yashsingh1/xdaforums huggingface dataset:
[Android Q&A, Help & Troubleshooting] szty0pa:
It looks the same as mine. :) I don't know what a few of them stores exactly, the linked thread did not mention them either. On some older routers there used to be a partition called 'art' which were believed to be storing calibration data. I think on the Y550 there is no such thing, or if there is it might be on 'oeminfo' or 'persist'? However I believe you should only overwrite 'sbl' (second-stage bootloader) at first try, which is the first 0.5MB of the eMMC.

No, of course you are not taking too much of my time! :)

I am trying to find out how it is supposed to work as well. I suspect .hex, .mbn and other proprietary image formats should be _mostly_ interchangable. So if you back up the partitions of your working phone the same way you did with the whole eMMC only issuing 'dd' on '/dev/block/mmcblk0pX' and no 'count' (so that it will extract the whole partition as it is) you will be able to overwrite partitions one-by-one. (Start from '/dev/block/mmcblk0p1' (sbl) - I suspect this should already make you able to boot at least to TWRP.)

Sadly I don't know the Qualcomm tools, but there is a load of (better or worse) articles about them - one I just found for example -, that I can't help you with sadly as I don't have a dead phone at hand at the moment.

Hope this helps! I'll try to assist if not anyway.

Best of luck!
[Android Q&A, Help & Troubleshooting] trizoide:
Hi, I have a big problem, my wifi does not reach much signal, it barely detects only 2 networks and when it connects it disappears. No matter how much I update the room, they still have the same problem, I used to solve it with a wifi flix but the file has disappeared
[Android Q&A, Help & Troubleshooting] Blank tape:
I hate to say it. but my "fix" was to go back to a stock ROM. However, since KitKat 4.4.4 is now too ancient to receive updates to Google apps as well as below the minimum required by many other apps., I've decided to bite the bullet and just live with all the drawbacks though admittedly there are some nice newer things. Still, I'll miss the stock ROM. Dumb questions from me follow.
[Android Q&A, Help & Troubleshooting] Blank tape:
I need to upgrade the ROM on my phone to at least Android 6. Retaining the same level of WiFi and battery performance would be nice but one can't have everything! I also prefer some of things the stock ROM does. I like local calendar entries for example.

Anyway with that said, is LOS 14.1 the best choice? Or really the only choice because it is the only one getting security updates. Mind you I never worried about that with the stock ROM. I still haven't applied the last update.

Does anyone have advice of how to safely repartition the device to maximise useable storage? I'm thinking about using the Open GApps pico package in contrast to fwiep's guide which recommends micro. It seems to me there is little need to bake Google apps into the ROM when they are going to be replaced anyway and probably be available in the Play Store before I get around to updating Gapps.

Could someone with pico Gapps installed tell me how space is occupied in their system partition?

Can the cust partition be removed altogether? Can any other partitions be shrunk or removed?

Is fdisk under twrp sufficient to rewrite the partition table?

I'm also wondering whether I should go with adoptable storage this time or use Link2SD. The latter seems safer and offers more control but the former seems easier.

Any suggestions welcome.
[Android Q&A, Help & Troubleshooting] szty0pa:
I haven't noticed any decrease in performance between stock and current LineageOS. There are even local calendar entries - though you have to decline linking your google account every time you start the integrated calendar app... For example this could solve the issue.

As far as I know @fwiep's builds are the best option for this specific phone. (Still as Qualcomm's code is not updated any more for the Y550 there are a couple of known unfixed RCEs, so one should not expect really tight security! But is there such a thing anyway? Especially on Android?)

I did it in the past as well: delete /system (/dev/block/mmcblk0p23) and /userdata (/dev/block/mmcblk0p24), and recreate them to the desired size. (As far as I know you can delete /cust too but then you probably have to move /cache and /misc as they are allocated inbetween so it might now worth the effort...)

