yashsingh1/xdaforums huggingface dataset:
[Xperia Play Android Development] radio five:
Guys, I'm having issues getting this to work. I've got my unlock key, and I've been following the instructions for the Second Method to the letter. First, I had to install a Java SDK, then I installed the android-sdk_r12-windows and updated everything that I could. However, I have still been unable to access my phone. The light turns blue, but that's all. I notice that when I'm closing android sdk, there's a little pop up telling me to set up a path to Java. But when I do, the message persists. I've been working on this for 7 hours with no luck.

Thanks
[Xperia Play Android Development] Mills00013:
Wait, why do you need the java packages and the sdk? nothing about unlocking should explicitely require the sdk. what you need is the fasboot executable, which isnt part of the sdk.
[Xperia Play Android Development] darrisven:
Nevermind, found the drivers from here(drivers), and the fastboot package here(fastboot).

I rooted my device using Cubsfan's guide. To make things easier, you don't need to install the android sdk for the SE usb driver. Use the driver package and the fastboot package in the links provided above. Manually install the drivers from the driver package from device manager. Just use that folder as your fastboot folder and copy all the image files from step 5, 6, & 8 to that folder. You also don't need to include the entire directory in the command line if the image file is in the same directory as fastboot.

For step 7 I found the supplied freexperia.zip in the guide gave me an installation abort error and forced a restore. Use the zip provided in the second method on the first page of this thread (they're different sizes, different content (MACOSX_folder was found)). Here is the original file. Use that one, I updated using that just fine.

Anyways, thank you cubsfan for compiling all of the files into an easy to follow guide. Just tweak the steps above for windows and it should be golden!
[Xperia Play Android Development] radio five:
Oh, I see. But I do need the Android SDK in order to run Fastboot, correct?
[Xperia Play Android Development] Cubsfan3493:
No you do not need the SDK to run fastboot. Depending on the OS (meaning windows) you may need to download some drivers for running fastboot to connect your phone. Meaning for the mac or linux you dont. Just download fastboot and run it.
[Xperia Play Android Development] radio five:
Oh, ok. Well, I downloaded the fastboot package, but when I try to run it, it immediately closes. I googled around and apparently, I need to run it via command prompt. So I'm off to learn how to use that. Oh, bother...
[Xperia Play Android Development] TweeterMan:
Just open up the Start Menu > Run, and type "cmd". Now within DOS you need to browse to the directory which has the fastboot file you need to run, and run it.
[Xperia Play Android Development] pouxonu:
got the music thing fixed but now i noticed and cant changes ringtones for my contacts anyone have any ideas

emails and texts changed fine but it won't switch a ringtone for a specific contact, if was working after root was done but I did a wipe today and now if wont work, could use a hand on this one if anyone can help
[Xperia Play Android Development] Mogul345:
Advice - the command prompt is your friend. You would be wise to learn at least the basics of it's powers. For when the GUI takes a ****, you'll still have the command line in the recovery console...
[Xperia Play Android Development] typikal82:
I did it :D
[Xperia Play Android Development] kershner25:
Any word on a Windows-friendly guide for this process? I'm not a complete tech noob, but I don't feel comfortable attempting this process without knowing there's a guide to follow to a T.
[Xperia Play Android Development] Mills00013:
The guide on the op is windows friendly. If you can't make sense of it, then chances are you don't need to be rooting.

Just give it a go and see how far you get. There are 4 different guides you can use on the op. They worked for everyone else. And if you run into snags just post and we will help.

Or don't if you don't feel comfortable. I'll be the first one to say this: rooting is a very stupid thing to do if you don't know what you're doing.
[Xperia Play Android Development] kershner25:
I'm sure I could figure it out, I just don't know if it's going to be worth the hassle. Will I seriously miss the features that rooting would bring me? I don't want custom roms, gimme dat stock Android. Tethering would be nice, but I'm not sure how much I'd actually use it. The #1 thing I wanted to root for was to freeze bloatware to speed up the phone/extend battery life. Am I going to be wishing I had rooted because of this?
[Xperia Play Android Development] Mills00013:
My point is not that rooting is worthless, its just that it might cause you a lot of headache in the end if you are not even comfortable with the steps to obtain it.

