yashsingh1/xdaforums huggingface dataset:
[Verizon Samsung Galaxy S 4] Atomicmuffin:
You are most welcome, young Padawan! Personally I love my S3 to death. It was my first, and you never forget your first! First Smartphone, first Android, and first learning experience. It keeps trying to die on me though...but I refuse to let it lol. Through two LCD replacements, obliterating the IMEI and hence any Cell capabilties, and a bringing it back from the brink of total death (hard-brick), it keeps chugging along quite happily. I'll never let it die!!

The performance difference in S3 vs S4 is minimal in daily use, but it's there. However it's a bit more noticable for CPU-intensive tasks. The S4's extra two cores spank the lowly dual-core quite throughly on apps that support multithreading. Running old school Warcraft II, Doom, Wolf3D and Stargunner in DOSBOX on S3 can only manage roughly 12000 cycles, while the S4 can push 20k-24k. (though my S6-E blows them outta the water, pulling an astounding 55k-60k cycles lol).

Is your S3 being delivered from VZW? Unforunately I have little-to-no knowledge of any intricacies involved in VZW-based S3's. I vaguely recall VZW cracking down on BL locks a bit later in the S3's lifetime before moving to lock their S4, but again i'm only going off of articles i've skimmed from quite a while ago. Fortunately mine is U.S Cellular (CDMA-based company popular here in the NW USA) and they tend to take a T-Mobile-like approach, e.g no BL locks! And considering the hardware is near-identical to VZW, I see no downside. (In fact, despite being model SCH-R530, some internel components have a tiny "SCH-I535" stamp on them...lol)

It's currently running SlimLP 5.1.1 and I wouldn't trade it for the world lol. I was on 6.0.1 Marshmallow, but I dislike how the newer OS handles external SD cards. As far as a tinkering/learning/experiment device, couldn't ask for anything better or easier, and I'll highly recommend an S3 to anyone for as long as I breath for these reasons. Although I'd be remiss to not mention I'm beginning to grow fond of an S5 I recently snagged for dirt cheap. Carrier is USCell as well, so no BL locks.

If you want, go ahead and send me a PM and we can move the convo that way, so as to not piss off the natives here while they wait for the proverbial S4 holy-grail. Even with a busted S4, the BL lock still irks me so it's only fair to assume it irks others as well, probably more than enough without them having to sift through our chat on top of it, haha. Look forward to hearing from ya.
[Verizon Samsung Galaxy S 4] razorbackfan78:
Can't Boot Into Recovery (5.0.1 & VRUGOF1)

I recently unlocked the bootloader using the Motorola-provided method. Then rooted using Kingroot, confirmed root success using root checker. Installed TWRP Manager, SU & Busybox successfully but can't get it to boot into recovery mode. I get the SECURE FAIL: KERNAL error in the top left hand corner and 'Start Up Failed....use the verizon software repair yada yada yada". I can reboot into download mode, hit cancel, and use the phone, but not having any luck booting into recovery :( I have the 2.8.x and a 3.0.x of twrp.img on the sd card. Tried installing 2.8 then using Flashify to move up to 3.0 but doesn't seem to be working. Maybe I'm missing something?

I'm working my way backwards through the 60+ pages of this thread but holy hell it's a lot to keep track of. If anyone out there could help me wrap this up, it would be much appreciated.

Here's what I'd think you would want to know about the phone.

Running 5.0.1

Baseband: VRUGOF1

Kernel Version 3.4.0dpi@SWDD6122 #1

Secure Boot status: SAMSUNG

security: mdf V1.0 RELEASE 4

KNOX 2.3
[Verizon Samsung Galaxy S 4] rrrrrrredbelly:
Unless you have a mdk bootloader you can't unlock it, which means you can't install custom kernels, can't install cm/aosp roms. TW only.