The stock allocation of /system is really crazy because of the included bloatware but you should also think about how many apps you need on the phone and how often you plan to upgrade the OS. When you upgrade a repartitioned phone you can't use an image straight away, you have to resize it to fit your configuration which is a real PITA. I think I have done it 10-20 times (monthly updates) and then I went back to the stock layout. /userdata is (was) mostly enough for all the apps I was using (OsmAnd was tricky though, but that is a monster) while pictures, documents (and maps) were on an SD-card.

Gapps pico should be enough, but if you only plan to use push notifications and the location service, MicroG is a better choice. There are alternative PlayStore implementations, though they don't have access to your already paid-for content of course...

Yes.

Sorry no idea. I always used the SD-card as external storage, all the apps I used (almost) fit on /userdata. One advice though is to format the card to f2fs (either in a computer or in TWRP) that performs better than ext2/3/4 and way much better than fat32/ntfs!
[Android Q&A, Help & Troubleshooting] Blank tape:
That sounds like I won't be able to use the installation recipe given by @fweip. I see that there is system.new.dat in the zip file but resizing that (assuming it is a complete system image which I don't think it is) looks like it might require me to adjust whatever integrity checking applies. There is a hash in a couple of manifest files but wouldn't these manifests be signed somehow?

Applying the (important bits) of the updater-script in META-INF/com/google/android looks like it could be the way to go, but so far I've yet to find the primitives it is using and work out what they do. There is also an updater-binary in the same directory which I have no idea about. Goodness knows why there would be two ways of doing the same thing.

Thanks for your help.
[Android Q&A, Help & Troubleshooting] szty0pa:
It is actually not that difficult, only tedious. Integrity checks are not enforced in our case, at least I never saw working example of it in case of custom ROMs. (I don't actually know how could we make it work? Probably one should calculate a checksum of the image and sign it cryptographically to let TWRP check the validity of it. I don't think this has added security benefit in our case as at least the baseband and probably the proprietary Qualcomm kernel modules already have known RCEs...)

system.new.dat is actually the complete image of the /system partition (which would not fit when you resize that partition).

Resizing is actually pretty easy:

1, you extract system.new.dat somewhere

2, use a tool to convert this 'sparse image' to a normal ext3/4 image

3, with standard linux resize2fs you can resize the 'unsparsed' system image

4, convert the resized image back to a 'sparse' image for TWRP to handle

5, copy the resulting system.new.dat back into the update zip file and you should be good to go.
[Android Q&A, Help & Troubleshooting] Blank tape:
@fweip does sign the md5 hash of the zip file in every release. I've no idea whether TWRP bothers to check the signatures in asc files if they happen to be provided. Probably not, I would guess. In any case, I would guess fwiep's current public key wouldn't be included in TWRP.

As my friend would say, "It keeps the honest people out."

That's a useful clue. However, my version of file (Debian buster/stable) does not identify it as a sparse image. At first, I assumed my version is simply just not up to date but googling system.transfer.list reveals a different sparse image format. I don't know why I didn't google that before.

Thanks for your help. Time to bite the bullet.
[Android Q&A, Help & Troubleshooting] snorhaar:
Hi, I'm trying to unlock the bootloader of a Huawei Y550-l01. Since 2018 I'm guessing developers are trying to gain money to help users to get the unlock key, wich is understandable. Though I like to search for a solution that's asking for more effort and less money. So far it didn't work.

My plan was to get the phone into factory mode and then try to use Potatonv to get the unlock code. But I can't succeed in the first step. Is there any keypress or fastboot command I can use to achieve the same thing?

Any other method I can try?

Thanks in advance,

Wouter
[Android Q&A, Help & Troubleshooting] fwiep:
Thanks to the LineageOS-developers this is today's build containing the April-2021 security patches.

Recent changes: LineageOS 14.1

Kernel: https://github.com/HUAWEI-Y550-Y635/android_kernel_huawei_msm8916/commits/los-14.1

This build has the Wireguard sources built in. I don't plan to build without them - not unless someone reports problems having them included.

