yashsingh1/xdaforums huggingface dataset:
[Verizon Samsung Galaxy S III] crobert33:
So, I'm new here. Sorry of. I have been lurking for a long time and learned lots. Thanks for all the info. Still, I'm no cell phone wizard. In fact I'm a noob. I have decided to root my bone stock, updated (therefore locked down), gs3. It is with good old vzw. I gathered that I can just get towelroot from the Google play store, grab busybox, and I can use "root required" apps. Is that correct? Should I start a thread in the q and a forum? I wanted to do it here because some of the old info from previous updates confused me. This seems like where the latest information lives. Again, s3, never had root, happy with touchwiz, just need root.
[Verizon Samsung Galaxy S III] n3wt:
Don't think it's on the play store. I think it's towelroot.com but yeah apparently that's the stuff.
[Verizon Samsung Galaxy S III] crobert33:
Super, thanks dude. I'm going to try it out tonight.

I used to be a moderator in a forum that helped people with car trouble. I have accumulated some good karma. please help me :)
[Verizon Samsung Galaxy S III] BadUsername:
Read the sticky in the development section and you should be good to go. You're mostly correct just need pointers on where you can get stuff and what can be done on your update. That thread should show you everything you need with links.
[Verizon Samsung Galaxy S III] ryanallaire:
Just wanna throw this out there, my wife has a OG Droid RAZR running safestrap. There are all kinds of ROMs for this phone which also has a locked bootloader, i don't see why we can't get the same love...
[Verizon Samsung Galaxy S III] BadUsername:
Currently we can not boot a 4.4 rom without 4.4 firmware and kernel. Developers won't have 4.4 firmware because the majority of them will have unlocked firmware. They have no way to test to see if a rom will boot, and only people with a 4.4 bootloader will be able to use a 4.4 custom rom anyway.

Motorola phones are not limited by this restriction, that's why we aren't getting custom roms rolling out.
[Verizon Samsung Galaxy S III] 5ft24:
Because this isn't a Motorola phone. Samsung changes things with every release of android, and with each new phone.
[Verizon Samsung Galaxy S III] crobert33:
Report, bone stock sgs3 on ne1 towel works great. Super su by chainfire on play store works. Busybox also fine. I have had a couple of force closes (Google drive and chrome) but nothing serious.

Thanks xda!

I used to be a moderator in a forum that helped people with car trouble. I have accumulated some good karma. please help me :)
[Verizon Samsung Galaxy S III] ryanallaire:
I'm running the kitkat OTA, at first the battery life was terrible. But after a few days it's starting to stabilize, i'm also rooted with towelroot. Everything seems ok right now, just waiting for some ROM goodness...:)
[Verizon Samsung Galaxy S III] Sirachi:
Not having any luck finding a way to get rid of the update notification. I'm on 4.3 rooted. OTA update notification keeps coming through every morning. How do I stop it from showing up?
[Verizon Samsung Galaxy S III] SlimSnoopOS:
Allow myself to quote myself from this same thread...
[Verizon Samsung Galaxy S III] BadUsername:
I didn't know that website existed, cool.
[Verizon Samsung Galaxy S III] crobert33:
I installed greenify today. No issues. I really want to try out Ti backup next.

I used to be a moderator in a forum that helped people with car trouble. I have accumulated some good karma. please help me :)
[Verizon Samsung Galaxy S III] mikecico:
I'm running 4.3 rooted with saferoot, but am thinking about unrooting to take the 4.4 OTA. sounds like it might be safe enough to do so now, using towelroot to regain root.

Couple of questions :

- what's the best way to unroot? Do a full reset to factory?

- is 4.4 really worth it? I'm interested in the chromecast mirroring capability, but I'm not sure if that's worth possibly losing root.

Thanks!
[Verizon Samsung Galaxy S III] 5ft24:
Is your 4.3 from the OTA (locked boot loader?)

