yashsingh1/xdaforums huggingface dataset:
[Nexus 4 Q&A, Help & Troubleshooting] neopl666:
Thank you for your great guide. It worked 'almost' flawlessly. I was hoping to only unlock the bootloader and root the device - without installing customer recovery. The reason for this is so that the phone can still get OTA updates. I am giving this phone as a present to my mom who lives in a different country than my self so it would be rather difficult to walk her through sideloading system updates! Is there a way to remove custom recovery, but keep root and unlocked bootloader so that she will receive OTA updates?

Thanks !
[Nexus 4 Q&A, Help & Troubleshooting] Berrydroidcafe:
Sorry, can't have your cake and eat it too! :cool:

There's a way I think, but to be sure and safe, I would just go stock and leave it at that.

Sent with my Nexus® 10 minus 3
[Nexus 4 Q&A, Help & Troubleshooting] iskoel:
Everything worked out fine, except root won't stay after reboot! I've tried process through Rom Manager; I've looked into a file explorer (antek) and file was already renamed to .bak. Through ADB the commands don't give a success message though. But the commands are entered without error message.

What could it be?! Thanks in advance for help!

Running 4.4.2
[Nexus 4 Q&A, Help & Troubleshooting] Berrydroidcafe:
Flash this via recovery.

http://download.chainfire.eu/381/SuperSU/UPDATE-SuperSU-v1.91.zip

Sent with my Nexus® 10 minus 3
[Nexus 4 Q&A, Help & Troubleshooting] Jaskaran498:
Hello

Until now, I had a well rooted and modded s3 which I broke due to bad fall from my pocket, and so i bought an new nexus 4 in its place, currently I am total noob for this phone and this is my first post in nexus 4 section.

So I need help in installing drivers to root this phone.

According to this guide, I believe I need to remove s3 drivers first, but I never installed kies and the only drivers for s3 were the ones automatically installed by windows 8.1. Since i no more have s3, i cant connect it to pc and so device manager is useless here. Along with s3, I also have motorola defy (my friend's phone) drivers installed and even that I cant connect to pc, since he also got a new phone.

So can anyone please tell me how should I proceed with removal of drivers? thanks.

PS->I actually wouldn't actually go for asking such questions but the fact that we cant remove battery from this phone is what make me nervous. I mean, how am i supposed to go ahead if it got stuck on recovery, bootloader or any such where power button wont work (in S3, I often developed minor roms and some minor ports and often got stuck at such places and infact bricked my phone a million times, but removing battery was always my first step towards solution to any problem). So please also guide me through this.
[Nexus 4 Q&A, Help & Troubleshooting] Slender Troll:
Go to the very first post in this thread. You'll find all of the drivers and items you'll need.

All you have to do to force the phone to reboot is hold down the power button.
[Nexus 4 Q&A, Help & Troubleshooting] arffrhn:
Hi, no need to remove any other devices drivers. Just install your nexus driver if yiu haven't install it before as the OP instructed (links are given there). If in any case the driver given is not working, then you have to uninstall that one and try again with another driver (apparently there are many alternatives). After installing driver, run the following command in ADB (make sure usb debugging is selected)

adb devices

If it prompt your device to accept handshake or your device's serial number pops out in that cmd window, then it's all good. Good luck.:)

Sent from a battery powered device.
[Nexus 4 Q&A, Help & Troubleshooting] Jaskaran498:
thanks for answer.

But one more question, is this rooting possible with ubuntu (13.10) installed in vmware workstation, because in that I have already set up all sorts of development suits like android sdk (which i ofcourse used for creating s3 roms, just telling).

Although I believe the answer to be "yes", but I still want to confirm as non one loves to mess the phone on first day of getting it....
[Nexus 4 Q&A, Help & Troubleshooting] arffrhn:
Never used ubuntu before, so I do not know for sure. Maybe others can confirm it. :)

Sent from a battery powered device.
[Nexus 4 Q&A, Help & Troubleshooting] Jaskaran498:
kk,

Just tried on my own and results are what I expected, it works :D

So finally rooted it, and time to mess it even more now! :p

But a question before I begin, how am I supposed to get out of bootloop and such and by any chance holding power button for 10 seconds thing doesn't work, what am I supposed to do then as I cant remove battery?
[Nexus 4 Q&A, Help & Troubleshooting] arffrhn:
It should work. I had stuck many times now messing with my phone and it never fails. Just hold power then when the screen shuts off, press and hold power+vol down to enter fastboot.
[Nexus 4 Q&A, Help & Troubleshooting] pincher65:
this method doesn't work at the blocked bootloader 30d
[Nexus 4 Q&A, Help & Troubleshooting] dpkPT:
I had rooted my Nexus 4 immediately after getting it (when it still ran android 4.2). A while back I updated it to android 4.4 with OTA and lost root. As you may have guessed from me posting here, I want to get my root back!