Please test the Wireguard functionality. I've tried myself, but the Wireguard app always says: "Go userspace backend" Do I need to have root access or give some special permissions?

Known bugs:

- the WiFi MAC-address sometimes switches between a Huawei-prefix 68:a0:f6 and an Airgo-prefix 00:0a:f5 on reboot

(I've observed this on a Moto G6 with RROS OTA, too - so it's probably a generic custom-ROM issue)

Update: download links have been removed. Please use the most recent ROM, see this link:

Unofficial LineageOS 14.1 (Android 7.1.2) ROM with June-2021 security patches

Kind regards,

FWieP
[Android Q&A, Help & Troubleshooting] fwiep:
No, the .asc-file I provide is meant for you, dear downloaders out there. I learned about GPG signing and this was about the only thing that made sense for me to sign (except my e-mail messages, but that's another story). So, please use it if you can, ignore it if you wish.

Kind regards,

FWieP
[Android Q&A, Help & Troubleshooting] rudolfm:
To use the kernel modules, the Wireguard app needs root. If I deny root, it goes userspace.

Your kernel does not have wireguard. There is no /sys/modules/wireguard when your kernel is running. I would look at the kernel config file whether wireguard is being compiled.

The kernel I mentioned in:

https://xdaforums.com/t/everything-huawei-y550-root-cwm-twrp.2923318/post-84216265

has support, has the /sys/module/wireguard/, and the app says it is using the kernel.

I tested this by flashing the old kernel to your rom posted above. This is the easy way to compare.
[Android Q&A, Help & Troubleshooting] fwiep:
Thank you for your persistent push to look into this. Today I have learned that it is not enough to simply include the Wireguard sources; they have to be enabled, too! Once I modified my kernel config and added "CONFIG_WIREGUARD=y", the module was actually built and included.

Have just tested it with the addonsu package from LineageOS and the Wireguard apk from f-droid. It works!

------

Thanks to the LineageOS-developers this is today's build containing the April-2021 security patches.

Recent changes: LineageOS 14.1

Kernel: https://github.com/HUAWEI-Y550-Y635/android_kernel_huawei_msm8916/commits/los-14.1

This build has Wireguard built into the kernel:

ZIP: lineage-14.1-20210426-wg-UNOFFICIAL-y550.zip

MD5: lineage-14.1-20210426-wg-UNOFFICIAL-y550.zip.md5

ASC: lineage-14.1-20210426-wg-UNOFFICIAL-y550.zip.md5.asc

Known bugs:

- the WiFi MAC-address sometimes switches between a Huawei-prefix 68:a0:f6 and an Airgo-prefix 00:0a:f5 on reboot

(I've observed this on a Moto G6 with RROS OTA, too - so it's probably a generic custom-ROM issue)

Kind regards,

FWieP
[Android Q&A, Help & Troubleshooting] GotoDengo:
Working well for me (without Wireguard). Thanks!
[Android Q&A, Help & Troubleshooting] rudolfm:
Glad to help you help us :)
[Android Q&A, Help & Troubleshooting] fwiep:
Thanks to the LineageOS-developers this is today's build containing the May-2021 security patches.

Recent changes: LineageOS 14.1

Kernel: fwiep/android_kernel_huawei_y550

This ROM has Wireguard support built into the kernel.

Known bugs:

- the WiFi MAC-address sometimes switches between a Huawei-prefix 68:a0:f6 and an Airgo-prefix 00:0a:f5 on reboot

(I've observed this on a Moto G6 with RROS OTA, too - so it's probably a generic custom-ROM issue)

Update: download links have been removed. Please use the most recent ROM, see this link:

Unofficial LineageOS 14.1 (Android 7.1.2) ROM with June-2021 security patches

Kind regards,

FWieP
[Android Q&A, Help & Troubleshooting] fwiep:
Tutorial update

Hello all,

After the may-2021 security patches were merged into LineageOS 14.1, I immediately started the build for our Y550 devices.

