yashsingh1/xdaforums huggingface dataset:
[Nexus 6P General] Mesmurized:
[MENTION=4153349]Heisenberg[/MENTION] Can you provide your reasoning behind removing the option "fastboot format userdata" from this section? If someone is really trying to 'Return to Stock", doesn't formatting the userdata partition make sense?
[Nexus 6P General] Heisenberg:
I removed that step because I added a step at the beginning to perform a factory reset from the settings menu.
[Nexus 6P General] Heisenberg:
You can't lock the bootloader with a custom recovery installed, there's no way around that. I wouldn't suggest locking it anyway, for a couple of reasons. Firstly, the easiest way to update is by flashing the factory images, which requires an unlocked bootloader. Secondly, if you ever get into a sticky situation with your phone you'd need to unlock it to flash the factory images in order to revive your phone. You may not have access to your data too back it up first so you could potentially lose it all. It's worth just putting up with the warning.
[Nexus 6P General] Mesmurized:
Thanks. Thanks to you and a bunch of friendly xda users, I'm learning every day.
[Nexus 6P General] Heisenberg:
Always glad to help someone who's new to this learn the ropes. Don't be afraid to ask if you have any more questions.
[Nexus 6P General] mobileman88:
Thanks to great people like you and the various devs and users E are all able to learn and share.
[Nexus 6P General] NotEaster:
Alright. Sounds like that's my only real option. Maybe in a while some crafty user will come up with a kernel that removes the message or something similar. Thanks for the advice.
[Nexus 6P General] RohanAJoshi:
Thanks, that's what I was missing..

but now I restored everything from my other device, nearly 30gb data, so is decrypting is really necessary ?

I mean some drawbacks of encryted data ?
[Nexus 6P General] Heisenberg:
It definitely isn't necessary to decrypt. The only real drawback to being encrypted is slower read/write performance.
[Nexus 6P General] RohanAJoshi:
Thanks a lot, I think I will stay encrypted, as I did no saw any slowness till now..

Also, If I decrypt, then after some days want pure stock or flashed stock images, it will be auto encrypted.
[Nexus 6P General] Heisenberg:
That's correct, and when you flash stock it'll auto-encrypt on the first boot, but you get no notification that it's encrypting so many users think they're stuck in a boot loop or something and force-reboot the phone. This interrupts the encryption process and causes a loss of all the data. I usually recommend anyone who is decrypted and wanting to flash stock to encrypt via the settings menu before flashing stock, this way it's already encrypted so the first boot only takes the normal amount of time.
[Nexus 6P General] itsmejson:
I was able to get through steps 1 & 2 - the bootloader unlocked and twrp 2.8.7.2 installed. When I went to restart I did not see anything about declining SU and I briefly saw some text saying that it was installing it?

Once it restarted I am not stuck a bootloop on the animated google balls. How can I get back on track to get this fixed and what might I have done wrong? Thx
[Nexus 6P General] Heisenberg:
TWRP doesn't automatically install SuperSU, you have to actually swipe to install it (and there's a button on the same screen to decline installing it). So you must have acknowledged the install, there's no other way for it to happen. You'll need to flash the system.img for your current build to overwrite and remove the incorrect version of SuperSU that you installed.
[Nexus 6P General] brownchm:
Can you just use the nexus root toolkit to get root?
[Nexus 6P General] Heisenberg:
You could, but I never recommend toolkits. They're known to cause problems, plus you miss out on valuable experience with fastboot, which is what will get you out of trouble in future.
[Nexus 6P General] mobileman88:
Having a strong foundation always helps in troubleshooting. Toolkits might save a little time up front. But they never were good for anytime your experience issues
[Nexus 6P General] jejb:
My Nexus 6P is due in today. I'm getting it from Google. I've rooted a few phones before, am comfortable with the instructions, have ADB setup and running. But I have some questions.

-It seems I will need to be able to edit my build.prop to enable screen mirroring to my Miracast (Screen Beam) device, thanks to Google getting all Apple on us and trying to force us to only use only Chromecast. So I can't use the systemless root method, correct?

-Will the "Traditional" root method (step 7) work on a brand new, never been rooted 6P? I've read threads indicating there are some issues rooting a new phone, that it will hang on one of the boot screens, so want to confirm this before trying.

Seems like a lot of folks are having to do RMA's with these. Will unlocking and rooting right away hinder any of that type of support from Google? On an RMA, do you go back to stock, or just send it in rooted?

