yashsingh1/xdaforums huggingface dataset:
[Shield Tablet General] kalinskym:
Do you have to send the old tablet back in the UK? Can I keep both ;)

---------- Post added at 08:10 PM ---------- Previous post was at 07:41 PM ----------

i'm rooted with Kingroot, installed TWRP and I have flashed Blisspop. Does that mean I am safe from the kill being sent to my old device now

---------- Post added at 08:13 PM ---------- Previous post was at 08:10 PM ----------

if I get a notice with the replacement saying send the old one back, should if I told them I have disposed of it

?
[Shield Tablet General] manuel.lopez8a:
Make sure you're using a file explorer with root privileges. Also, I think the method you used to root has some importance. You could try go into recovery and flash the nomoreota zip, or use the file explorer of TWRP to delete the folder.
[Shield Tablet General] matula2k:
So I'm trying to understand because so many people replied without the good information.

If you use the file explorer of TWRP to delete the folder, you are safe right? I mean, you don't need to load a custom ROM for that. As long as the folder is done (And I checked with Es File Explorer), you can keep Android 5.1.1 and Kernel 3.1?

I also can confirm that, Grid is not working anymore on the old tablet since I deleted the folder. I didn't set yet the new tablet, I will try tomorrow.

For people who are afraid about fire issue, I recommend Lipo battery bag like (can link, msg me for info) It work perfectly with my Lipo and safe until you change the battery.
[Shield Tablet General] ferengi4:
Erm, I am using Grid right now on my old tablet.... sooooo I think theirs just something wrong with your tablet in that regard C:
[Shield Tablet General] kalinskym:
Do we have to give our old shield tablet back to Nvidia? Has anyone got confirmation that we don't
[Shield Tablet General] trillo69:
So, anyone who reported a bricked tablet after applying the patch to remove TegraOTA? My new one arrived today, and I would like to keep the old one with the stock rom (I successfully deleted TegraOTA.apk, and updates submenu does not even show anymore).

By the way, I'm in Spain and my letter said clearly "Dispose of this tablet in accordance with local electronic wastes regulations". Returning it to Nvidia is not even an option for me.
[Shield Tablet General] matula2k:
Can you confirm that you removed the folder system? Did you kept 5.1.1? Custom Rom?

Last time I will write this sentence. On the yellow paper from Nvidia, it says: Please dispose of your old device following local e-waste guidelines. You don't need to give back the old shield tablet.

To return to the main thread. Any feedback from your old tablet since you deleted the folder?

Thank you.
[Shield Tablet General] kalinskym:
Anyone in the UK gotten their replacement yet, if so do we have to send it back to Nvidia
[Shield Tablet General] alucard_xs:
so dudes, what is the right thing t do with our old tablet to remove the killswitch ? It seems removing the TegraOTA folder is not enough ... (is there any tuto btw ?)

I have not received the "new" tab but maybe I should do some tricks on my old one (still off for 2 weeks).

Is there a tuto somewhere to remove the killswitch ? My old tablet is on the lastest firmware 5.1.1, not rooted, as brand new out of the box ... any advises ?
[Shield Tablet General] nex86:
No we don't, I got my replacement tablet and there was a note that said to recycle the old one.
[Shield Tablet General] ady702:
I did try Root explorer with when deleting it said its been done but file/folder was still there.

I tried nomoreotazip which has worked now :)
[Shield Tablet General] audavid:
I am from Canada and i just got the new tablet there is a note inside tellling me to dispose of the device. Also Would they be able to deacitve my old device if i keep it in airplane mode?
[Shield Tablet General] Zuzuitu:
I think yes. You should better root, flash custom recovery and flash nomoreota.zip to be sure or flash a custom rom like blisspop!
[Shield Tablet General] mushiki:
1. rooted my device (followed a guide in this forum which uses adb fastboot)

2.manually deleted tegraOTA folder

setup my new tablet, and the old is still up and running, i checked in the link you provided with the serial number of my old tablet and apparently theres NO OTA triggered for my old tablet.

Deactivated auto updates and some nvidia apps (just in case), im still using stock rom i prefer it that way, works great. thanks for your work :)
[Shield Tablet General] Baccoba:
It exists in the world a person who has been off the tablet? or continue to operate all, even those that are completely stock?
[Shield Tablet General] thefiqs:
I'm still waiting in the uk. More than 3 weeks passed. Yesterday I got an email about a parcel (Opus trust marketing) arriwing today by dpd. Finally figured out trough the dpd tracking number it is from nvidia. I will keep you informed.
[Shield Tablet General] ferengi4:
So I have a weird question, that kinda follows with this topic. I just got a popup on my tablet saying "Uninstall This app immediately" for Kinguser. Does anyone know how to disable this popup? Because it wont let you slide it away
[Shield Tablet General] Giunglemax:
How to deactivate auto updates?
[Shield Tablet General] Hellren:
I assume autoupdates in Google Play? After deleting TegraOTA thats probably it.