Root is not a magical world where fairies fly around your phone and deliver better battery life. You can seriously mess up your device. That is all I'm saying.

There are a lot of people on here who rooted just to remove the bloat from their phones. This isn't a bad plan by any means. But you have to ask yourself if that extra space that you free up (which is only freed if you delete the apps, not freeze them) is worth the potential of irrecoverably messing up your phone.
[Xperia Play Android Development] kershner25:
Thanks for the info. Think I'm just going to keep it on stock for a while until there's an easier method, or a more in depth guide. I don't think I'm going to really miss the slight increases in speed or battery life, but who knows.
[Xperia Play Android Development] Mills00013:
And besides, I don't even really get what makes you feel like the OP is not explanitory enough for you. In fact, it goes out of it's way to be windows friendly, even going so far as referencing the .exe's in the fastboot executable name, which is, of course, windows only.

What step cant you follow or do you feel uncomfortable with?
[Xperia Play Android Development] kershner25:
I'm just pretty unfamiliar with a lot of the programs used and some of the terminology. It's just not something I want to jump into unprepared - if there was a video walkthrough of some sort it'd be way easier to take in. As it is, I'll fade back into the shadows and lurk here for a while to gain some knowledge. Actually having my Play in hand for a while and getting more familiar with Android in general will help I'm sure. Thanks for the info though.
[Xperia Play Android Development] radio five:
lol...

Understood.

That damn "cd" command was the missing key for me. :rolleyes:

I'm getting there. My new issue is that Fastboot doesn't seem to find my phone (Waiting for device...)

This is obviously a driver issue, and I downloaded the Fastboot package with the SE usb drivers, but I can't seem to install them for some reason. Part of my problem is that I finally made the jump from Windows XP to 7 a couple of weeks ago, and I'm still getting familiar with all the changes. At any rate, I've tried right clicking on the driver and selecting "install" but it gives me an error message saying something like "The INF file you selected does not support this method of installation"

So then I try to update the driver through device manager and it tells me there is no better driver than the one I have installed. By the way, my Play still reads as an unknown device.

It's embarrassing to need this much help for such a simple task, but I can't let it go. I appreciate everyone's help.
[Xperia Play Android Development] typikal82:
use these instructions ( http://www.theandroidsoul.com/how-to-unlock-bootloader-xperia-arc-play-neo-pro/ ) , and the drivers provided in the link ( http://www.multiupload.com/RS6367SQMT )

I got hung up in the same spot as you, I ended up trying to use several drivers until I downloaded that pack and ran the INF file from there. After that I got the .03 response and was able to unlock the boot loader

the other detail you want to make note of for the easy method is once you unlock the boot loader successfully you will run the command "fastboot.exe boot recoveryplay.img" so you have to make sure you have the recoveryplay.img file in the same folder as fastboot.exe. Once you do that on your phone the recovery menu will come up, at that point you'll go to install .zip by using the volume for up and down and the power button to select an option and look for the RootXperia.zip, install that and you are done.

Oh yeah, to make things easier, put the RootXperia.zip on the root directory of your SD card before you do any of this.
[Xperia Play Android Development] Cubsfan3493:
Now not to let Mills discourage you...on a happier note, I downloaded an app called SetCPU which I think drastically increases the battery life of my phone. I have been using it all day and I am still at 81%. I did remove some bloatware from my Xperia Play, (Thank you Mills and ashergray again for everything) and that was nice to free up some space. Another thing that bothered me about the phone was the constant screen dimming. I have read that other people were annoyed with it too. So I also downloaded AdjBrightness and that stopped the screen dimming completely. You do need to know what you are doing, but if you follow some guides out there, (such as mine) and don't stray off the path AT ALL, you should have no problem. Maybe wait a little longer for someone to make a step by step video tutorial if it makes you feel any better. But from my end, I could not be happier that I rooted my device.
[Xperia Play Android Development] Mogul345:
I also used this method, and described my findings and issues here. I also suggest you take an Omnius backup of your Play's TA (Trim Area) first. Just in case something goes horribly wrong during any step of the way.
[Xperia Play Android Development] radio five:
Thanks for the advice, but could you elaborate on what exactly an Omnius backup is?