Thanks for the guide, Heisenberg. Extremely helpful!
[Nexus 6P General] itsmejson:
Thanks Heisenberg, I was able to get it back up and running. The only thing I've noticed now is

that when I plug my phone into the computer I get the nexus 6p phone icon to show as a device

but when I click on it, it does not show any folders on the internal sd card. USB debugging has

been turned on and I have allow the computer access from the phone. Any ideas on how to get

the folders to show?

If I put phone into twrp recovery I am at that point able to access the sd card from the computer.
[Nexus 6P General] NPOA556:
Did you select "MTP" from the notification that appears when you connect the phone to the PC? Android defaults to charging only when you connect to a computer. You have to enable data transfer from the notification.
[Nexus 6P General] syintiphic:
[MENTION=5086406]brownchm[/MENTION] Heisenberg's guide is great. I've been able to unlock my bootloader and root my device without any issues. I also updated my device to 6.0.1 by following the software update process described in step 10. I'm 2 for 2 using his guide. Initially I was going to use a toolkit. Although most toolkits seem to provide a good method for rooting your phone (in addition to a number of other tasks), I decided to follow the guide. Partly because I wanted to get experience with fastboot and partly because it gave me a little more control of what I was doing with my device.

Just my two cents.

Cheers.
[Nexus 6P General] afaruky:
Hi everyone,

I followed this guide to unlock and root my Nexus 6P. Unfortunately, I locked the bootloader again and used for a month without a problem on stock ROM+kernel.

Now I need to unroot and do factory reset because I'm giving my phone to someone else. I forgot that I locked the bootloader and tried to flash stock rom on fastboot. It failed of course and it got stuck on Google screen during boot. I can still go into TWRP recovery but I cannot do anything else. I tried to unlock bootloader again but the error reads :

FAILED (remote: oem unlock is not allowed). Since it won't boot, I cannot enable OEM unlock in Developer Options.

I tried wipe data + cache, install boot.img but still cannot pass that Google screen. Finally tried to flash the whole image-angler-mdb08l.zip with TWRP but it also failed.

Any ideas? Thanks.
[Nexus 6P General] Badger50:
Sounds like your going to have to fast boot your way back to total stock to get rid of everything you previously did. Did that myself a couple weeks back. Not that big of a deal if you read the instructions carefully :)
[Nexus 6P General] afaruky:
That's exactly what I'm trying to do but as I said my bootloader is locked and I couldn't find a way to flash stock ROM with locked bootloader.
[Nexus 6P General] Badger50:
Oh crap! Sorry I misunderstood. Did you have OEM unlocked checked off in the developers settings before you started all this? If not then someone smarter than me is gonna have to help you. Can you unlock your bootloader again?
[Nexus 6P General] afaruky:
Thanks for the reply but I did not enabled OEM unlock and that seems to be the biggest mistake I've ever made. :(
[Nexus 6P General] Badger50:
Ouch! Bet Heisenburg will get you squared away though. Hang in there bro!
[Nexus 6P General] Edbert:
Stoopid question time...If I root my 6P but do not apply a custom ROM, will I still get OTA updates?
[Nexus 6P General] jejb:
That depends on if you ever make any changes to any of the files in the system directory. If you do the systemless root, you can't update things in the system directory (at least not easily). As long as no changes to system, you can apply OTA's.
[Nexus 6P General] itsmejson:
Yes I did and nothing. Any other ideas?

Another question I had was on previous android devices after root they always said to install busybox. Is this still needed after either doing the systemless root or standard root? I did the systemless root option.

If busybox is required is there specific instructions on installing it correctly?
[Nexus 6P General] Az Biker:
SDK Manager won't open

Just received my 6P last night, anxious to get back into flashing and cust roms after almost a year hiatus running Note 3 w/ Alliance build 2...

I d/l and installed Android SDK and SDK tools to pc as directed in OP.

When I try to open SDK manager, it flashes open then closes immediately (even as admin)

I updated Java to include JDK7, no change. Searches haven't turned up anything...

Running Win 10. Deleted all files, going to red/l and install again.

Any help or suggestions appreciated.
[Nexus 6P General] AntiXeroR:
Are xMod mods working for you with this root?