Also no custom recovery. Safestrap used to work, not sure where it's at now.
[Verizon Samsung Galaxy S 4] cicuye:
I finally acquired an S4 with the MDK unlocked boot loader. I have twrp recovery and i like it very, very much. In going through the cyanogen mods I went all the way up to CM 13.1. It looked great however, I could not root it. Tried Kingroot, kingo, and through flashing files with twerp recovery, still no luck. If anybody can come up with a link to a file I could use with twrp to get root, I'd greatly appreciate it. I've located a towelroot file and haven't tried it yet.

Really, when you think about it you don't have to have root. There's no bloatware on CM13 the only thing is running titanium manager effectively and various other issues. I reverted to CM 12 Snapshot because I've been able to achieve root on it. And I do prefer a rooted device,it just seems crisper and more efficient, not to mention the security issues. Any suggestions out there on custom roms for a Verizon Galaxy S4 with an unlocked bootloader?
[Verizon Samsung Galaxy S 4] PalmCentro:
Lol. Go to developer options enable root for apps and Shell.

Or you can flash SuperSU zip via TWRP.
[Verizon Samsung Galaxy S 4] cicuye:
Well, duh! Sometimes things are so out in the open that you miss them. I never claimed to be the sharpest knife in this drawer...Thanks much!
[Verizon Samsung Galaxy S 4] Surge1223:
Alright I'm calling it, we've jumped the shark
[Verizon Samsung Galaxy S 4] gadget!:
Not really sure what that means, but coming from you I'm hoping it's something good. ?

sent from a Galaxy far far away.
[Verizon Samsung Galaxy S 4] PalmCentro:
Lol, i Googled it and it doesn't sound like a good thing :/
[Verizon Samsung Galaxy S 4] doubleaykay:
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jumping_the_shark
[Verizon Samsung Galaxy S 4] gadget!:
No, it doesn't sound good but it doesn't surprise me.

I personally haven't seen another phone that has had this strong of a following for so long.

I had mine for 3 years, I've never kept a phone that long.

I finally jumped ship now that the bootloader on the Note 4 can be unlocked.

sent from a Galaxy far far away.
[Verizon Samsung Galaxy S 4] Surge1223:
Lolol

The usage of "jump the shark" has subsequently broadened beyond television, indicating the moment when a brand, design, franchise, or creative effort's evolution declines.

From wiki
[Verizon Samsung Galaxy S 4] cicuye:
Check that!

This is in response to Post # 2612. Upon further review, I went to developer options, granted root access to apps and adb's. Then went to Joey Krim's Root Check and JRummy's Root Check apps. They do not recognize that procedure as a true root process. They both respond as "no root access". Additionally, Flash Fire and Titanium Manager do not recognize it as a true rooting process. Super User Pro is unable to install an SU Binary in order to carry out it's functions. I downloaded the file from JRummy, "UPDATE -SuperSU-V2.76-201606301323.zip" and flashed it with twrp 3 times- still no root. What say ye, New York LOL? Input appreciated.
[Verizon Samsung Galaxy S 4] doubleaykay:
This kind of post is what [MENTION=4939386]Surge1223[/MENTION] meant when he said we've jumped the shark.
[Verizon Samsung Galaxy S 4] cicuye:
Check that!

Upon further review, I went to developer options, granted root access to apps and adb's. Then went to Joey Krim's Root Check and JRummy's Root Check apps. They do not recognize that procedure as a true root process. They both respond as "no root access". Additionally, Flash Fire and Titanium Manager do not recognize it as a true rooting process. Super User Pro is unable to install an SU Binary in order to carry out it's functions. I downloaded the file from JRummy, "UPDATE -SuperSU-V2.76-201606301323.zip" and flashed it with twrp 3 times- still no root. What say ye, New York LOL? Input appreciated.
[Verizon Samsung Galaxy S 4] capt_planit:
Well, that's unfortunate, because I had a few questions. I have compiled kexec-tools 2.08 from this thread but have had difficulty with kexec_emulation_module. I get "/s4zoom/kexec_emulation_module-master/copypage-v6.c:62: error: initialization from incompatible pointer type" when I compile with -Wall and need to shift to -Wno-error to get past this. Relevant line is this, ".cpu_copy_user_highpage	= v6_copy_user_highpage_nonaliasing,". Rather trivial, but I'd like to fix. Perhaps fatal (for me) is after a sucessful compile I get: "WARNING: "unlock_kernel" [/s4zoom/kexec_emulation_module-master/kexec_emulation.ko] undefined!" I've worked around similar problems in the past by using my own defines (I did this for irq_desc) but I can't seem to get this to work. Any help greatly appreciated. When I kexec -e with my current setup I just reboot normally.
[Verizon Samsung Galaxy S 4] Surge1223:
link me to the module source.

