[T-Mobile Samsung Galaxy Note 3] pyrilium:
Root on Mac: Odin issues / Heimdall to the rescue!

Hi All,

I gave this a try yesterday, and without access to a Windows PC I first tried to use Odin in a VMware virtual machine (based on a friend's success with other devices). It did not work, and it did not work in a somewhat scary way - Odin connected, started to download, started to flash write, and at about 2% it returned with a failed status and 'Flash write failure' or similar displayed on the phone screen in download mode. Of course, since it had started to flash the system partition, the Note did not boot after this.

I tried numerous times to recover from this using different versions of Odin, settings for the VM host, etc. - I think the initial problem may have been caused by adbd running in the background - all to no avail. I was about to give up and use Kies 3.0 to at least get back to fresh stock, but I gave Heimdall a final try from a fresh boot into Download mode and it worked!

I'll write up a more detailed guide if I have time, but I can at least confirm that Heimdall suite version 1.4.0 on Mac OS 10.8 (10.8.5) is able to read the PIT from the Note 3 (900T) in download mode, and to flash AT LEAST the System and Cache partitions (another XDA user reported this working for the CF auto root on a Note 3 variant, too). In Heimdall it's required to download the PIT file (or have one on hand) so it knows the partition mapping for a particular device. Using the frontend for Heimdall, this is the first step and is found in the 'Utilities' tab. Then, using the files from this thread, you would extract the VEGA and CSC archives (rename .tar.md5 to .tar to extract) - leaving you with System.img.ext4 and Cache.img.ext4 - and then add those files to their respective partitions (System and Cache) in the 'Flash' tab after loading the .pit file you created. Hit Start in a fresh boot to download mode and cross your fingers! :eek:

Two things that I found: 1. It took a few tries to successfully download the PIT from the device; I think that the no reboot / resume functionality isn't 100% working, or maybe my device was just confused after the first Odin fail... 2. Heimdall also failed once on me, around 2% into writing, but immediately after rebooting (automatically following that operation) into a clean download mode session I was able to flash both partitions without any problems, and follow the rest of the directions from the OP in order to gain root.

Moral of the story:

1. Be careful running Odin in a VM! If you try to do this, I'd recommend (in VMware/VM settings) having all USB connections go to the guest OS, at least temporarily, and making sure that nothing like adbd is running.

2. It is possible, if perhaps not optimal, to perform this procedure on Mac OS (10.8.5 tested) directly, using Heimdall 1.4.0, and IMO probably preferable to trying Odin in a VM. Read the docs that come with the Heimdall distribution and decide if you're comfortable going this route.

3. ...Profit?

=^.^=

---------- Post added at 05:44 PM ---------- Previous post was at 04:46 PM ----------

1. Yes, I think this is a simple option with XPosed framework + Wanam Xposed. I'm using circle battery (circle + center text) but there is an option to hide battery icon, and another for battery text size.

2. This should be possible, although I haven't seen a user-level mod that does it yet. Anyone?

3. Since wifi tethering is possible in the stock ROM I think it should be possible to un-leash it but I'm not completely sure. There is an option in Wanam Xposed to disable tether provisioning but I haven't explored it yet.