I can't seem to get them to work, and I did the systemless root, also couldn't convert it to traditional with the terminal emulator, any help?
[Nexus 6P General] crewdawg16:
az_biker,

go to the android-sdk-windows/tools folder and run "android.bat"
[Nexus 6P General] Az Biker:
Thanks for response, it opened first time after re d/l and installing it! Appreciate the help!
[Nexus 6P General] NPOA556:
I know on mine (Windows 10), once I select MTP, the window that had already opened showing an empty drive for the phone storage does not change to show anything. I have to close it and go to My Computer and open the phone storage from there to see the contents of the phone.

No, you do not need busybox for root to work. In fact, Chainfire has been advising against it unless you have a specific need for it.
[Nexus 6P General] Subiegsr:
I was excited to root last night, then realized I don't have a USB A to USB C connector lol. Had to order one on Amazon, won't be here til Sunday now.
[Nexus 6P General] Krunk83:
So this is a bit weird and just happened; The SuperSU app is not showing a grayed out "Enable Superuser" which I've been reading is a way to look and ensure that your root is systemless. With this being said, everything including Android Pay are working fine. Anyone have an idea of why this is? I am running SuperSU 2.64 and su/xbin_bind is deleted.
[Nexus 6P General] jejb:
Just got my new 6P, trying to unlock it. I have ADB installed and working. When I plug in my S5 and run Adb devices, it returns the device info. I also tried the fastboot command, and it worked too. But neither work on my 6P. I have downloaded and installed the "latest_usb_drivers_windows" both through the SDK Manager and manually with device manager. I uninstalled the device from device manager and let it re-create it. USB debugging mode is on, OEM Unlocking is on. I've searched this thread to find most of those fixes, but none worked.

An odd thing is that in device manager, the 6P is listed under "SAMSUNG Android Phone". According to the Google install instructions for the drivers, it should be under Other Devices. Is that the issue and, if so, how do I get it to work?

I have not activated the phone yet, but do have a sim chip in it. Does it need to be activated for ADB to see it?
[Nexus 6P General] Heisenberg:
Return the device to stock if you need to RMA. The traditional root method will work, but you need to ensure that you flash the correct modified boot.img for your build first.

You're pretty much screwed, you can't do anything with a locked bootloader.

You can't take an OTA with root, it won't work. Follow my instructions on how to update.

You get one in the box, it's under where the phone sits.

Your Samsung drivers are probably interfering. All you can do is uninstall them, but then your Samsung won't connect properly.
[Nexus 6P General] slipmeknot:
Is the twrp site down? Cant download the .img file for recovery. Anyone who has another link? Thanks.
[Nexus 6P General] Az Biker:
A million thanks for this tutorial!

I flashed a few devices before the Note 3 (req SafeStrap, no kernels, etc) and forgot how much fun adb is!

Followed this guide to the letter, up and running first time!

Very accurate, very easy, and very painless!

Thanks again!

Can't get you before Christmas, but WILL before New Year!
[Nexus 6P General] Heisenberg:
Here's a temporary mirror:

https://drive.google.com/file/d/0B98G0KTJwnBFc292S1VOSERQbjg/view?usp=docslist_api
[Nexus 6P General] Heisenberg:
Thanks for the feedback! Always a pleasure to know I've helped someone.
[Nexus 6P General] force70:
You've helped like a ton of someone's including me :D

Sent from my Note 5, Note 4 or Nexus 6
[Nexus 6P General] Subiegsr:
Damnit, I forgot all about that. Time to return it. Thank you!
[Nexus 6P General] jejb:
Still dead in the water. I nuked the Samsung stuff and it's not coming up as a Samsung device now. But it's coming up in Device Manager now in two places. The ADB Interface under Other devices, and Nexus 6P under Portable Devices. I can at least navigate to the phone from my Win7 Pro laptop now and see the files on it, but ADB and Fastboot just don't see it.

The phone is activated now. I let it OTA to 6.01. I've rebooted the PC several times after driver changes, reinstalled the "lastest_usb...." drivers again manually and with the SDK manager. Very frustrating just to get the device recognized!