The undefined symbol is going to cause all to fail, make sure you also export the symbol after its function or define, not only define it.

i.e, EXPORT_SYMBOL(unlock_kernel)
[Verizon Samsung Galaxy S 4] capt_planit:
Oh, I guess that module is here. I'm sorry for wasting your time, somehow I thought it was the one people were using on this thread. All those functions are defined in smp_lock.h which was removed from the kernel some time back. Do you have a module I should use to test your version of kexec-tools from up the thread? I try to match the module to the tools version. Presumably you used /dev/kexec instead of /dev/kexec_driver to communicate? Thanks c_p
[Verizon Samsung Galaxy S 4] npjohnson:
The source you linked is what we are using. Kexec module is distributed in Samsung source, just disabled in build.

When we last worked on this, we used these:

https://github.com/seesemichaelj/kexec-tools-2.09

https://github.com/seesemichaelj/android_kernel_samsung-jf-common

The latter contains extra UART checkpoints as well as random fixes for Kexec we picked up along the way.

The module doesn't necessarily have to match the tools version.
[Verizon Samsung Galaxy S 4] capt_planit:
[MENTION=5848265]npjohnson[/MENTION] Thanks for the links and assistance. I've had problems in the past picking which files I need from the kernel build files. I'm currently working my way through a recent snapshot of torvald's git tree and I must be missing a file or two because I'm swamped in unresolved symbols. I'm doing the same for surge's tree. I guess I can add yours to the list :) I was hoping people would just have the out of kernel module build folder available....so it goes....Can't complain, everyone has been super helpful--too bad Samsung, AT&T and Verizon aren't!
[Verizon Samsung Galaxy S 4] Surge1223:
https://drive.google.com/file/d/0BzUHC9ZhB4KgNENMWVZCMjJEWEk/view?usp=drivesdk
[Verizon Samsung Galaxy S 4] Gearwolf:
Kingroot

Kingroot was able to obtain full root on gs4 5.0.1 verizon model.
[Verizon Samsung Galaxy S 4] capt_planit:
Thanks. I've got 3 modules built. I'm working on resolving the set_kernel_text_rw, mem_text_write_kernel_word, cpu_v7_do_resume, v7_processor_functions and cpu_v7_do_suspend undefined! errors. Shouldn't -DCONFIG_KEXEC -DCONFIG_ARM at least be in the Makefile? CONFIG_STRICT_MEMORY_RWX is not present on my system, so I've already rewritten another module to just use memcpy instead of write_kernel_word. But I'm not sure about the others. Again, thanks for all the help (but you should have just posted it in February!).
[Verizon Samsung Galaxy S 4] Surge1223:
Yes and no it shouldnt be in the makefile, because for us, kexec isn't enabled in our kernel so it doesn't make send to enable it in kernel source either since we can't modify our kernel.

so what you have to do is manually define the undefined references to make sure that they are being generated from the module itself and not from the kernel.

You do this by writing a function (can be a placeholder) and exporting it's symbol via how i said to in the previous post.

You can just grep the lkm dir and should be able to find where they are referenced and you can export their symbol

You'll see that there are quite a few exported symbols

Also you'll notice included my kexec.h in the lkm dir, and it has checks for kexec in the kernel config commented out

so you'll have to make sure to change all

#include

to

#include "kexec.h"

In that module dir
[Verizon Samsung Galaxy S 4] capt_planit:
[MENTION=4939386]Surge1223[/MENTION] Okay, I c. But while we are on the subject of kexec.h, what about all the necessary defines? I used the following (sources quoted where needed).

