[Verizon Galaxy Note 3 Q&A, Help & Troubleshooting] bftb0:
:o :o How were you able to do that?

IMO radio/firmware releases almost never do anything perceptible to call quality or drops, and especially not signal strength - that's pretty much an impossibility. But, even if you don't share in that opinion, you should **wait until you actually have a problem** with calls before giving something up for nothing. (That is, don't assume that a radio firmware update will have any perceptible differences.)

It is my impression that anti-rollback provisions were introduced sometime after the MI9 release (I don't know if that was MJ7 or MJE), so I suppose there is a small possibility that you could cobble together an Odin flash bundle that contains only signed (factory versions of MJ7 or MJE) Android components :

recovery.img, boot.img, cache.img.ext4, system.img.ext4, sec_csc.zip

This would leave in place all the MI9 boot gearing (NON-HLOS.bin, modem.bin, sbl1.mbn, aboot.mbn, rpm.mbn, tz.mbn) so that a failure to boot or any other such troubles would not prevent you from flashing back to full-MI9 using the 100% stock MI9 Odin tarball.

This is speculative & I don't know if anybody has tried it; it is possible that the kernels won't boot with the older bootloader gearing. (My phone came with MJ7, so I certainly haven't tried it). But if it worked, it might be possible to enjoy newer (MJ7/MJE) software releases without losing rollback capability.

As for the RDLV stuff, maybe the right approach is to read your way through some of those older RDLV threads (October?) and contact via PM some of the members who successfully used the original RDLV kit - they probably still have the kit laying around. Just let them know what your situation is and that you aren't looking for spoon-feeding, just the original RDLV root kit.

I remember reading something about a vulnerability in the original MI9 bootloader (beyond the anti-rollback stuff) that makes it valuable to keep if possible, given the current state of affairs with MJ7/MJE, which is to say: no custom kernels and no custom recoveries. But I can't remember what the MI9 aboot vuln was right now; I only remember that it is kinda significant.

However, there are customized Touchwiz ROMs available for MJ7 or MJE that may be installed with Safestrap - they use the Stock kernel/boot image and leave the factory stock recovery alone.

Even the URDLV stuff is not supported on MJ7 or MJE and apparently can lead to hard-bricks with MJE; most folks that are rooting MJ7 or MJE have been using kingo or vroot. You went to the trouble of getting MI9 - maybe we should see what kind of mileage you can get out of it before you take the plunge into "forever locked down" land.

bftb0

Edit I forgot to answer the question you posed in your subject line - it is my impression that RDLV/URDLV methods:

- Knox-safe on MI9 only

- Trips Knox Warranty Flag to 0x1 on MJ7

- Doesn't work at all with MJE

There were also reports of strange brickings involving attempted Odin Stock MI9 rollbacks following the use of RDLV/URDLV, but my memory is fuzzy on this topic - you should probably do a lot more reading while you get acquainted with your device. Either that or do all your experimenting within 13 days of purchase :D