My question is simple, having rooted before and lost it, is the process any different than the one described in post #1 for first time root? I think i already have bootloader unlocked but I am not sure.

Thanks in advance guys
[Nexus 4 Q&A, Help & Troubleshooting] Berrydroidcafe:
Download SuperSU and flash it via recovery.

Sent with my Nexus® 10 minus 3
[Nexus 4 Q&A, Help & Troubleshooting] dpkPT:
I enter the bootloader by vol up + vol down. Then select "recovery". When i select it i get a message of "No Command".

followed by -->
[Nexus 4 Q&A, Help & Troubleshooting] Berrydroidcafe:
You'll have to reflash the recovery

Sent with my Nexus® 10 minus 3
[Nexus 4 Q&A, Help & Troubleshooting] dpkPT:
Can i just use a Toolkit like "nexus root toolkit v1.8.0" to do this for me?

I'm pretty sure when I rooted i used skipsoft toolkit, so my knowleage on rooting or flashing recoveries is very little. I only want root to install some programs and to have a better anti theft.
[Nexus 4 Q&A, Help & Troubleshooting] Berrydroidcafe:
Yes you can.

Sent with my Nexus® 10 minus 3
[Nexus 4 Q&A, Help & Troubleshooting] asjken:
thanks
[Nexus 4 Q&A, Help & Troubleshooting] a g bell:
Umm yes :)
[Nexus 4 Q&A, Help & Troubleshooting] arffrhn:
Yes. From 4.2 all the way to 4.4.2. :)
[Nexus 4 Q&A, Help & Troubleshooting] AjaxValencia:
Unlocking the Bootloader

Well, I ran into some trouble at the first steps...

I installed ADB and placed fastboot.exe in the folder.

Next I installed PdaNet on my laptop and on my Nexus 4.

I installed the drivers en made connection to my Nexus 4. So far it worked.

Then i ran the "adb reboot bootloader". I got the message that my device is offline.

Next I removed the USB cable from my phone and after a while I stuck it back in. When I try to connect my Nexus 4 with PdaNet i get a HTC Sync error = -2

I didn't get this error before i removed my USB cable, my phone did make a connection.

I used USBdeview to remove old HTC drivers (I used to have an HTC Desire).

Still it does not desolve my problems.

Can anybody give me some advise?

Best regards,

Carlos
[Nexus 4 Q&A, Help & Troubleshooting] xanthrax:
Drivers installation / Uninstall requires pc restart

Have you done it?

Sent from my Darkside of Nexus 4
[Nexus 4 Q&A, Help & Troubleshooting] AjaxValencia:
I did restart my laptop. What i'm noticing now is that when my Nexus is connected, my laptop loses WiFi. It goes to a network called network 5, and my internet is gone...

Then I can only get back online by removing my USB cable...When I get my USB cable back in, PdaNet can't connect to my device anymore and again gives me an HTC Sync error = -2.
[Nexus 4 Q&A, Help & Troubleshooting] xanthrax:
Maybe that HTC sync app is trying to synchronize Nexus

Why don't you just Uninstall it?

Sent from my Darkside of Nexus 4
[Nexus 4 Q&A, Help & Troubleshooting] AjaxValencia:
I Guess that is the problem, but I can't find a way to get rid of the HTC Sync.

It does not show in my CCleaner or Control Panel. Even when I search my laptop I can't find anything called "Sync" or "HTC".
[Nexus 4 Q&A, Help & Troubleshooting] xanthrax:
I used to use Your Uninstaller or windows 7 manager, it shows all applications and performs a deep scan and erase all traces

Have a look

Sent from my Darkside of Nexus 4
[Nexus 4 Q&A, Help & Troubleshooting] AjaxValencia:
Your Installer can't find any programs related to HTC or Sync or whatsoever.