Thanks
[Xperia Play Android Development] Mills00013:
Omnius is a software made for Ericsson phones that allows extremely low level flashing and backing up. It's a general maintenance tool. The TA file that mogul referenced is where things like your esn and bootloader unlocked status live. So you make a low level back up of that area of your phone with Omnius.
[Xperia Play Android Development] radio five:
Thanks for the response, but I'm still having the same problem. I can't right-click and install the usb driver, nor can I update it via device manager. I'm surprised I'm having such a difficult time with this. I'm starting to feel a strange primal instinct to pull doo-doo out of my jeans and smear it on the screen before pounding my chest and jumping out the window...
[Xperia Play Android Development] typikal82:
just delete the driver and start over

right click on my computer, go to manage in the drop down menu, then go to device manager, with your phone in fastboot mode (blue light) connected via usb look for Android device, right click on that and go to driver update, delete it, disconnect your phone and reconnect it in fastboot mode again, but this time try a different driver.
[Xperia Play Android Development] Mills00013:
I know I've joked about this a few times in this thread but this is totally serious to all the people having trouble with this:

DOWNLOAD AN UBUNTU LIVE CD

Boot your computer off of ubuntu, download the sdk so you have adb (optional for later so really all you need is...), download the fastboot binary. No drivers are required and it will work straight from the booted disk. The only thing you will be out is one blank CD to boot off of. Hell, if you use unetbootin, you can do it from a flash drive and don't even need to waste a CD.
[Xperia Play Android Development] Logseman:
Offtopic: If I boot Ubuntu from an usb stick, is there any way I can use the rest of the stick's memory capacity in order to save data.and have it back the next time I boot from the stick? That's a very cool feature from Puppy Linux, but Puppy is a bit too low-level for my abilities...
[Xperia Play Android Development] Mills00013:
Absolutely you can. I don't know what would happen if you just used unetbootin and did it (it might actually work, I'm just not sure, I don't use Ubuntu Live), but Ubuntu has an entire wiki page dedicated to resolving persistent storage on a USB Live Disk or even a CD. Check it out at this link.

I'd personally forget about the rest of the page and use Method 0. Portable Linux is also a neat way to go too.

On another note, it is entirely possible just to do a quick full system install using the USB drive as a regular drive and skipping the "live disc" part all together. Just run your installer and select the USB stick (probably /dev/sdb) to be your boot drive.
[Xperia Play Android Development] ashergray:
I completely agree with Mills on this.

Booting from a Linux Live disc/usb drive is a great way to do it and if anything it makes you feel like a real 1337 h4x0r.

Right Mills?
[Xperia Play Android Development] Logseman:
I actually used Ubuntu as.my daily driver until I got the Play... Flashtool (and a couple of other programs) is windows only :( while in the Galaxy S, Heimdall was a multi platform program.
[Xperia Play Android Development] Mills00013:
I'm all about taking the 1337357 route to any problem/solution. Windows makes these simple things (like using fastboot and adb) so damn complicated though with the drivers and all their nonsense. Using linux in this case isn't just 1337, its smart.

I actually keep a copy of windows 7 on a 60gb hd with all my flashing tools on it (and final fantasy XIV...) and simply swap the HD out on my laptop whenever I want to switch. Which is really hardly ever. If there is something that i absolutely just cant do in Linux, its probably not worth doing.
[Xperia Play Android Development] das7771:
Well I unlocked my bootloader and rooted with the easy method and every thing worked smooth. The biggest issues I had was trying to do a TA backup with omnius, once I got that figured every thing else was cake. THANKS!!!
[Xperia Play Android Development] loismustdie555:
is there any way to reboot into the recovery without a computer? cuz i like to change my theme alot and that requires the cwm, plus i would also like to be able to boot into root without a computer
[Xperia Play Android Development] Mills00013:
lol wut?