Any advice would be appreciated. I hate to give up on this phone before we really even get started.
[Nexus 6P General] Heisenberg:
I really don't know. I don't use Windows, I run a Linux box and you don't need drivers for Linux. Hopefully someone else here can chime in. You could always create a bootable Linux usb drive and do it that way.
[Nexus 6P General] azsl1326:
I have similar listing in device manager, but it looks like my pc has found the drivers for ADB. Have you tried install/updating the drivers for the ADB Device?
[Nexus 6P General] remydlc:
When i first got my phone, somehow i thought it was bad cuz something i did, cant recall, system update perhaps? but whatevs, thing is the Google support agent told me that if I did a factory reset on my phone after it had a password and whatnot I had to wait 72 hours!!!!! to gain access to it again. I hope thiis is the problem you have and you can recover your phone after 3 days. I dont think it is all lost. and good luck.
[Nexus 6P General] mobileman88:
You should have a set of it with your phone?
[Nexus 6P General] Az Biker:
I know you're NOT gonna like this, but it seems like you've tried just about everything. I'm new to the 6P but troubleshooting is troubleshooting regardless of the device.

My suggestion is to delete EVERYTHING from your PC related to adb, SDK, drivers, anything to do with rooting and flashing android.

Go back to square 1, and follow the OP step for step. I know it sounds rudimentary, but honestly, what else is there for you to try?

I had trouble getting ADB to see my device at first, and did this exact thing, and went smooth as silk the next go around.

Besides, you know you're in it for the flashing and challenge :p
[Nexus 6P General] Soulfly3:
this may sound strange.... but just TRY another cable, if you have one.

99% isnt the issue, but who knows?
[Nexus 6P General] jejb:
Thanks for all the suggestions. None of them worked, but I still appreciate it.

I did get it working finally. I followed the instructions in this thread to install the 6P drivers and adb drivers. I don't know which of the two steps made it start working. After I got it being recognized by the ADB Devices command, I uninstalled and re-installed the SDK recommended in the first post of this thread. And I only used the adb and fastboot files in that SDK directory to unlock, install TWRP, etc. All seems well at this point. And the Huawei app on my computer might prove useful. Not sure on that yet.

I'm one step away from rooting. Holding off until I do some more basic testing of the phone for signal strength, calling, casting, etc.
[Nexus 6P General] slipmeknot:
Thanks a lot :) just wondering though do you happen to have a md5 hash for this? Haven't tried it yet is it about 17mb?
[Nexus 6P General] Heisenberg:
MD5: c5d2eecfa70dbdf962a49042493358c6

Size: 16.48MB

Sent from my Nexus 6P
[Nexus 6P General] jackpollard:
Hello and thanks for a great guide. I hesitated to unlock and finally bit the bullet and have had an issue that I can't seem to get around.

I unlocked the bootloader, no issue. When I loaded twrp, I was not sure if I should make it read only, so I choose allow write. I rebooted the bootloader and then when I booted up for the 1st time, I got the "Your device IS corrupted..." OK, no prob, I restored everything back to stock and got the expected "Your device may be..." but no twrp! No matter how many times I flash it, when I go back into recovery, its gone, replaced with the stock recovery.

So, I reset back to factory, flashed everything back to stock and tried again, same issue. If I choose write to system, I get the "IS corrupt" message, if I say no, I get the "MAY be corrupt", but my recovery is always gone? Any suggestions would be welcome!

There is 1 other odd symptom, when I take the OK to write to system, I get the message about installing SU when I go to reboot and I'm in TWRP, if I take the "do not write" I don't get that message.

So I finally was able to solve this issue; it seemed once I flashed SuperSU V2.62 I was able to keep twrp and not have the "IS corrupt" message. I booted into bootloader, flashed twrp, booted back into bootloader, then flashed the SuperSU zip.
[Nexus 6P General] srqrob:
Not only another cable but I've often succeeded just by moving the same cable to another USB port on the same computer. That's now my first and usually successful move when I have any recognition problem.
[Nexus 6P General] tfly212:
My boot loader is unlocked but I returned to stock (including recovery)to get AirWatch MDM to function. Stock sucks and i want to see if systemless root plus some of the xposed root cloaking modules might allow me to use Airwatch with root.

2 questions:

1. Does flashing TWRP via ADB wipe the device (doesnt seem like it from the instructions, but wanted to confirm)?

2. If I end up having to unroot, will that wipe my device?

Thanks!
[Nexus 6P General] Mesmurized:
1. No. You're only touching the recovery partition.

2. No - as long as you don't wipe or format userdata.
[Nexus 6P General] Masikj:
Thanks.
[Nexus 6P General] wilflare:
I'm coming from a Note3 to a Nexus6P

so there's no need for me to use apps like Mobile Odin Pro or Flashfire to flash new firmware updates (or OTAs)?

is it possible to just flash the OTA.zip files (and keep root)? or do I have to re-root/re-install SuperSU every single time I update?
[Nexus 6P General] sirxdroid:
You need to re-root, but with Nexus devices these are all trivial tasks if you can use adb and fastboot from the command line. No need for helper tools, though they do exist.
[Nexus 6P General] alexandruvlad:
First of all - thanks a lot for this guide and happy to be here!