I guess I'll try this again another day. Can't find a way to get this to work.
[Nexus 4 Q&A, Help & Troubleshooting] xanthrax:
check this

http://www.pocketables.com/2014/02/disable-htc-sync-manager-wo-uninstalling.html

also you can uninstall it from Android Developer's SDK package if it shows there as installed
[Nexus 4 Q&A, Help & Troubleshooting] AjaxValencia:
Ok, I read it and tried it out. To do so, I had to install HTC Sync Manager. Then I was able to close the strart up processes.

But the same problem occurs. So I deleted HTC Sync Manager and its components.

Where I am now: I can connect my phone to the laptop. By then the WiFi connection is changed to a normal connection (I don't get this...).

Then i'm going to C:\android-sdk-windows. Shift+Right click on platform tools -> Open command window here.

Next I type: adb reboot bootloader. It says:

* daemon not running. Starting it now on port 5037 *

* Daemon started sucessfully *

error: device offline

By now my internet connection if gone...In order to connect to my WiFi again i have to unplug my USB cable from my laptop.

Perhaps I'm missing something simple, but I can't get past this problem.
[Nexus 4 Q&A, Help & Troubleshooting] ghostopolis:
shiny brick

So,

my nexus 4 won't boot. I tried to root it, unsuccessfully, following several different tutorials. When I first unlocked the bootloader it erased everything. Subsequent attempts to root did not erase anything. Even when I would do a "factory reset" all my old data was there. So I relocked my phone at the bootloader screen, rebooted into the bootloader, then unlocked the bootloader. The prompt to accept appeared on my phone and I selected "yes". After this I rebooted but it automatically went into recovery. There was some text at the bottom indicating an error, otherwise the rest of the recovery screen was as usual. I tried to wipe the cache and do a factory reset to see if it would calm to rather smallish error font at the bottom of the screen, but it says E: can't mount / ... [everything]

It won't boot. I can't format anything, because the phone won't mount anything. I can't restore from a backup, because it says "E: can't mount /sdcard".

Not sure what to do. I would appreciate any insight you may have, I'm feeling pretty lousy right now.
[Nexus 4 Q&A, Help & Troubleshooting] xanthrax:
which recovery is it?

flash cwm and do a factory reset again

sent from my Darkside of Nexus 7 LTE
[Nexus 4 Q&A, Help & Troubleshooting] ghostopolis:
I flashed with this command ./fastboot-mac flash recovery recovery-clockwork-touch-6.0.2.3-mako.img and the terminal appears to indicate that it is successful. I can also lock and relock via terminal. I can wipe the cache without error, but any other kind of mounting or wipe or reset my phone can't do, it just says "E: can't mount sdcard"
[Nexus 4 Q&A, Help & Troubleshooting] xanthrax:
was your phone encrypted ?

try to flash the factory images , start from scratch
[Nexus 4 Q&A, Help & Troubleshooting] ghostopolis:
My phone wasn't encrypted, I was trying to reinstall the same system. I don't really know what I'm doing. When you say "flash" do you mean via Terminal? And if so, how do I flash a new image, and which one?

Like I said, I really don't know what I'm doing.

---------- Post added at 01:43 AM ---------- Previous post was at 01:39 AM ----------

My phone actually wouldn't even turn on since I got back to the house. maybe the battery ran dry... I did the thing where to press volume down and power for several seconds then plug into power while continuing to hold down and I got the red led and after awhile it finally would turn on. I'm reading as much as I can but I don't really understand what next thing to do.
[Nexus 4 Q&A, Help & Troubleshooting] ghostopolis:
Well I sorted it out. I used a rooting tutorial on this forum and some other stuff to get everything back to normal. I'd like to explain what I did but im exhausted as I've spent many hours getting things to work. I'll post tomorrow in case it helps anyone in the future. peace.
[Nexus 4 Q&A, Help & Troubleshooting] xanthrax:
Good, good to hear that (^_-)

Sent from my Darkside of Nexus 4
[Nexus 4 Q&A, Help & Troubleshooting] ghostopolis:
So originally I didn't know you could flash images to get everything back to stock. I knew you could flash cwd recovery, but I was following an outdated tutorial which may have contributed. The cwd image was not very current (to my credit I tried to find the most recent one but I am ignorant of these things).

There is a guide on this forum to return a phone to stock by flashing everything. Had I not already tried some of this process through other tutorials I would not have understood what to do, because I did not see the tutorial instruct to get fastboot-mac or adb-mac. It instructs to use commands with those, but I thought it was talking about something built into mac.