Odesláno z mého A0001 pomocí Tapatalk
[Shield Tablet General] topcat36:
Anyone from Romania got the new tablet ?
[Shield Tablet General] MrHollow:
[MENTION=392665]topcat36[/MENTION] NOPE! :)
[Shield Tablet General] abzboi:
I think my kill switch is activated because I can't turn it on anymore and computer won't recognize it. Can't get the serial number since the one on the box is not 20 digits.
[Shield Tablet General] Dashwood Foxe:
Strange, My old tablet is still working, days after the first killswitch incident.. I'm on stock firmware (3.1) that's been rooted, custom recovery and kernel. I'm not sure why my old tablet hasn't died yet, it's been a few days since I activated my new replacement (which of course I have reboxed after making sure everything was functioning until such a time warrants me to use my replacement). It could be the fact I factory flashed kitkat prior to activating my replacement and pushed the full OTA through TWRP... Could that be something keeping my old tablet alive?
[Shield Tablet General] Bogdacutu:
As mentioned in the OP, the urgent OTA doesn't get sent out immediately (I have 2 serial numbers from people who have had their new tablets activated for a few days, but who don't have the urgent OTA waiting for them yet)
[Shield Tablet General] Keithn:
Good work, I'm glad you could figure it out. For the most part it was doing about what I expected that they would try. I opened up the TegraOTA.apk a few days ago but I didn't get anywhere with it. Good find for newer/non-defective tablets too.
[Shield Tablet General] tecnoworld:
I applied the zip from cwm. Now i can't find the whole path (system/app/tegraotg). Is this normal? Thx.
[Shield Tablet General] Bogdacutu:
Yes, that's normal (and it's what the ZIP is supposed to do)
[Shield Tablet General] tecnoworld:
Thanks! I thought it would delete just the apk or the inner folder.

Thanks again for your time and efforts.

P.s. a friend asks if with a non stock rom like blisspop he is safe.
[Shield Tablet General] Bogdacutu:
Yes, the TL;DR does say that non-stock ROMs should be safe
[Shield Tablet General] Keithn:
Do you know if the older updater has the capability of pushing "urgent" updates as well? I'd just remove it either way to be sure, but it could explain if the risk is still there for people on older versions.

Also could you tell me what you used to extract the blobs? Thank you.
[Shield Tablet General] Bogdacutu:
It does not, but I wouldn't trust it anyway. For all we know, they might also be pushing this update disguised as a normal Android OTA (they can't install it automatically on older versions, but they can trick you into thinking it's a normal update). For unpacking the blob, I used blobunpack from here: https://github.com/AndroidRoot/BlobTools
[Shield Tablet General] Shorty88jr:
when I flashed this on my tablet I assumed I couldn't get OTA updates anymore correct. Will urgent or non urgent updates possibly be able to create the folder again? If the folder is created again we should run the zip again correct? I really appreciate all the work you have done on this. I have flashed this on my new tablet but not my old one because my old one has bliss pop. I did flash it on my new one because of the security problems.
[Shield Tablet General] sinichi21:
Is there a way to flash the file on a stock unrooted tablet
[Shield Tablet General] Bogdacutu:
You won't be getting any OTAs at all anymore, and TegraOTA won't reappear unless you flash the recovery image, or an OTA, or similar. You'll also have to flash full OTAs from now on if you want to update to newer versions released by Nvidia (and remove TegraOTA again afterwards, although things might change until then, so probably best to wait for someone here to take apart the OTA first).
[Shield Tablet General] tony_man:
If this has broken the bricking then that is brilliant.. :)