If so, taking the KitKat update won't lose you anything... Towelroot roots it just fine. If you are on the locked 4.3, sometimes unrooting still won't let you take the KitKat OT. You can download the Odin file for KitKat and use Odin to flash it.
[Verizon Samsung Galaxy S III] ShapesBlue:
If they are running saferoot then yes they are indeed on the locked bootloader

Sent from my SCH-I535 using Xparent ICS Tapatalk 2
[Verizon Samsung Galaxy S III] mikecico:
Sadly, yes, I took the 4.3 update last winter without thinking, and paid dearly. Should have rooted this ages ago. But, now you can understand my reservations!

Do you guys think it's worth the upgrade? The Chromecast mirroring feature is what's driving me to take it, plus after this I'm guessing I should be good for as long as I keep the S3. I'm also milking my grandfathered-unlimited data plan, so I will probably be on this phone for a while!

Thanks again,

Mike
[Verizon Samsung Galaxy S III] ShapesBlue:
Its completely up to you man. This will probably be the last update for our S3 phones. Man I wish I still had unlimited data!

Sent from my SCH-I535 using Xparent ICS Tapatalk 2
[Verizon Samsung Galaxy S III] SlimSnoopOS:
Chromecast mirroring is only publicly available for select devices as of now. You'll have to do some xda trickery to enable it on the S3.
[Verizon Samsung Galaxy S III] mikecico:
Luckily, such XDA trickery already exists... ;)

---------- Post added at 07:48 PM ---------- Previous post was at 07:38 PM ----------

Thanks! I found a page for doing this here. Looks reputable (?)...

If I go the Odin route, do I need to worry if I see the "Custom" splash screen on boot up? Does that mean I need to reset the Knox counter flag or some such thing?
[Verizon Samsung Galaxy S III] 5ft24:
You will see the custom splash screen with the lock. Install triangle away and that disappears
[Verizon Samsung Galaxy S III] ESPfutbol94:
Can anyone tell me what languages are included on the official ROM SCH-I535 VRUDNE1? Back on ME1 I rooted and was able to access hidden languages through LanguageEnabler but since the update I've had no such luck. I can change the locale so 3rd party apps are in Russian but the system and menus are still in English which leads me to believe they just didn't include all but like 3 languages in the ROM. Is there any hope of more languages being included in a future update or what's going on?
[Verizon Samsung Galaxy S III] vmancini3:
Use this...

https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=jp.co.c_lis.ccl.morelocale
[Verizon Samsung Galaxy S III] ESPfutbol94:
I've used that too. I'm fully rooted and even did the adb pm grant anyway and still no success.
[Verizon Samsung Galaxy S III] ryanallaire:
My phone is starting to trip out (kitkat OTA) Someone calls me and the screen stays black, i pull down the notification bar to try and answer it but nothing happens. Also, it's starting to lag pretty bad in certain apps (hangouts for example) Anyone else having issues similar to this?

Oh and one more thing, i use Ti backup to backup and restore apps. Problem is i can't do backups anymore cuz it won't write on the sd card, and i can't get root explorer to make the sd card R/W... This update is pretty ****ty...
[Verizon Samsung Galaxy S III] truent:
I was trying to help a friend out rooting his phone..but it was about 3years old..not doable unless you still had the software from back then ya know..may be the same story with an s3 if you took all the otas but.. S3 is/was super popular so.. We'll see!
[Verizon Samsung Galaxy S III] roaddog665:
I haven't had any of the issues that you describe, but apps not writing to the sdcard is an issue with permissions in KK, I believe. Do a search for "sdcard fix" and you should find a couple apps that will fix the problem. If you are using xposed then I think there is a module that will fix it also. I used the app and TiBu works fine now. I'm also on stock KK, rooted.
[Verizon Samsung Galaxy S III] ryanallaire:
I tried the xposed modules and they didn't work, so I found an app called nextapp sdfix and it worked. Wonder why the xposed modules didn't with though? It seems like only half the modules actually do work...
[Verizon Samsung Galaxy S III] primetime34:
So I'm running 4.1.2 (firmware MF1). I have a custom recovery (TWRP) so I assume that means unlocked bootloader. It is stock but rooted.