Because fastboot-mac commands had worked previously with another tutorial it became clear that there was something in the folder making it work and so I merged the contents of folders to that the folder I had cd'd to would use those.. whatever they are. It may seem rudimentary to others that such would be required but I am a complete n00b to this.

So the tutorial here to restore my nexus 4 did work, but initially I had trouble making it work because I didn't know that fastboot was something I needed to get. I don't believe it was included with the stock images I downloaded through this forum.

Even after I flashed everything it still would not boot. But, it was finally allowing me to restore to factory settings and such, without prompting of errors that "E:" couldn't be mounted.

I really thought I had bricked my phone and I am now quite happy that it is restored, I have most of my old settings restored as well through adb and I was able to follow the rest of the root instructions on the same page (the factory restore page) and now my phone is rooted.
[Nexus 4 Q&A, Help & Troubleshooting] upilguebu:
Yo guys, I'm new in here ( i'm from galaxy ace 2 forum ) i have a nexus 4 with official 4.4.2, can I follow these steps to root my nexus? Sorry for noob question because every phone have different steps to root :D
[Nexus 4 Q&A, Help & Troubleshooting] xanthrax:
Of course you can use it, you must use it, this is the reason why has been created, rooting steps are different than for other phones

Sent from my Darkside of Nexus 4
[Nexus 4 Q&A, Help & Troubleshooting] upilguebu:
Woah okay, I just worried that this guide is only for nexus4 before kitkat :D
[Nexus 4 Q&A, Help & Troubleshooting] rboklewski:
Here is my predicament, in the title, it says that this "MAY" cause your phone to factory reset, can someone explain in more detail? Did this perform a factory reset? I have lost a photo album, need the phone rooted to be able to use diskdigger to search the phone. If it does reset, I might be in bad shape for chance of recovery.
[Nexus 4 Q&A, Help & Troubleshooting] xanthrax:
About which action are you talking about?

Sent from my Darkside of Nexus 4
[Nexus 4 Q&A, Help & Troubleshooting] rboklewski:
I need to root the phone without losing my data. I can do a backup, but that won't help me as the photo album was deleted. If this clears my data I will be worse off then I am now. If this rooting leaves the data intact I can try and use diskdigger or other software programs to try and recover the data.
[Nexus 4 Q&A, Help & Troubleshooting] ghostopolis:
http://xdaforums.com/nexus-4/general/how-to-how-to-flash-factory-image-t2010312

I used this with success. make sure to unlock your bootloader, flash cwd, and skip to the optional rooting section. I'd still do a backup just in case.

Also, I would also imagine that there must be forensic software out there that would image the whole drive?
[Nexus 4 Q&A, Help & Troubleshooting] rboklewski:
keppies primary

Says it will wipe your device in the instructions when unlocking bootloader.
[Nexus 4 Q&A, Help & Troubleshooting] fuzz1111:
I like this guide because it shows you how to use the actual tools for flashing/rooting a phone (adb, fastboot, boot images, etc) rather than relying on scripts which just automate the use of these tools (which is nice but you don't learn much, so you are out of luck when something breaks or the script is packaged with an outdated stuff).

One thing - flashing the recovery image is optional, if you are the sort that wants to make minimal changes then (after doing oem unlock and adb reboot bootloader) you can just boot straight from recovery image file (no flashing is performed):

fastboot boot IMAGENAME.img

If all you want is root, then at this point all you need to do is flash the supersu zip reboot and you're done (backup first if you like). I don't find any reason to keep cwm recovery on the phone when I seldom use it, and can boot into it via fastboot boot IMAGE when needed.
[Nexus 4 Q&A, Help & Troubleshooting] ghostopolis:
oh yeah... err.. oops.

incidentally does everyone else have to enter a captcha for every post?
[Nexus 4 Q&A, Help & Troubleshooting] dastane:
thanks a lot!!! i really like my nexus 4 :)
[Nexus 4 Q&A, Help & Troubleshooting] gacalderon:
Im new to this, and so far it seems like you do.....
[Nexus 4 Q&A, Help & Troubleshooting] muzaffarkhan95:
nexus 4

factory reset frm recovery is nt wiping my whole phone.....how can i wipe it???
[Nexus 4 Q&A, Help & Troubleshooting] xanthrax:
it will wipe only the system and data partition ( where your apps are installed with their data)

the other downloaded files will remain intact ( media files , zips etc...)
[Nexus 4 Q&A, Help & Troubleshooting] muzaffarkhan95:
nexus 4

cant i format the other downloaded files?? bcz theres a lot of waste things in my phone which takes lot of space...now i have only 2gb free of 16gb!!
[Nexus 4 Q&A, Help & Troubleshooting] xanthrax:
if you chose format internal storage then everything will vanish , including the rom ... everything

then you must sideload ( push a rom zip) into your phone in order to be able to flash it and to have a functional device

just delete the unwanted files ...
[Nexus 4 Q&A, Help & Troubleshooting] muzaffarkhan95:
nexus 4