It promptly failed saying

SSL error when connecting to the Jack server. Try 'jack-diagnose'.

Thanks to StackOverflow a quick fix was around the corner. Apparently, Ubuntu (or openjdk-8) received an update putting TLSv1 and TLSv1.1 on some sort of blacklist. This fix removes them from that list.

I have edited my build tutorial accordingly. While there, I also revised all hyperlinks and updated, among other things, the local manifest entries.

Kind regards,

FWieP
[Android Q&A, Help & Troubleshooting] fwiep:
Having some spare time, I've given this phone another try. Sadly, I don't get anywhere. :(

Note: I'm still using an SD-card with a complete image pulled from a working Y550 with LineageOS 14.1.

When I put the battery and SD-card into it, it boots to a fastboot-like mode. It says: "PHONE Locked" Error: allocating memory for ssd buffer.

When I remove the battery (keep the SD-card in) and connect it via usb, it boots to fastboot mode. I can see it with 'sudo fastboot devices' and it processes my commands. It still says "PHONE Locked". So I enter 'sudo fastboot oem unlock xxxxxxxxxx', having my original unlock code received from Huawei several years ago. Its response: "Cannot get the valid key! the key is invalid". So I try using the original unlock code from the donor-Y550: same result.

How do I go about doing this? How can I flash partitions when the phone thinks it's locked?

I feel like having all the puzzle's pieces, but being unable to actually put them together. Very frustrating :(. Do you have any advice?

Thanks,

FWieP
[Android Q&A, Help & Troubleshooting] szty0pa:
Uh-oh. The good news is that the bootloader works still but the bad news is that the flash in your phone is indeed physically corrupted/unstable.

At the moment it seems the bootloader lock is activated with a probably random key because of incidentally flipped bits.

I don't know what to do honestly... You could either try to brute-force unlock your phone, but that will only last until the next accidental bit-flip or if you are really desperate you could probably solder out the flash memory from the mainboard and try to get and solder in another one of the same type. I don't think it would worth the hassle though... :(

Sorry for not being able to help, this is a whole new puzzle we don't have the pieces for. :/
[Android Q&A, Help & Troubleshooting] tezzar:
is flashing this onto a rooted Y550 fairly easy? I have a Y550 4G MX that I put CarbonROM onto years ago, it's too old Android 4.4.4 :(... but I forget everything about how I did it so I don't know which guide to use. I'd guess I'll be losing everything on the phone but that's ok.
[Android Q&A, Help & Troubleshooting] fwiep:
Hi Tezzar,

The basic flashing procedure is not that difficult. The tutorial I linked to is for building the actual ROM, see my last post for example.

This thread's first posts are an excellent summary of downloads and instructions.

Unlock the bootloader (in fastboot mode)

Download and flash TWRP as the phone's new Recovery (in fastboot mode)

Boot into TWRP recovery

Download the modem image and flash it

Download the current ROM and flash it

This should give you a Y550 device with an up-to-date LineageOS 14.1 (Android 7.1.2).

Note that there are probably some/many vendor-related security issues - those cannot be fixed by the LineageOS developers (or myself).

If you want root access, you could download the su (arm) 14.1 and flash the LineageOS root add-on.

Good luck and kind regards,

FWieP
[Android Q&A, Help & Troubleshooting] CJROM996:
Hello friend I congratulate you for your great work, I have an error when I want to flash the room "lineage-14.1-20210608-wg-UNOFFICIAL-y550.zip" in Y550 L03, I am using the TWRP 3.5.1_9-0 recovery and the error is the next:
[Android Q&A, Help & Troubleshooting] fwiep:
Hello,

The ROM is specifically built for the Y550 and its variants L01, L02 and L03.