If I wanted to upgrade to stock 4.4.2 (primarily for chromecast mirroring), what do I need to do? What 'bugs' am I looking at? How easy is it to root 4.4.2?

Thanks.
[Verizon Samsung Galaxy S III] vmancini3:
If you actually want to run stock 4.4.2 then I suggest just flash the tar through Odin then you can download the towelroot app to root, then of course you should download busybox and SuperSU from the Play Store! SuperSU will help you disable Knox! And BTW...Chromecast mirroring isn't officially supported for the S3 (yet?). I know there is something you can get do to get it working, but I know nothing about that.

Edit: I feel compelled to warn you that you will be LOCKED DOWN once you flash 4.4.2!!! Be careful and very sure that this is what you really want!
[Verizon Samsung Galaxy S III] primetime34:
What does being "locked down" actually mean? No custom roms? This is my wife's phone so she has been running stock since she got the phone and probably will going forward.

I assume there isn't a pre-rooted stock-like rom that I could flash in TWRP that is at least kitkat?
[Verizon Samsung Galaxy S III] mrjim.com:
Sorry if this is the wrong place for this but just to make sure I'm interpreting the "proper method" right:

Start by rooting (with saferoot)

Make a NANDroid backup

Install safestrap (which from what I've seen looks kind of like splitting the internal SD into partitions so you can sort-of "dual boot" the phone)

Flash one of the 4.3 custom TW base roms onto an "empty partition" on the SD card

Am I way off base or is there any major step I'm missing?
[Verizon Samsung Galaxy S III] pappingfandas:
How do you freeze the apk? Sorry I'm new to this stuff.
[Verizon Samsung Galaxy S III] landshark68:
You are on target. All those steps are correct.
[Verizon Samsung Galaxy S III] SlimSnoopOS:
Use an app like Titanium Backup, switch to "System" apps via the filter, then press the specific app. Or use a file explorer, grant it root access, then navigate to /System and rename the file to "sdm 1.0.bak" or delete it.
[Verizon Samsung Galaxy S III] ShapesBlue:
Thanks man. I didn't even see the response to this. Hey slim which version of Android are you on?

Sent from my SCH-I535 using Xparent ICS Tapatalk 2
[Verizon Samsung Galaxy S III] SlimSnoopOS:
I'm on AOSP KitKat when not suffering from the oh so lovely "1 sms" issue lol gotta have my softkeys and "last app" softkey shortcut. How about you?
[Verizon Samsung Galaxy S III] mrjim.com:
Using ES explorer I found /System but I'm not seeing the files sdm.apk and fwupgrade.apk.

Also, I might have done something stupid. I put ES file explorer in root mode and proceeded to try and uninstall vz navigator and yahoo finance and yahoo news. When completed each said "not uninstalled successfully". I did some searching and it looks like you're never supposed to uninstall system apps (even those ones apparently). I guess they're supposed to be "frozen" too? Am I in trouble? Sorry for being ignorant. :o

Edit: never mind on the sdm and fwupgrade apk files. I found them in System/apps.

Edit 2: I also made sure to have ES app manager backup the 3 apps before uninstalling if that makes a difference. I found them in the backups but when I select them it just gives the option to install them again. VZ navigator seemed to reinstall fine but the yahoo ones did not. Again, any help or guidance is much appreciated.
[Verizon Samsung Galaxy S III] ShapesBlue:
Those apps you mentioned that are VZW apps are useless in my opinion. The yahoo ones are merely bloatware

Sent from my SCH-I535 using Xparent ICS Tapatalk 2
[Verizon Samsung Galaxy S III] mrjim.com:
I'm having some trouble making the nandroid backup.