Got it!! thanks :good:
[Nexus 4 Q&A, Help & Troubleshooting] upilguebu:
when I try to unlocking boot loader, it's says on command window : error device offline. I already installed the driver by pdanet. anyone can help me?
[Nexus 4 Q&A, Help & Troubleshooting] puncha1580:
Try installing Android universal driver by koush. A simple google search is enough
[Nexus 4 Q&A, Help & Troubleshooting] upilguebu:
Yeah thanks, i already rooted my nexus 4 by redownload the drivers and use sokp for the rom ;)
[Nexus 4 Q&A, Help & Troubleshooting] jr67:
They're both the same method and say basically the same thing: you temporarily flash a custom recovery to flash SuperSu but once you reboot you'll lose the custom recovery. Though when I rooted, after rebooting from the custom recovery I got a message asking (and I forgot the exact wording) something along the line of whether I wanted to keep the custom recovery I just flashed. I chose to keep the custom recovery and I didn't need to do the additional steps in the OP (install Rom Manager...).
[Nexus 4 Q&A, Help & Troubleshooting] vindikleuk:
Alright, so it's a temporary flash of the custom recovery, and one could basically choose to make it permanent or not. Thanks!
[Nexus 4 Q&A, Help & Troubleshooting] gunster:
I'm confused:

Where it says "Get the drivers", what exactly are options one and two? All I get is a link to a wiki and I'm a complete android noob so that doesn't really help me...:(

What am I suppose to do with the drivers? In fact, how do I even GET the drivers?
[Nexus 4 Q&A, Help & Troubleshooting] aosot:
Great work!!! awesome
[Nexus 4 Q&A, Help & Troubleshooting] Jubakuba:
Sorry =/

CM reworked their wiki.
[Nexus 4 Q&A, Help & Troubleshooting] Chad_Petree:
I want to ask (since i was traumatized after samsung refused to repair my galaxy nexus , the motherdied died just 5 months after getting the phone and they blamed it on me for unlocking the bootloader) :

1. I If i unlock my bootloader do i lose my warranty? if i relock the bootloader and i need to exchange my phone would it be obvious for them that i unlocked my bootloader and then just relocked it? i remember the galaxy nexus had a drawing of an unlocked lock every time i booted it, is it the same with the nexus? will this figure/drawing go away if i relock my bootloader?

2. If i root my phone do i lose my warranty? if i go back to stock (unrooted) and i need to exchange my phone would it be obvious for them that i had rooted my phone before?

3: Is it mandatory to unlock the bootloader in order to root?

:confused:
[Nexus 4 Q&A, Help & Troubleshooting] efrant:
So, just to clear something a couple of things up before I answer you questions: messing around with your device, including unlocking the bootloader, rooting, or touching any other files or partitions besides the ones that are accessible out of the box, technically VOIDS your warranty. The thing most Nexus devices, is that you can, in most cases, return you device to an out-box-state, so it would not be possible for someone to know that you messed around with it. That said, technically you already did void your warranty and you are just trying to get around it...

Now, to answer you questions:

1. Yes. In most cases no. Yes. Yes.

2. Yes. In most cases no.

3. As of now, yes.
[Nexus 4 Q&A, Help & Troubleshooting] Chad_Petree:
Thank you were very helpful! :highfive: , I still have one more doubt, if i unlock my bootloader and root my phone will i continue to receive OTA updates? and if I install them will they brick my phone`?
[Nexus 4 Q&A, Help & Troubleshooting] efrant:
Unlocking the bootloader has no impact on your ability to receive or install OTA updates. And root has no impact either, as long as you don't change any of the system files. You also need to have the stock recovery in place, not CWM or TWRP.
[Nexus 4 Q&A, Help & Troubleshooting] fenstre:
FYI, for these instructions to work, I had to use CWM to clear the cache partition. Before I did that, the phone refused to boot. (To get into recovery a second time, reboot into download mode again by holding the volume up+volume down+power buttons, then choose "recovery" with the up/down keys.)