You say you're using a L03, but TWRP doesn't seem to know that. It says "This device is <blank>."

I have never seen such a message. What did you do before trying this flash?

Can you return to stock, then wipe and flash again?

Good luck and kind regards,

FWieP
[Android Q&A, Help & Troubleshooting] pndwal:
& @fwiep

For L02, L03 official twrp gives these errors (seems original Dev was only concerned with L01). For these variants, use last Unofficial TWRP 3.1.1.0, Dec. 16 2017 by desalesouche for flashing. (Swap back to official to see adopted storage, etc.)

I commented about this in this post:

https://xdaforums.com/t/everything-huawei-y550-root-cwm-twrp.2923318/post-77745275

Working link here (Custom Recovery section)

https://xdaforums.com/t/huawei-y550-development.3425524/post-67893946

New thought:

During the years I used Y550 I (and others) battled with lag / instability. I never did consider F2FS loopback bug, but formatted my data partition this way in twrp simply because I could w/ LOS!

I would definitely be trying LOS with original EXT4 formatting now that I understand this bug / problem!

🤠 PW
[Android Q&A, Help & Troubleshooting] pndwal:
Just a thought; I don't recall any problems using Magisk since this:

https://xdaforums.com/t/everything-huawei-y550-root-cwm-twrp.2923318/post-80070420

PW
[Android Q&A, Help & Troubleshooting] pndwal:
Just saw this...

Here's some stuff I posted re DLoad and other emmc fixing methods / utilities... All a bit hazy now... (divide page numbers by 2 for old XDA page references 😉 ):

https://xdaforums.com/t/everything-huawei-y550-root-cwm-twrp.2923318/post-81961393

... Found earlier info; may be useful to scan one next couple of pages from this:

https://xdaforums.com/t/everything-huawei-y550-root-cwm-twrp.2923318/post-76222455

PW
[Android Q&A, Help & Troubleshooting] CJROM996:
I have returned to the TWRP 2.8.7.0 recovery to try to flash your rom but it has failed, I have tried with @desalesouche rom the compilation "lineage-14.1-20170702-y550" and it has flashed correctly, finally I have flashed stock rom of @ HB72K and it has been installed successfully. Model: Huawei Ascend Y550-L03. I assume that it is a Recovery problem, I will try the version 3.1.1 that @pndwal comments and I will report if I have any problem.
[Android Q&A, Help & Troubleshooting] CJROM996:
Indeed it has been a recovery problem, I have flashed TWRP 3.1.1.0, Dec. 16 2017 and the rom was installed without problem:

Report:

- Calls: ok

- Bluetooth: ok

- Wifi: ok, (The file "WCNSS_qcom_wlan_nv.bin" is needed to improve the scope. Place it in the following address in case someone does not know this: / system / etc / firmware / wlan / prima /)

- Gyroscope: ok

- Camera: ok (Photo and video)

- Sound: ok

- Battery consumption: Testing ... (It seems that the consumption has improved)

- Turning on the phone: In 1 occasion I stayed on the Huawei Ascend home screen. (It is solved by removing the battery and restarting it)

- Open Gapps arm 7.1 pico: ok

- Administrative access in developer options: ADB only (There is no Applications option)

- Root: ----

Thank you very much, do you know which file to flash for root?
[Android Q&A, Help & Troubleshooting] pndwal:
Flash Magisk!

Everything you need is here:

https://github.com/topjohnwu/Magisk

👍 PW
[Android Q&A, Help & Troubleshooting] fwiep:
Hi all,

There will be a delay in my building the updated LineageOS 14.1 ROM with june 2021's security patches, although the sources are available. My build machine is not available and will not be for several weeks.

Please feel free to build the ROM by yourself; there is a detailed tutorial available.

I'll be back :)

Kind regards,

FWieP
[Android Q&A, Help & Troubleshooting] fwiep:
Thanks to the LineageOS-developers this is today's build containing the June-2021 security patches.