I downloaded ROM manager from the app store and used it's recovery setup. I initially just chose the "install or update recovery" option and downloaded clockworkmod 6.0.4.5. However, there's also the option to select TWRP and apparently nothing has to download when I select that. I'm not real sure which one I should use... does it matter? With the 6.0.4.5 selected, I rebooted the phone holding up-volume, menu and the power button and I got the following:

SECURE FAIL: KERNEL

System software not authorized by Verizon Wireless ... bla bla bla.

But no recovery screen. Not sure where I went wrong here.
[Verizon Samsung Galaxy S III] landshark68:
You are on the 4.3 OTA. You cannot install any kind of custom recovery. Safestrap is basically your custom recovery.
[Verizon Samsung Galaxy S III] mrjim.com:
Oh okay, so no need for the nandroid backup before installing safestrap? I had wanted to port all my data over into whatever new rom I put on the phone. Will safestrap still let me do that?

Edit: Does that also mean the rom manager program voided my warranty when it flashed the recovery software?
[Verizon Samsung Galaxy S III] ShapesBlue:
Dude you void your warranty when you root. The first few questions I really can't answer as I Thankfully don't have to worry about safestrap

Sent from my SCH-I535 using Xparent ICS Tapatalk 2
[Verizon Samsung Galaxy S III] c5satellite2:
This is not true. Depends entirely on what country you reside in. If they can prove that your actions are 100% the reason it broke, then they can void your warranty. I cannot speak for other countries, but in the US and Europe unlocking your boot loader or having does not void your warranty.

Sent from my M8 in 2-D
[Verizon Samsung Galaxy S III] ShapesBlue:
In the USA it does void your warranty by rooting. Although I could really care less if they know I'm rooted. I'll never take another ota from those idiots

Sent from my SCH-I535 using Xparent ICS Tapatalk 2
[Verizon Samsung Galaxy S III] mrjim.com:
Right, no argument there. Sorry, what I meant to ask was, did I trip the knox sensor? And can I get the regular recovery screen back?

Edit: looks like I found the knox answer here:

http://www.kingoapp.com/help/samsung-knox-counter.htm

This guy also says the gs3 doesn't have one though so I'm still a bit confused.

Edit 2: So really it looks like earlier when I mentioned the steps I was going to take, the nandroid backup was definitely

not

one I should take. Oh well. On to safestrap I guess.
[Verizon Samsung Galaxy S III] Bramton1:
OK, so the new update isn't Kitkat. And it's useless unless you live or travel to Canada. Moving on...

I'm amazed that Sprint has released Kitkat for the S3, and not one other U.S. carrier has said a single word about it. At first I thought if Sprint was doing it, everyone else would follow. Now I'm not sure.

And Verizon seems like just the company to release Kitkat in hopes of pushing us to a new device, and not ever officially saying anything about it.
[Verizon Samsung Galaxy S III] TokedUp:
XDA just released news about the Intl S3 and the S3 mini not getting the 4.4.x update. Hope VZW doesnt cancel it on us.
[Verizon Samsung Galaxy S III] SlimSnoopOS:
I'm confident we'll see another OTA. As soon as we see AT&T release an S3 KitKat OTA then I think we'll see progress. Seems like S3 with 2 GB of ram are in the clear.
[Verizon Samsung Galaxy S III] ShapesBlue:
Ah even if they don't it's ok. Kk isn't that great in my opinion.

Sent from my SCH-I535 using Xparent ICS Tapatalk 2
[Verizon Samsung Galaxy S III] c5satellite2:
They can claim anything, but you have rights. If they do not honor your warranty, it is illegal in the US unless they can prove beyond a reasonable doubt that your actions caused the issue. Don't let them push you around, know your rights, and if they still deny your claim, sue them for "bad faith". Rooting or unlocking does not void your warranty period. Just like changing your own oil, doing a tune up, or even modifying your car does not void your warranty. Plenty of precedent here in the US.