Great Work Bogdacutu
[Shield Tablet General] Bogdacutu:
Nope. You need either root so that you can remove it manually through a file manager (somewhat risky if it's connected to the internet), or a custom recovery so that you can use the provided ZIP.
[Shield Tablet General] voyager3:
Flashed the nomoreota with twrp now blisspop is stuck on the loading screen.
[Shield Tablet General] Shorty88jr:
Ok I only did it on my new tablet for security reasons so I should be ok to flash new OTA files right away since I shouldn't have to worry about the kill switch for that one correct?
[Shield Tablet General] Bogdacutu:
You can see what the update does in updater-script inside the ZIP. Unless blisspop has for some reason an essential system app named TegraOTA, I highly doubt my ZIP is to blame.
[Shield Tablet General] Bogdacutu:
Yes, but the OTA will reinstall TegraOTA, so you'll probably want to run my ZIP again afterwards
[Shield Tablet General] Dashwood Foxe:
For those who are bricked, and since the APX drivers are not available.. would running Kali Linux distro or Wheelie help at all? perhaps going dirty with GRUB? save any chance of reviving a dead tablet?
[Shield Tablet General] sinichi21:
So I just need to delete the file right? I do not need to flash any custom recovery just the root the device right? If I may ask what is the path that I need to delete? thank you very much for this finding
[Shield Tablet General] matula2k:
Some questions for you:

Did you activated the new one before doing something on your old?

Did you followed the instruction to delete the folder and/or flash a custom rom?

Let me know

Thank you,
[Shield Tablet General] garrettcorn:
I just had a though today.. Could someone make a twrp recovery that requires the user to enter a password before anything is ever installed? I've removed tegraOTA but would really like a second layer of protection on stock roms.
[Shield Tablet General] Bogdacutu:
fastboot erase recovery
[Shield Tablet General] Mr.Optimistic:
Check this out I received my return box from nvidia and after further investigation the return address is to stericycle which is a disposal facility where hazardous items get sen to be destroyed..So basically nvidia doesn't want them back.
[Shield Tablet General] Bogdacutu:
the replacements came from stericycle too
[Shield Tablet General] Hellren:
You took this photo in a very dark room or so, could you make another one, this time with better lightning? :)

Odesláno z mého A0001 pomocí Tapatalk
[Shield Tablet General] mushikipt:
Yeh the regular google play auto updates.

If nvidia trys to push an update to a nvidia app with some sort of kill switch i want to know first.

to be honest i wanted to kill all nvidia apps, i dont use any of it, but not sure if thats possible without a costum rom.
[Shield Tablet General] kashk5:
I followed the same steps since I also prefer the stock ROM over a CM based one since it has better support for the stylus and Nvidia apps.

The OTA wasn't triggered for me when this fix was first posted, but I just checked again and it looks like the latest OTA version has been triggered for my tablet. I have no intention of sending back this tablet, but I'm still a little worried about it secretly bricking itself despite me applying this fix. I might have to consider deleting the recovery and just using fastboot for everything.
[Shield Tablet General] alucard_xs:
folder TEGRAOTA deleted, what should I do now ?
[Shield Tablet General] matula2k:
Perso I recommend a custom rom to remove all Nvidia APP on your old tablet. But that's my idea, and only mine. If you doing that, you will be not able to use controller (can't confirm yet) and stylus pen (again can't confirm yet, I installed yesterday my custom rom)...
[Shield Tablet General] alucard_xs:
well, it would be sad to lost pen abilities and controller and grid ...

it seems the deleted folder was the key of killswitch following this thread ... right ?
[Shield Tablet General] siggehandf:
Is it possible to whipe the device? Or will that restore the TegraOTA function?
[Shield Tablet General] Bogdacutu:
depends on what you mean by "wipe". doing a factory reset won't touch the system partition, however flashing the recovery image (or similar) will restore TegraOTA
[Shield Tablet General] topcat36:
I just received a mail from nVidia that my new tablet has been shipped. It will arrive next Tuesday.
[Shield Tablet General] mushikipt:
im searching for a method of not allowing any update to the OS (or any that could trigger a kill switch for that matter) without my permission.

Another user also said erasing the recovery will solve the problem ("fastboot erase recovery"

i assume using adbfastboot, but my technical knowlege of android isnt that deep and i dont know the implications of this, can you give a brief explanation please?
[Shield Tablet General] kickbutkuss:
[MENTION=392665]topcat36[/MENTION] Do you mind telling me the date you submitted the recall and if you are in the US? I'm trying to figure out when mine should be here...
[Shield Tablet General] Bogdacutu:
Just got my own tracking number. LTE, Romania, estimated arrival is 01/09
[Shield Tablet General] fixxxer667:
Flashed the nomoreOTA zip on the old tablet, received the new one today (RMA Request @ 1st Aug).

No return required for Germany, so I booted up the new one, did the Full OTA to 3.1, bootloader unlock, recovery flash (TWRP), SuperSU and nomoreOTA.zip again to prevent NVIDIA from messing around with the new tab.