#define KEXEC_SOURCE_MEMORY_LIMIT (-1UL)//http://www.spinics.net/lists/arm-kernel/msg513739.html

#define KEXEC_DESTINATION_MEMORY_LIMIT (-1UL)//c_p from arm64--okay??

#define KEXEC_CONTROL_MEMORY_LIMIT (-1UL)

#define KEXEC_CONTROL_PAGE_SIZE 4096

#define KEXEC_ARCH KEXEC_ARCH_ARM

#define KEXEC_ARM_ZIMAGE_OFFSET 0x8000 //https://gist.github.com/Tasssadar/7833796

#define KEXEC_ARM_ATAGS_OFFSET 0x1000
[Verizon Samsung Galaxy S 4] capt_planit:
[MENTION=4939386]Surge1223[/MENTION] Don't we at least need -DCONFIG_ARM_CPU_SUSPEND in the makefile to draw in the cpu_v7_do_suspend and cpu_v7_do_resume in proc-v7.S?
[Verizon Samsung Galaxy S 4] Surge1223:
This is all subjective it depends on whether it was enabled by default in your kernel. It not then sure use the CFLAGS and -D, (define) whatver it takes to get it to compile I guess lol. What device is this?
[Verizon Samsung Galaxy S 4] capt_planit:
Thanks, I eventually had to use the relocate_kernel.S from your jfltevzw tree to get around some of the issues with undefined symbols. Modules compile and insert fine but I reboot normally. If anybody else is compiling these I have a number of kludgy fixes I needed to apply but I suspect they vary from platform to platform and gcc to gcc but post your error and I'll try to help. BTW I have a Samsung Zoom S4 AT&T.
[Verizon Samsung Galaxy S 4] Legitsu:
MOO
[Verizon Samsung Galaxy S 4] doubleaykay:
It's hard to tell if that "moo" means something positive, or negative, or you just expressing yourself haha... Care to elaborate?
[Verizon Samsung Galaxy S 4] Legitsu:
I like cows
[Verizon Samsung Galaxy S 4] Surge1223:
but cows can get so dirty...
[Verizon Samsung Galaxy S 4] Legitsu:
I love me a filthy dirty cow UHHYEAA UH UH UH YEAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAA
[Verizon Samsung Galaxy S 4] wtherrell:
Please kick the (milk) bucket.
[Verizon Samsung Galaxy S 4] agenteperry89:
So theres no way to unlock this damm bootloader??? :(:(:confused::crying::rolleyes::eek:
[Verizon Samsung Galaxy S 4] wtherrell:
The only one I know of was the MDK version.

There was safestrap, however. That allows you to install custom roms.
[Verizon Samsung Galaxy S 4] doubleaykay:
If we have [MENTION=5417447]Legitsu[/MENTION] pretending to be a cow I think we can all agree that we've reached a dead end... ah well. I think at this point people have really moved on from the S4, as sad as it is. The phone is 3 years old soon, even I'm going to move on :/
[Verizon Samsung Galaxy S 4] PalmCentro:
Hmm, who says dead end.

He hinted about dirty cow. Google it and get Happy!
[Verizon Samsung Galaxy S 4] doubleaykay:
Hmm interesting... based on what I just read it seems to be a privilege-elevation exploit in the kernel that can be used to gain root access. How does that help? "Roothammer" seems interesting though, given it allows data in device memory to be modified... could that be used post-aboot-loading to patch in a new kernel? Or even a proper aboot?

--

Never mind... from https://github.com/dirtycow/dirtycow.github.io/wiki/VulnerabilityDetails:

"Impact

An unprivileged local user could use this flaw to gain write access to otherwise read-only memory mappings and thus increase their privileges on the system.

This flaw allows an attacker with a local system account to modify on-disk binaries, bypassing the standard permission mechanisms that would prevent modification without an appropriate permission set."