The first question: yes and no. You can boot into recovery without using a computer if you are using a custom kernel with it built in: either doom's kernel or the CM7 freexperia kernel. Doom's has a conflict with our launcher so its unusable and freexperia mounts different points than stock so you cant install things. So the short of the whole thing is yes, you can, but no you dont want to because it will then make your phone unusable.

As to your second question....

lol wut?
[Xperia Play Android Development] loismustdie555:
i make custom themes from here http://uot.dakra.lt/kitchen/ really cool place :D
[Xperia Play Android Development] sonicfreak360:
I think he means adb shell...
[Xperia Play Android Development] Mills00013:
If thats the case, then there is no setup needed. Any android device can use adb shell any time it wants to when the USB debugging is enabled in the development settings menu. In order to obtain root in that shell, you can call the su binary and it will drop you to a root prompt. You can always do this too using a terminal emulator.
[Xperia Play Android Development] loismustdie555:
can i do that at any time with my phone now that i unlocked my bootloader (even if i flash "rootxperia.zip" then reboot {resulting in root not being there until flashing "rootxperia.zip" again})?
[Xperia Play Android Development] Mills00013:
I could be grossly mistaken here but I dont think that the rootxperia.zip install script removes su and superuser.apk if you run it a second time.

What I'm saying is that once you have used that, you're rooted until you flash the stock system file again.

Open up a terminal emulator (my favorite is aptly called Terminal Emulator) and type in su. Superuser will pop up and ask for permission and you will see the shell prompt change from a "$" to a "#" representing that you're root. This is the easiest way to check.
[Xperia Play Android Development] loismustdie555:
so is there any way to apply a custom theme (made into an "update.zip) then reboot without using a computer?

or is it possible to flash cwm recovery with the cwm recovery app on android market?
[Xperia Play Android Development] loismustdie555:
Just asking again, can I flash cwm recovery from the app on the market or will that mess up my phone
[Xperia Play Android Development] AndroHero:
It will not work. And if it does, you will brick /boot.
[Xperia Play Android Development] radio five:
Guys,

Alright, I decided to tackle this again this weekend. I've made a lot of progress, but I'm hung up on step 11 of "Detailed Instructions for Beginners of The Second Method". When I issue the command, "reboot recovery" in adb the phone reboots normally and not to ClockworkMod Recovery. I've tried issuing the command a couple of times, but I can't seem to get there.

Any ideas?
[Xperia Play Android Development] sonicfreak360:
Did you type in reboot recovery after typing in adb shell?

I'm guessing that you downloaded dooms latest kernel which doesn't have a recovery.
[Xperia Play Android Development] ace518:
OK, i'm trying to see whats going wrong in the logcat from running gingerbreak.

can anyone get me a logcat of gingerbreak running successfully on another phone. preferably on another version of the xperia play. i want to compare outputs to get a pointer towards where its going wrong. Not entirely sure where to start, but i'm gonna try to learn and get this going. We need root on this phone and its taking way too long.
[Xperia Play Android Development] Mozza2k11:
Whats going wrong is the hole gingerbreak used before to attain root has been closed in the 2.3.3 update. But it seems any usa model has had this hole patched before the unit went on sale. 2.3.2 is rootable (r800i) but 2.3.2 on the R800x, R800a, R800at seems to have been updated.
[Xperia Play Android Development] ace518:
Yeah, got that. Still want to see the differences. I don't know a whole lot about this yet, but I have a weekend to kill, and I'd like to try and learn a bit and perhaps give a shot at rooting this device. It doesn't seem like any dev's are giving this device much love yet. So I figured I'd give it a go.
[Xperia Play Android Development] radio five:
Well, I admire your enthusiasm and wish you the best of luck. Does anyone know if the developer of gingerbreak has mentioned anything about a new version with a fix?
[Xperia Play Android Development] Mills00013:
Good luck. Ya know another avenue to pursue, since you have all weekend and all, would be to try and screw around with gingersnap. Seems its successfully rooted stuff in the past that gingerbreak couldnt. Lot of people use it for the optimus.
[Xperia Play Android Development] Logseman:
Is the Logcat for a R800i with a rooted 2.3.3 image good for you? Do you need a specific logcat, as in booting e.g?

