it might be lost.
If we had a full TWRP support, the whole process would have been way easier. Developers are trying to get it to work, for which I'm grateful even if it doesn't work at the end.