That is interesting. How specifically can we use this?
[Verizon Samsung Galaxy S 4] Surge1223:
You could use it to do a lot. There's a lot of ways, do you mean like what methods in C? Or the extent of the exploits usability?
[Verizon Samsung Galaxy S 4] Legitsu:
but seriously I just like cows I mean the rowm `free` eat lots of grass from that secure little pasture in the back 0x40 and can be made into all manner of food and clothing for the wer_ring also they have those pretty sp_t ot's
[Verizon Samsung Galaxy S 4] wolfen1086:
I haven't been on here in a long time, we moved to NC and I haven't had internet till now, has anybody broken the boot loader on the Verizon Galaxy s4 yet? I'm rooted using king root, but I'd still love to use TWRP again like I did on the old T mobile phone
[Verizon Samsung Galaxy S 4] tshelby73:
Not yet. Some cow thing going on now but no definite info. Could just be another pipe dream that doesn't apply to our phone.
[Verizon Samsung Galaxy S 4] vt0r:
The "Dirty COW" vulnerability allows writing to privileged memory areas, which can be exploited to gain root (privilege escalation). But it's highly unlikely to help with the bootloader stuff at all, since this vulnerability doesn't affect Little Kernel. Sorry, guys.
[Verizon Samsung Galaxy S 4] Legitsu:
we don't care about the bootloader anymore its completely irrelevant

all you need todo is get anouther kernel up and running and that gets you cm/asop/custom recovery

d-cow may or may not help with that

row hammer is a little more interesting in regard to how the lk works but I doubt it will ever be useful enough for a production exploite

consider the vzw-s4 dead people nobody wants to work on it I don't wanna work on it its a dead device and verizon sucks anyway
[Verizon Samsung Galaxy S 4] vt0r:
No. Just no. Please stop spreading filth. None of this has anything at all to do with the bootchain - they can provide root access at best. The two vulns you mentioned should be thought of as OS-level only. End of story. No need to get the hopes up of the 5 remaining people (exaggerated) who still have this device.

Edit for clarity - Kexec will help with what you're referring to, at least on the "get another kernel up and running" part, but these exploits don't make that any more likely, since someone still needs to port it, and I don't think anyone who knows how to do this still has an S4.
[Verizon Samsung Galaxy S 4] capt_planit:
And write access to ro areas. Unfortunately dirtycow (CVE-2016-5195) as built and deployed on my AT&T S4 Zoom (exynos) yields this from strace:

madvise(0x4013f000, 4096, 0xc /* MADV_??? */) = -1 EINVAL (Invalid argument)

mprotect(0x4013f000, 4096, PROT_READ) = 0

--- SIGSEGV (Segmentation fault)

The whole point is moot, since I do have read/write in /system/bin if I want (we all do, right?). I run kexec from /system/bin/kexec, which collapses with references to might_sleep both in [MENTION=4939386]Surge1223[/MENTION] and [MENTION=5143031]madushan1000[/MENTION] implementations failing on "c0 BUG: sleeping function called from invalid context at kernel/rwsem.c:21".

TLDR: Dirtycow is interesting and worth developing but may not afford increased functionality on our devices. YMMV c_p
[Verizon Samsung Galaxy S 4] vt0r:
Write access to areas we could already write to, so I agree that point is indeed moot. I still wouldn't call it worth developing unless I were using a device that didn't already have root.
[Verizon Samsung Galaxy S 4] Legitsu:
shhhh you are ruining my fun

shame about kexec nobody cares enough. I don't care enough to take the couple hours it would take to get it up and running, dead device is dead
[Verizon Samsung Galaxy S 4] npjohnson:
Kexec is

NOT

a few hour long bringup.

We had roughtly 5 guys working non-stop for a few weeks, then on and off for several months. After figuring out how to get UART output via Micro-USB, and adding a ton of checkpoints, it hangs in some obscure stack corruption post soft-boot (though not successfully) that the almost any developer who understands kexec would agree is a very hard place to debug.

Mike Seese's Github has the most recent stuff we worked on if anybody is interested. We made some significant progress from where HashCode left off.