Enviado desde mi R800i
[Xperia Play Android Development] Sess:
He wants the 50-60 page logcat of gingerbreak running, so any volunteer would need to unroot their phone, adb logcat piped to a file, and then execute gingerbreak or gingersnap. Whatever he plans on trying to debug.
[Xperia Play Android Development] ace518:
Yeah, what he said. And I don't know that I "plan" on anything. Just gonna look around and see where I can get.
[Xperia Play Android Development] Mills00013:
I certainly think the comparison will be a good start. It will be interesting to see exactly where the differences in the break happen. Like it was previously mentioned, there is a good chance the hole is completely plugged, and a logcat wont allow you around that, but if its something really simple like addressing the wrong memory address or something, that might be easily fixable.

We have to remember that besides the model number being different, this is another whole set of hardware internals. Memory addresses could have been changed to accommodate the CDMA radio.
[Xperia Play Android Development] Mills00013:
Got another mildly quirky idea that could require some more advanced hardware dev's to help figure this out. I don't know exactly how the IMEI table is populated in most phones, but I imagine that the IMEI is probably hardcoded against the hardware like an ESN is at the time of the chip manufacture. It's no secret that we have a SIM card slot and GSM radio in the R800x. What tool would be required to get the IMEI out of the hardware layer? It cant be read or detected through android, since firmware is probably disabling it, but if any hardware devs knew of a way to read the chip at that level, and we were able to get the programmed IMEI number from the disabled GSM radio, maybe thats the key to unlocking the bootloader...

Again just a thought...
[Xperia Play Android Development] zaith1234:
OK so these are the things that I have tired so far. To unlock and root.

ADB Devices tried the first 14 #'s to get an unlock code the unlock code didn't work found out later the ADB Devices only returns the serial # of your phone.

Also had the Hex MEID # converted into ESN # and used the first 14 #'s and got a different unlock code that didn't work either. I have installed an app called Network info II which gives and IMSI # used that to get yet another unlock code still no go. Also there is an Android ID Hex that I tried as the unlock code no go with that either.

For root I have tried gingersnap, gingerbreak, and super one click using both gingerbreak and psnueter exploits none of them worked.

http://www.gsm-security.net/faq/imei-international-mobile-equipment-identity-gsm.shtml

The above site has the format of a IMEI # and I was thinking if some of the GSM users would be so kind to post their IMEI #'s maybe we could build something off of the similarities. Also for those user that haven't gotten an unlock code yet it take the 14 digit #'s and turns it into a 16 digit HEX for the unlock code.
[Xperia Play Android Development] gergenhime:
someone else has already posted this but if we could get the imei number from the gsm radio built in to the verizon version but disabled in android maybe that would give us our bootloader unlock code....i mean if every other play has a gsm radio and the imei number for all of those is the key needed to figure bootloader decryption on those wouldn't it just make sense?
[Xperia Play Android Development] ace518:
I've had no luck either. But, I'm running out of app memory... even using app2sd.. we need a root soon man.
[Xperia Play Android Development] zaith1234:
Just to add to one of the other things I tried. I used the hex to decimal converter from

http://easycalculation.com/hex-converter.php

and converted my MEID to decimal then used the first 14 digits to get another unlock code. My buddy has giving me an old Tmobile sim card I was thinking I could use it to get a true MIEI but it seems GSM is not available on the R800x.

Also has anyone noticed that the SD unmounts when you remove the battery plate because of a little white switch off to the side.
[Xperia Play Android Development] Mills00013:
This is an awesome idea, trouble is, though, that Decminal MEID's cannot be calculated by standard means. It uses a special algorithmic sequence to get them. Check out this article on hofo for more info: http://www.howardforums.com/showthread.php/1433623-How-to-Calculate-MEID-DEC-and-P(ESN)

I did however try to do the exact same thing with the correctly calculated Decimal and its still no go. Good idea though for sure.

On an related note: how hard would it be to use a script to run through the possible combinations? I know that there are a ton of possibilities: 16^16 if my math is correct. Which is something like 1.844674407×10^19. But its completely instant with its checking, so I think it would probably only take a week to grab the right code with a fast computer. Maybe I'm way off though.