Sent from my M8 in 2-D
[Verizon Samsung Galaxy S III] 5ft24:
Means locked boot loader. No custom recovery, no custom Roms. There also are no custom TW KK Roms out
[Verizon Samsung Galaxy S III] ShapesBlue:
All of that is right and there is one TW kk rom out even though it's not a custom rom per say

http://xdaforums.com/showthread.php?t=2805797

Sent from my SCH-I535 using Xparent ICS Tapatalk 2
[Verizon Samsung Galaxy S III] kb8no:
If you were on 4.1.2 with an unlocked custom bootloader, are there AOSP or CM kit Kat ROMs that you could use that are not TW?
[Verizon Samsung Galaxy S III] 5ft24:
If you are on an unlocked boot loader, there are tons of non TW Roms you can run
[Verizon Samsung Galaxy S III] kb8no:
So if you were so lucky to be on 4.1.2 with unlocked boot loader the only reason to upgrade to stock 4.3 or 4.4 would be if you you wanted to upgrade and you preferred TW so much that you were willing to accept a locked boot loader. Right?
[Verizon Samsung Galaxy S III] BadUsername:
Exactly.
[Verizon Samsung Galaxy S III] kb8no:
What are the perceived benefits or positive attributes of TW over, say, CM or AOSP, that people like? Personally, I can only say that I can live with TW. Even if you could get rid of bloatware, I can't say I like it better or can see any advantages in my limited experience.
[Verizon Samsung Galaxy S III] BadUsername:
I personally liked touchwiz widgets, the camera app, overall stability, and reception was better for me. That's really about it, but that was enough for me.
[Verizon Samsung Galaxy S III] ShapesBlue:
Bloatware takes up a lot of unneeded space and even after I use a debloated rom I still remove things that devs put specifically in there roms just because I'll never use it. The Verizon apps as a whole are pretty much useless to me, even the my Verizon app. The samsung apps don't really serve much purpose for me either. It really depends on what you like, realistically you can make almost any rom look like your own with enough tweaking

Sent from my SCH-I535 using Xparent ICS Tapatalk 2
[Verizon Samsung Galaxy S III] Jacquestrapp:
The #1 positive for me is better phone reception. Samsung has never made the radio software for this phone available to devs, so all non-TW ROMs use a reverse-engineered radio interface, which isn't as good as the Samsung one. So you will never get as good a signal with an AOSP ROM as with a ROM based on the stock firmware, unfortunately. Depending on where you live, you may or may not notice the difference, but I've definitely noticed it in certain situations, like when I'm inside a big-box store or some other big structure and I'd normally get a signal (if a weak one) on TW, on AOSP I get nothing.
[Verizon Samsung Galaxy S III] jackpot08:
i experienced the same thing. i pay for data so having poor reception on AOSP was not worth it for me.

I have heard though that nowadays on CM pretty much all of the weak signal bugs are squashed and it should work well.. wish i could try but have locked bootloader
[Verizon Samsung Galaxy S III] ryanallaire:
I have an interesting question, i have geek squad insurance on my phone but if i'm having issues with the latest OTA who do i go to? I don't think that Verizon can roll phones back, can they??
[Verizon Samsung Galaxy S III] ShapesBlue:
I'd call best buy and ask. Verizon is useless when it comes to fixing things. My gf has the NE1 OTA and her phone has been replaced now 3 times, they basically don't do anything other than give her another replacement. It's getting annoying for sure

Sent from my SCH-I535 using Xparent ICS Tapatalk 2
[Verizon Samsung Galaxy S III] kb8no:
Does anybody have experience with this? How does this work? Does it work on 4.3 or 4.4? Any thoughts? The locked boot loader is preventing me from fully enjoying my phone and I might find $50 worth it. Particularly if CM has fixed the radios.

http://mobiletechvideos.mybigcommerce.com/samsung-galaxy-s-iii-s3-bootloader-downgrade-service/
[Verizon Samsung Galaxy S III] Overmann:
Since I took the update, I have been having a huge problem of disconnecting every few seconds when I use 3G. If you know what does this, I would fancy a go at it, because I consider it a considerable step down to have this problem.

