[Galaxy S III General] danarama:
Official Updates

Once you have rooted your phone, the phone is classed as "modified" and no longer qualifies for Official Samsung OTA updates.

It is possible to receive official updates (whilst rooted) via Kies, however this will remove root (just like flashing a full stock rom) and if you have any custom themes, kernels or /system modifications, this could really cause some problems to the ROM so it is best to avoid. Of course if you have flashed a custom ROM (even TouchWiz based ones) Official updates are a big, fat No-No.

If you do run custom ROMs, it's best to use their OTA method if they have one, or download from the threads on XDA and flash via recovery.

Flashing - Good practice

Recovery - Custom recoveries are very handy tools. Unlike the stock recovery, they have lots of options. Not only do they allow you to flash custom ROMs, but you can backup your current ROM too. This is called a Nandroid backup. Its a snapshot in time. It backs up your entire device, from the ROM to the Kernel and all your data too. If you restore a nandroid backup, your device will be extactly the same as it was when you took the backup. This means if you took a backup 2 weeks ago and restored it today, you could have lost 2 weeks worth of SMS.. but it is very handy. As soon as you have a custom recovery, a Nandroid backup should be the FIRST thing you do. You should take one before you flash any Mod, kernel, ROM or theme. It really is important, incase you manage to break your device.,

The RIGHT files - Always be careful that you know what you're flashing is for your device and you know what it is. Flashing files (ROMs, kernels etc) for other devices could BRICK your phone. Bricking means that it is beyond normal levels of repair, often meaning it needs the internal memory (which equates to the motherboard) being replaced. very expensive.

NEVER remove power - When flashing something, be it from your computer or from recovery (or mobile Odin), do NOT remove the power. It can corrupt not only what you're flashing but also what you're flashing to. If you corrupt any of your eMMC partitions, you could have Bricked the device.

Read, read and read - Read the development threads before you flash anything. Ensure you understand what you are flashing. Ensure you know the specific procedure layed out by the developer and you follow it closely. Do not ad lib. If you are unsure, ask.

DON'T PANIC - Think you've bricked your device? Dont panic. Stay calm. Dont google "unbrick S3" and flash lots of files you dont understand. There are many types of S3 "brick" (they're not bricks if you can easily recover) and many varients of the S3. Flashign these files could further break your phone and actually brick a not already bricked phone. Nothing for any other variant than the GT-i9300 should be flashed on it. The same goes for the i9305. Never flash for another model number.

Search and Ask - Unsure of something, read the stickies Samsung Galaxy S3 General Sticky Roll-Up Thread ***Stickies found here!** and do a search. Can't find your answer? Ask. It is easier for us to help you understand something before you do it than to fix something after you've broken it.

Provide details - ALWAYS tell us exactly what happened if you are requesting help. Always describe in detail what is happening.

"Flashed my phone now it doesn't work" is useless information.

"I rooted my phone 3 months ago and flashed a custom ROM. I decided today to flash ROM X from recovery Y. I booted into recovery and flashed from my internal SD card. I rebooted the phone and it is not starting up. It is looping at the boot animation" is GOOD information. We need to know What, when, how. We need to know if you followed a guide and which one (links where possible)

Backups

Backups are really important. This is how you can mitigate the risk of losing all your important data. Without these you could have to start again from scratch or worse, need to send your device for repair.

Your entire phone - Nandroid - Recovery

[*]efs - Recovery - EFS backup aapplications

[*]Your apps and data - Titanium backup

[*]SMS - SMS backup+

[*]Photos - Dropbox

[*]sdcards - FolderSync

The reason we backup is multifaceted.

A Nandroid will backup your entire phone. This is usually taken immediately before you flash a mod or a new ROM. Nandroid restores /system and /data. Usually when you flash a mod (kernel, theme, some system app or libs etc) and it causes a bootloop, a simple restore of Nandroid will return your phone as it was and booting again. In fact, you can use an advanced restore in recovery and choose ONLY to restore /system if appropriate

Titanium backup would often be done on a schedule. Every 2nd night or something, maybe once a week if you're daring. These are important for a number of reasons but the most important is if you are flashing a new ROM.

Remember earlier, we talked about all your data and apps being in /data/data and /data/app? Well, Titanium backs that up. When you flash a ROM, you have to perform a full wipe / factory reset before it will boot up properly. This is because you have settings stored in data/data for apps in /system/app that may have changed or no longer exist, or settings different to the settings in the new ROM. These are incompatibilities and these incompatibilities often will prevent a new ROM booting. Of course, a factory reset doesn't fully restore it to it's factory condition. It cannot restore the bootloader, rom, baseband etc because you overwrote these by flashing a new one.