Bottom line, on this device especially, kexec is much more complicated than on most devices.
[Verizon Samsung Galaxy S 4] wolfen1086:
All I know is King root gives me root access to everything except the boot loader, which means I' stuck all stock romwise, that's not really an issue, I finally found a wallpaper for the stock pos rom that i like, my only thing it I'd love to make a complete backup of the whole thing like TWRP does, instead of using Titanium backup free and restoring 182 apps one at a time.

And no, I'm not buying Titanium backup, you never know when somebody is gonna figure out how to completely wipe the darn s4 and restore a previous boot loaded and rom that is replaceable. THAT is the only reason I don't buy titanium backup LOL
[Verizon Samsung Galaxy S 4] tony332211:
Is there any progress on the OC1 bootloader?
[Verizon Samsung Galaxy S 4] traco1:
Bootloader

Boy would I like that !!

Is the s4 the only Verizon phone that the bootloader is not unlocked ?

I actually left Verizon because I could not see the bull crap of this . I got an unlocked s3 & went to another carrier. Now I have a rooted ,unlocked bootloader ,reliable phone with CM 12.1 Lollipop & I'm loving it !
[Verizon Samsung Galaxy S 4] capt_planit:
missing files

Thanks again for your continued interest, unfortunately, Mike Seese's github no longer appears to contain kexec files except for droid. I'd be very interested in a snapshot of an out-of-kernel build tree for this project.
[Verizon Samsung Galaxy S 4] raptor734:
i545

does anyone know if the samsung galaxy i545 verizon phone is able to have a unlocked bootloader? ive been looking for ages and havent found anything
[Verizon Samsung Galaxy S 4] cicuye:
Keep Looking
[Verizon Samsung Galaxy S 4] 19lmyers:
Um... Is this a spam post??
[Verizon Samsung Galaxy S 4] doubleaykay:
Either that or a failed copy-paste attempt. Regardless, that method is the CID change method that will not work on Toshiba eMMCs, meaning it's not applicable to the S4.
[Verizon Samsung Galaxy S 4] Paleskin:
I got haier a16c3h with locked bootloader, dirty cow works temporarily, buat still no write access on system folder, any ideas ?
[Verizon Samsung Galaxy S 4] ninjasinabag:
Deleted
[Verizon Samsung Galaxy S 4] capt_planit:
If you are trying to use Surge1223's kexec-tools (and many other versions above version 2.0.6) with a Samsung S4 monolithic kernel (no initrd) you may find that you get an error about overlapping memory segments or not enough memory to load the new kernel. Change #define BOOT_PARAMS_SIZE from 1536 to 1024 (kexec-zImage-arm.c) to free up a little memory. I guess an even smaller value is possible, but for me this did the trick.
[Verizon Samsung Galaxy S 4] Evil-Maiden666:
Xda ad-free

I am going to buy you xda ad free
[Verizon Samsung Galaxy S 4] darkensx:
what i want to know is why the fcc allowed verizon to refuse to unlock bootloaders? i mean if you pass a federal law then allow companies to optionally abide by said law then its not really a law. every carrier should have been forced to comply with that law.

also the big V claims "our devices are locked by the manufacturer" who samsung? strange because samsung tells us different (the carrier locked them) so... who made these phones verizon? if the pixel bootloader has been unlock my question is how hard is it to break the lock on our bootloader now?
[Verizon Samsung Galaxy S 4] xs11e:
I think you're confusing "unlock" with "unlock"! <G>

The FCC requires companies unlock their phones to use a different carrier but does NOT require the bootloader be unlocked.

"Carrier unlock" is very different from "bootloader unlock."
[Verizon Samsung Galaxy S 4] sanosuke001:
I've been off and on following this (totally not using my S4 any longer) and saw this paper posted recently (http://ww2.cs.fsu.edu/~ychen/paper/downgradeTZ.pdf) does this help us at all? It says it's good for the S7 but I'm not familiar enough with the differences to know.
[Verizon Samsung Galaxy S 4] sokrboot:
This is not significant in any way that we don't already know about. The vulns they discuss are from like 2015. Not to mention the S4 and S7 are on different chipsets and processors.