Old serial/ tablet still doesn't appear to be flagged for execution via Bogdacutu's page, but it's looking good, also based on the other reports.

Donated a wee bit, at the very least we owe Bogdacutu a beer for keeping our old tablets from a (more) untimely (and certainly less dramatic / fiery) death :)
[Shield Tablet General] EpicWarcrafter:
So is there a definitive answer to the killswitch? Im running 5.1.1/3.10.33 on both tablets, rooted, unlocked bootloader and flashed the nomoreota.zip to both. I read through most of this thread and I get the feeling there still might be some doubt. I havent done a serial lookup on the old tablet and for the time being I disabled wifi and powered it off. Im going to play the waiting game and follow this thread in the meantime, while using the new one. Also, is there just a vanilla Android 5.1.1 I can flash to the old tablet and not worry about anything? I dont really care about any of the nVidia features, as Ill give the old one to my girlfriend to use. Thanks.
[Shield Tablet General] topcat36:
I submitted the recall on 31 August. I am from Romania.
[Shield Tablet General] Drizzline:
Can anyone give me some noob instructions on how to actually delete the tegraota folder? i am on stock and i just unlocked the bootloader and rooted my tablet. what is next? i downloaded the trwp app and i am stuck now in the sense that i dunno what to do next? what do i do with the nomoreota.zip? some step by step in short would be awesome, thanks!
[Shield Tablet General] mushikipt:
1- first you need to root your tablet

i used this guide in the shield tablet android development "[ROOT] Root NVidia Shield Tablet - Lollipop (also locked bootloader)"

http://xdaforums.com/shield-tablet/development/root-root-nvidia-shield-tablet-lollipop-t2972316

2- then flash nomoreota.zip or simply delete the tegraOTA folder using root explorer or es explorer after root.

(note: if you use es explorer you need to give it root permissions first, theres an option for that)

Done, works for me.
[Shield Tablet General] Drizzline:
I gave root permission to es explorer but am still unable to delete the file. says it cant be deleted. tablet is rooted.

I could try flashing the zip but i forgot how to do that. do i simple put the zip file on the root folder of the tablet and boot into recovery

when i tried booting into recovery with twrp i just got and android laying on his back with a triangle sign on it :eek:

edit: i guess i have to flash a recovery first, thats why i cant get into recovery mode :)

edit2: nvm i figured it out and deleted it by flashing the recovery.img and then installing from zip. The folder seems to be deleted now and i hope it stays that way :)

thanks
[Shield Tablet General] romracer:
I don't mind the OTA app on my new tablet, but I don't like the ability to just download silent updates. That concerns me, especially considering legitimate tablets getting nuked.

I made the attached Xposed module if you're running 5.1.1 that will disable the silent download method. It will also mark "urgent" updates as no longer urgent (thus they will show a notification instead). This means you can theoretically have the OTA app installed on your terminated tablet. But you will have a persistent notification for an OTA available. Screenshot of this on my terminated tablet is also attached (for fun, don't do it on yours, I can't/won't be responsible).

So if you'd like the peace of mind of not having silent updates snuck past you even on your perfectly good tablet, install this Xposed module. I only tested on 5.1.1 by the way.

package biz.underpants_gnomes.android.xposed.mods.nvsilentupdatekiller;

import android.content.Context;

import java.lang.reflect.Array;

import de.robv.android.xposed.IXposedHookLoadPackage;
import de.robv.android.xposed.XC_MethodHook;
import de.robv.android.xposed.XC_MethodReplacement;
import de.robv.android.xposed.XposedBridge;
import de.robv.android.xposed.XposedHelpers;
import de.robv.android.xposed.callbacks.XC_LoadPackage;

public class NVSilentUpdateKiller implements IXposedHookLoadPackage {

@Override
public void handleLoadPackage(final XC_LoadPackage.LoadPackageParam lpparam) {
if (!lpparam.packageName.equals("com.nvidia.ota"))
return;

try {
final Class<?> mClsRomInfo = XposedHelpers.findClass("com.nvidia.ota.utils.RomInfo", lpparam.classLoader);
XposedHelpers.findAndHookMethod("com.nvidia.ota.UpdateCheckService", lpparam.classLoader, "silentDownloadUpdate",
Context.class, mClsRomInfo, XC_MethodReplacement.returnConstant(null));

final Class mClsArrOfRomInfo = Array.newInstance(mClsRomInfo, 0).getClass();
XposedHelpers.findAndHookMethod("com.nvidia.ota.utils.RomInfo.FetchInfoTask", lpparam.classLoader, "onPostExecute",
mClsArrOfRomInfo, new XC_MethodHook() {

