[Motorola Droid 4] Quick7135:
UPDATE: (lengthy with fairy tale ending)

Management summary: I am now on the OTA ICS (acquired over the air). following a wipe/factory reset

Called *611 tech support yesterday afternoon.

Got someone that sounded like they were located on this continent AND proficient. Always a good sign when they ask what the problem is right after getting your name instead of insisting on the 5 minute scripted generic question and answer form. Stated my problem was related to the system update for my Droid 4 and that I had been getting "check for update is not available..." for a few days now. My questions were "is that expected/normal?", "I understand roll outs are phased. What is the date the roll out is expected to be complete? -- last group has been notified or can pull it?", "If the persistent 'check unavailable' message is indicative of a problem then do they have possible fixes/known problem?".

He checked for the dates and said they expect to have completed the roll out by the end of September -- all Droid 4s should have it or have it available to them by the end of September. That the "check unavailable" did not necessarily indicate a problem but that it was not "normally expected" and more likely indicative of a problem on my end since it was persistent over that length of time. I said I felt better knowing they were still in the phased roll out and maybe I should just wait a while. We tried a soft reset (vol- and power) with no effect. He said he was afraid the next step would be to try a factory reset and advised I wait a while to see if the condition cleared. Went on to say that one effect/risk of the factory reset was that, if there was a software/system problem with GB preventing the OTA check it might also effect the factory reset -- if the phone had a problem coming up it might just pull the ICS update in order to come up from the reset. (Nice! he didn't just assume I would be OK with that following a reset). That I decided to wait I should definitely call back if it didn't resolve in 2 weeks. -- OK, that was a pleasantly refreshing encounter with tech support.

So I figured, fine, I haven't really tested a restore/recovery with Titanium backup and I've never gone through a factory reset so maybe now was the time. Had 2 alternatives. I could try using the D4 utility recovery using the official (same as the OTA) zip I have on my sd card or try the wipe/factory reset and see if OTA started working.

My thoughts (due to lack of any knowledge):

- Apparently once you get on ICS there is no reversion to GB (at least the actual kernel).

- Likely they have history at Galactic Headquarters of OTA and/or physical upgrades at factory or service centers for a particular phone.

- Obviously they check the phone's system version when you connect to the OTA server. Have to in order to determine if you even need an update. Additionally they would probably check if the version the phone reports is the version they expect it to be on -- I would, for technical and support reasons.

- So maybe if I went to ICS myself it might remove me from the OTA path for future updates. Not a big deal in my mind but, heh, why eliminate alternatives if you don't have to.

* reinstall safestrap and do a backup

* uninstall safestrap (uninstall recovery, uninstall safestrap apk, delete logwrapper and rename logwrapper.bin to logwrapper)

* unfreeze everything with Ti

* batch backup all user apps with Ti

* batch backup (green and yellow) system data with Ti

* temp un-root with Voodoo

* wipe/factory reset

It comes up in GB

(lot of activity follows which I didn't write down and can't quite remember)

Basically I waited for some market activity and whatnot to die down and tried update. Immediately said update available!

Cancelled that, got Ti (pro) back from the market, batch restored missing apps.

I have eset security (i don't know... I have it on my PCs so I figured I'd stick it on my phone too. Not that I think there is much in the way of virus for android yet). Eset has an urgent notification that it wants to be added as an administrator for the device so it can protect itself from installation of counterfeit Eset. I understand that but I'm wondering if maybe Eset maybe had something to do with my fail to connect to OTA. Probably not but that's the only thing that presented itself after the reset that looked like it could have been related.

OTA again to download the update -- deferred update after download.

Oh wait, forgot to batch restore system data. Did that, checked for sms messages. All good so I triggered the update.

Holy crap!!! I forgot to temp un-root! Figured the worst thing I could do was try to abort anything and just let it run and expect the update to fail.

It didn't fail. It completed just fine?

I go through the new phone screens far enough to sign into my google account.

Bunch of market update activity.

Restore missing apps with Ti

Restore system data with Ti

Then it strikes me that, sure enough, I'm still rooted. I did not restore root anywhere after the update.

I was rooted before the update (by accident) and still rooted after the update... Whats up with that?

So at the moment I'm a happy camper.

All my apps seem to have been effortlessly restored.

All my app settings seem to be intact.

All my system data seems to be intact with no migration issues.

I'm still (magically) rooted without doing anything.