Any clue on how to remove those pesky warning messages that appear on boot with "your device isn't locked" / your device is corrupt - please lock your boot-loader ?

Really annoying somehow. Makes you feel like something wrong has been done by tinkering with your device :P

Thanks a lot and regards
[Nexus 6P General] Heisenberg:
There's nothing you can do shabout it unfortunately.
[Nexus 6P General] jackpollard:
From all I have read, the initial "Your device may be ....." Is not possible to get rid of, if your unlocked, its there.

However if it says that first, then it shows "Your device IS corrupt ..." while I've not heard anyone say they have seen any issues, it seems that may be a problem. When I unlocked and tried to put in custom recovery, I kept getting that; "IS corrupt.." Error and frankly I was a bit worried. I spend all yesterday morning trying to fix it and after reading Heisenberg's comments to someone else who asked a similar question, I solved my issue. After I flashed twrp, then rebooted into bootloader, I did the systemless root, I had not been dong that and that did work for me.

Like I said, I've not read of anyone having issues with the "IS corrupt", but I was worried until I fixed it.
[Nexus 6P General] alexandruvlad:
Yep, i'm getting the red Alert sign + "is corrupt" message.

All i did was

1. Unlock OEM / flash unlock

2. Wiped userdata

3. Flashed SuperSU (here's the problem, i guess) - didn't do the systemless root like you say

4. Now i tried to reboot into system (didn't wipe the system partition) and i'm stuck at the Android colored dots animations there.

Any suggestions? Thanks a lot

PS : Returning / Flashing a Factory Image, hopefully this will clear things out.

I'm really bummed as i can't move any files to internal storage using TWRP and need to be able to boot into Android for this - but is that even possible ?
[Nexus 6P General] Az Biker:
If you go to the link that is shown when the warning comes up, you'll get an explanation of each of the three diff colors. Basically, if YOU unlocked your bootloader, it's just telling you the factory protection/security from harmful software (roms, kernels, etc) has been removed.

Not to worry unless YOU didn't unlock your BL :D
[Nexus 6P General] pdgpereira:
If I understood you correctly, you are talking about 2 different subjects.

1) The unlocked bootload reboot message is not an issue. Just google saying you're kind of being "noddy". The ROM should work fine.

2) If you're stuck at the google animated dots, that could be a sign that you installed the superSU that TWRP suggested (it will suggest even if you just installed your own zip / there is a bold note at the OP to warn about that). If this is the case, you can sideload the superSU via ADB and it will fix that.
[Nexus 6P General] ElGuedez:
Somebody help me,

I'm following this tutorial step by step properly but I'm having a problem.

When checking if the fastboot is working, the command prompt simply doesn't react while the adb works perfectly. I've the developer options enabled (OEM and USB debugging), the drivers updated but the problem persists.. Don't know what else to do.

Thank you
[Nexus 6P General] Az Biker:
Make sure you are in the same folder as fastboot, but not "highlighting" a file within that folder when open command prompt.

I was initially doing that and had the same issue unitl I clicked on a blank part inside that folder then command prompt worked perfectly. Hopefully this is the same thing you are experiencing.
[Nexus 6P General] honki24:
I get a weird issue where I have root and the xposed installer app but as soon as I install the xposed framework via TWRP (ARM64 v79) I no longer have root, my xposed app disappears. Also what's odd is when I use the zip to get rid of the xposed framework my phone initializes like 70 apps... But after flashing the xposed framework zip my phone initializes more like 120 apps! Where are these extra 50 apps coming from? Everything was working fine for a while then my phone froze and Now I have this issue. Any way to totally remove all remnants of xposed?
[Nexus 6P General] Heisenberg:
Which SuperSU did you flash?

What OS is on your PC? Which drivers do you have installed?

I'm not sure why there's a difference in the number of apps being optimised. You can flash the system image from the factory images for your current build to remove Xposed.
[Nexus 6P General] azsl1326:
Is it possible to flash back to 6.0.0 from 6.0.1?
[Nexus 6P General] Mesmurized:
Sure. Just download the factory image you want to flash, extract the files and use the Return to Stock guide in Post #1.