@Override
protected void beforeHookedMethod(MethodHookParam param) throws Throwable {
if ((param.args[0] == null) || (Array.getLength(param.args[0]) == 0)) { return; }

Object mRomInfo = Array.get(param.args[0], 0);
XposedHelpers.setBooleanField(mRomInfo, "urgent", false);
}
});
} catch (Throwable t) { XposedBridge.log(t); }
}
}
[Shield Tablet General] thomaswsu:
No recovery

Just to be sure, as long as I do not have recovery I will be safe. Correct?
[Shield Tablet General] Bogdacutu:
[MENTION=2476451]romracer[/MENTION], nice job! an issue though might be that we don't know yet if the urgent OTA has a higher priority than whatever the next Android update will have, so it's possible that you still won't be able to get OTAs with this

also, this gave me a nice idea: we could change the OTA server URL through Xposed (or through /etc/hosts, not sure if patching the APK will work due to signatures) to one that we control ourselves, so that we can still get OTAs when they are released (and not have to worry about urgent OTAs). I can do the server side for this if people are interested

EDIT: now that I think of it, we would need to patch future OTAs too anyway, since you can't really rely on Xposed after an OTA. probably not worth the effort

depends on what you mean by safe. if you've erased the recovery, the update can't get flashed, but I'm pretty sure the tablet will still reboot all the time to try to install the update
[Shield Tablet General] MrHollow:
What the fudge... Nothing for me in Romania -_- i've completed my RMA on August 31st .

[MENTION=4937137]Bogdacutu[/MENTION] [MENTION=392665]topcat36[/MENTION] which courier are they shipping the tablet with? DPD/DHL/UPS ?
[Shield Tablet General] rtfpessoa:
I'm from Portugal and I received a message from UPS and Nvidia about the arrival of my replacement tablet on Friday.

It's coming from UK I think.

Edit: After further investigation I can confirm is coming from Eindhoven, Netherlands.
[Shield Tablet General] Bogdacutu:
UPS, coming from Netherlands
[Shield Tablet General] returntrip:
Wonderful idea...
[Shield Tablet General] :
Hi. I have today my replacement tablet. I put new one on charge (ONLY on charge) and I decided to wipe my old one for my sister. I've done it and my old tablet has been locked, only fastboot is working. Really I don't know why.

Wipe has been made from Settings-Backup&Restore, Reset to factory settings (or what it is in english, I don't remember).

It seems that in old one, recovery, boot, system and data has been wiped. My friend with Shield Tablet has done the same but his one has not been locked.

Any ideas?
[Shield Tablet General] silasje1:
I have two Shield tablets now. The new is B01 and runs latest OTA (3.1). The other is the flameable Y01 tablet which runned stock rom for a few days and they both work. Just to be sure I just flashed blisspop and TWRP. Lets see if they both will work
[Shield Tablet General] Snah001:
When you did a really full wipe of all partitions you have no recovery available so it will stay stuck at black screen.

Though fastboot still works (so it is not "killed") I would recommend to flash latest TWRP over fastboot and after boot into TWRP flash BlissPop rom and after that SuperSu.zip for gaining root. This way it should work.
[Shield Tablet General] romracer:
Almost not worth the time to patch the APK. Signatures don't matter much on /system, but it would have to be patched for each release. And patching apps is what Xposed is for anyway :)

Urgent OTAs do seem to have the highest priority though I can't be certain. The code in onLoaded in the RomInfoListener interface only checks the urgent flag on the first OTA in the array of OTAs returned, rather than iterating over the array. That's probably why.

I considered just removing "urgent" OTAs from the list. This would keep terminated tablets from seeing the "ST - yy" update. But we have no way to know if Nvidia will tag legitimate future updates as "urgent".

I could add a toggle to remove urgent updates from the array with the above disclaimer.

But the intent overall wasn't to ignore urgent updates (though it may make sense on a terminated tablet), only keep them from being installed silently.
[Shield Tablet General] :
Thanks for advice, but I downloaded stock recovery images and now it works. Wipe from Settings erased ALL XD I don't know how but now it's working, no kill switch :)
[Shield Tablet General] Bogdacutu:
when checking for updates on 5.0 (even with serial numbers that are getting the yy update on 5.1), the normal 5.1 OTA is returned, however this might be just because urgent update support was only added in 5.1

I doubt they will mark "big" updates (as in updates that bump the Android version number) as urgent though, as there's not much of a reason to do so, but who knows :)