Recent changes: LineageOS 14.1

Kernel: fwiep/android_kernel_huawei_y550

This ROM has Wireguard support built into the kernel.

ZIP: lineage-14.1-20210803-UNOFFICIAL-y550.zip

MD5: lineage-14.1-20210803-UNOFFICIAL-y550.zip.md5

ASC: lineage-14.1-20210803-UNOFFICIAL-y550.zip.md5.asc

Known bugs:

- the WiFi MAC-address sometimes switches between a Huawei-prefix 68:a0:f6 and an Airgo-prefix 00:0a:f5 on reboot

(I've observed this on a Moto G6 with RROS OTA, too - so it's probably a generic custom-ROM issue)

Kind regards,

FWieP
[Android Q&A, Help & Troubleshooting] GotoDengo:
Thanks again; it works like a charm.
[Android Q&A, Help & Troubleshooting] CJROM996:
Thanks! it worked perfectly.

Here are the steps for root access.

1- Install the magisk apk.

2- Extract the boot.img file that is inside the room .zip and pass it to the phone.

3- Open the magisk application, press install and patch the boot.img file that they passed to your phone, when the process finishes it will be saved in the downloads folder.

4- Enter the recovery TWRP 3.1.1 and flash the boot.img that generated magisk in the downloads folder

5- Restart and enjoy root access!
[Android Q&A, Help & Troubleshooting] pndwal:
You can also just rename .apk to .zip and flash in TWRP, especially on old devices like this. Latest TWRPs also allow flashing Magisk without renaming as .zip. PW
[Android Q&A, Help & Troubleshooting] rudolfm:
Happy new year!
[Android Q&A, Help & Troubleshooting] szty0pa:
Happy new year indeed! :)
[Android Q&A, Help & Troubleshooting] Sign1:
Hi. Just wondering if anyone could point me in the right direction. I have two Model: HUAWEI Y550-L02 both unlocked to any network.

I would like to install a custom ROM as the stock ROM is too clunky. I bought both off Ebay and they are working fine but I cannot find a way to unlock the bootloader or recieve a bootloader code. I emailed HUAWEI with no luck.

Could anyone be kind enough to point me in the right direction on how to either unlock the bootloader or gain the bootloader unlock code to unlock the phones.

Thanks for any help.
[Android Q&A, Help & Troubleshooting] pndwal:
I put this 2 years ago:

Post in thread '[ROM][Official] LineageOS 14.1 for Huawei G620S, Honor 4/4x' https://xdaforums.com/t/rom-officia...huawei-g620s-honor-4-4x.3547682/post-79511456

Y550 unlocking was / is supported by these people, shown as supported in their 'client software '...

I've used them several times in past, but years ago now. You'll need to familiarise yourself with their process... Please report success. PW
[Android Q&A, Help & Troubleshooting] pndwal:
fwiep​

Hope you're well mate! PW
[Android Q&A, Help & Troubleshooting] fwiep:
As @pndwal so quickly pointed out, DC-Unlocker is probably your best / only chance of ever unlocking a locked Y550's bootloader. You have to download their client software onto a Windows machine, create an account, buy some credits, connect the phone to the Windows box and let it do it's thing. I've never actually done it, but it seems to (still) work for other people.

I'm pretty well, thanks. I was pleasantly surprised to get a message in this old Y550-thread of XDA. :)

@Sign1: My most recent ROM for the Y550 can be found in this post, but you will indeed need to unlock the bootloader to run it, first.

Good luck, and please report on your progress!

Thanks,

FWieP
[Android Q&A, Help & Troubleshooting] Sign1:
Many thanks guys. I'll look into this. I brought both phone's for £60 and I quite like them. So this is the only way to unlock the bootloader. I tried this with a cracked DC unlocked software app. Kept reporting unable to connect to server. It took me ages to get the software to recognize the Y550.