We wipe, we install titanium and we restore all the data/apps and the /data/data related to /data/apps, but none of the data/data related to /system/apps (because that would restore the incompatibilities)

Here is how I restore using titanium backup after a wipe and flash....

Remember if your backup is on external sd, you need to point titanium to the location using preferences > backup folder location...

Go to backup / restore tab and press "click to edit filters" and deselect "system" and press the done tick icon to apply. Then from the previous backup / restore screen, go into the batch screen (another tick icon top right).

From this batch screen, select "restore missing apps with data" by pressing "run". Manually go through every app (yes, even if you have 300 apps) ensuring there's nothing samsung or rom specific there, unticking anything that is...

This should ensure a clean, user only app and settings. You will then need to manually set your system settings (ring tones, email etc)

Warranty

So, as we have discussed, warranty should be considered void once rooted. Technically in the EU, the OEM must prove root damaged your phone to reject warranty, however this is almost never the case.

When the S3 was released, it came with android 4.0.4 (ICS). The bootloader with ICS was normal. If you used Triangle Away once rooted, it would reset your binary counter forever. You may have kept status: Modified until you factory reset but that is not so much a problem.

When the S3 was upgraded to 4.1.1 Jelly Bean, a new bootloader was introduced. You could still reset with Triangle away, however on the next boot, if you had a custom recovery or kernel, the binary counter went back up to 1 again, which can present a problem.

Please see the following scenarios.

1) You just want root. No custom Kernels, no custom ROMs, no custom recoveries.

This is fine. If you root with CF-Auto Root it gives you a stock recovery. Once you reset the flash counter with triangle away, you should be fine.

2) You want root and recovery on a 4.1.1+ S3.

If you have a custom recovery or kernel, you can set triangle away to reset at every boot. The problem is if your phone breaks in such a way that you can never boot into android, but download and recovery mode still work, you're screwed, It goes back up to 1 on boot, fails to boot then you can only reset it with triangle away, which you can't use because it needs you to boot into Android. You see the risk?

3) You want root and recovery on a 4.1.1+ S3.

The alternative to the above is to flash This 4.0.4 bootloader via cwm. It can be reset by Triangle Away, and stays reset forever. Well why aren't we all using this? Because it is NOT SDS safe. This means if you ahev the unsafe internal memory, if you use download mode to flash anything, you risk bricking your device. Read [Important] Sudden Death Fix - Are you covered? for more information.

So it's a choice between:

I risk that under certain conditions, I may not be able to reset the binary counter for a warranty return

or

I have my binary counter at 0 always, but I cannot use download mode.

Please note, you need to run a TouchWiz ROM to use triangle away

Popular misconceptions

USB Debugging is always required for flashing.

Incorrect. USB debugging is an Android setting. It is only applicable within android. This setting does not work in recovery or download mode, so obviously anything done in those modes does not require USB debugging.

When rooting, all your data is lost.

Incorrect. Rooting adds a binary and application to your phone. It does not wipe it.

I need to root to fix my battery by wiping battery stats.

Incorrect. No one needs to wipe battery stats. Please read the wiping battery stats thread linked below:

Battery stats

What's good for you is good for me!

Incorrect. Everyone's usage is different. Everyone's set-up is different. Everyone's environment is different. There is no "Best" ROM. There is no "Best kernel for..." There is no "Most battery efficient baseband". All these things may acti differently for you than they will for me. What I like isn't what you like. Please do not create any "Best" threads.

If I ask the question "Blah blah blah for custom ROMS?", everyone will know what I am talking about

Incorrect. "Custom ROM" and "AOSP ROM" are NOT synonymous. People imagine when they ask about "Custom ROMS" that we know they really mean "AOSP ROMS". We don't. There are TouchwIz based custom ROMs too. We assume nothing.

B]I need yo be on a certain ROM to flash certain other ROMs[/b]

Incorrect. You're overwriting the ROM so why would ot matter what ROM you're overwriting?!

Important threads and resources

A list of important threads and resources...Please read ALL of these threads before rooting.

Mskip's unified toolbox(Root, drivers etc)

Index of Roms, recoveries and kernels

Guide for flashing roms, backups etc

Returning to stock for warranty

Odin flashing guide

Sammobile.com - stock firmwares

Be prepared ahead of time to fix a Brick

rootSU recommends

A few recommendations from me...

RootExplorer

Titanium Backup

Philz Recovery (CWM advanced)

Odin

Heimdall (Linux / Mac odin equivelant

That's it for now. I know this is a lot of information, but I believe this info to be the very least you should know before deciding to go ahead with rooting your S3. Please read it and read it again. Anything doesn't make sense, please ask in this thread and I will gladly help.

If any other seasoned rooters / flashers think there is something salient missing, please post her too. happy to add to it.