Of note, it only happens when using a considerable chunk of data, like loading this very forum page.
[Verizon Samsung Galaxy S III] eigervue:
I used the saferoot method just to get root on my s3 and am on 4.3 kernel ver 3.0.31 and my phone isn't updating to kitkat, (the installation just fails) do i need to unroot my phone before updating it? Or is there just a way to get the stupid update to stop popping up 3-4 times a day?

edit the update gets about 30-40% thru before giving an error message

edit2: the only other thing i've really done was put on xposed to use xprivacy, could that be the issue and i need to remove it first
[Verizon Samsung Galaxy S III] 5ft24:
Yyou have to uninstall busy box, and completely unroot it.
[Verizon Samsung Galaxy S III] schwinn8:
Best thing to do is find and look at the update log, as it will tell you where the problem is. From what I have seen, you shouldn't need to be unrooted (it will de-root you) - I could be wrong, so don't take my word on this part... but, still, if something else is missing, the update fails as you noticed. I believe the log is located in cache/recovery/latest_log (it was when I ran into an update problem with 4.1.2... it was failing for me because I disabled the Amazon book store or something).
[Verizon Samsung Galaxy S III] 5ft24:
Quite a few people here have had this issue, myself included... KitKat will not install if there is anything related to rooting on the phone.

I actually had to Odin the stock 4.3 to clean up all the root stuff before the NE1 KitKat update would install
[Verizon Samsung Galaxy S III] schwinn8:
As I said before, I wasn't sure... I defer to your experience. I know in the 4.1.2 update unrooting was not an issue for me. Still, thanks for letting me know!
[Verizon Samsung Galaxy S III] joekiv:
Since you were using Odin anyway, what was your reason for not just going straight to 4.4.2 and skipping the OTA.?
[Verizon Samsung Galaxy S III] Overmann:
After some troubleshooting, I found that the data disconnects are vpn related. I had to turn off Opera Max in order to make data work without disconnecting. It seems to be a problem caused by high cpu usage.
[Verizon Samsung Galaxy S III] ATGkompressor:
Yeah I can't install this update either. And I don't have a computer to Odin. I had the 4.3 OTA with saferoot, and safestrap. I uninstalled safestrap, uprooted, and factory data reset. And still cant install. Is there another way other than odin?
[Verizon Samsung Galaxy S III] SlimSnoopOS:
Try the Verizon Utility Assistant (I think that's the name) found in [MENTION=4725496]ThePagel[/MENTION]'s Q/A thread. The VRUDNE1 4.4.2 tar from that utility wipes the entire phone and pushes the update. Should work cuz the no wipe tar won't help.

Edit: OP in this thread for the utility: http://xdaforums.com/showthread.php?t=2586319
[Verizon Samsung Galaxy S III] BadUsername:
JODIN is also cross platform. Windows, osx, and Linux. Same interface as Odin
[Verizon Samsung Galaxy S III] ATGkompressor:
I have a Macbook but it's in Tennessee and I'm in Florida. I got a job working for Cricket Wireless and tried to install Odin on it and Kies as well. So much crap on the computer makes it hard for me to find stuff cause they got it all set up to block downloading stuff from alot of sites. At least I guess that's what it is...that and I was in a hurry to get off work. I have JODIN on my Macbook but that doesn't do me any good here now. So I don't need a computer with the Verizon utility?
[Verizon Samsung Galaxy S III] ThePagel:
*EDIT*

never mind bad idea
[Verizon Samsung Galaxy S III] SlimSnoopOS:
Sorry, I did not read the part in your previous post that says you do not have a computer. I think with this VRUDNE1 4.4.2 OTA, your best bet might be to find someone with a computer and have at it for 30 minutes.
[Verizon Samsung Galaxy S III] ATGkompressor:
It's trying to give me NC1...I want NE1. Does it have to do them in succession? Or can I jump strait to NE1 some kinda way?