yashsingh1/xdaforums huggingface dataset:
[AT&T Samsung Galaxy S 5] pariahXDA:
Made the mistake of getting the G870A without double checking my assumption that a 3 year old phone would be rootable.

Tell me - should I hold out for a solid root method or should I just toss it back and get a G900T instead? I'm totally willing to wait it out if there is work being actively done, and I'm down to help out in whatever way I can, be it testing or digging into code. I can't say I'm fluent with RE but it's always been a hobby, and the thought of letting AT&T win seriously pisses me off too. Still got my CM S3 as a backup too.
[AT&T Samsung Galaxy S 5] AptLogic:
Hey everyone, I'd like to apologize for my extended absence of 7 days :p

Yes you can use this method. It currently works on ALL G900A firmware versions!

Get a G900T, or better yet dump Samsung entirely and get a OnePlus or Honor.

Again, the method works on ALL G900A versions ;)

Just some extra news for you guys, I got an email from Samsung with a survey for the Insights Program, so I may or may not end up testing a Galaxy S8. This of course will not affect the planned development schedule for the S5, as I will not be starting S8 development until after I've completed the 12-month Insights testing period, and by then main support for the S5 will be over anyways. Can't wait to test it, though!
[AT&T Samsung Galaxy S 5] NavSad:
Oh sounds cool. Do you sign up to get the email or Is it random? I'm also back.
[AT&T Samsung Galaxy S 5] AptLogic:
I emailed Samsung a couple months ago and this happened... So I guess it's random :p

Welcome back by the way!
[AT&T Samsung Galaxy S 5] NavSad:
Do you know the email you can email for asking into the program?
[AT&T Samsung Galaxy S 5] AptLogic:
samsunginsights@sta.samsung.com

Don't expect an immediate reply, I sent my request in September of last year and didn't get a reply until 3 days ago.
[AT&T Samsung Galaxy S 5] HakanBa:
thanks bro.
[AT&T Samsung Galaxy S 5] Geeunit:
so, no custom recovery?
[AT&T Samsung Galaxy S 5] AptLogic:
First off, please don't quote the whole OP, it clogs the thread ;)

Secondly, no custom recoveries as of yet :( sorry!
[AT&T Samsung Galaxy S 5] Geeunit:
Sorry about that !! Also, what about ROM flashing?
[AT&T Samsung Galaxy S 5] AptLogic:
We can use FlashFire to flash compatible ROMs... Unfortunately that means no aosp or all the nice things. But hey, AptOS is almost at release stage so that's a plus.
[AT&T Samsung Galaxy S 5] Geeunit:
Very nice. This has been my favorite daily device due to upgraded battery & overall great performance. Granted I have not tried many, & this note 4 root/flashing tho successful, is bogging my life.
[AT&T Samsung Galaxy S 5] AptLogic:
Thanks for cropping down your other post ;)

If I were you, I'd ditch Samsung next time around and buy a different brand phone that actually unlocks their bootloaders.

Unlocked bootloader = minimal headaches.
[AT&T Samsung Galaxy S 5] Geeunit:
I concur, however i am finding it incredibly difficult to find a nice list of similar devices that arent $400 (unless absolutely killer device/deal) with options for an extended battery & SDcard which is SUPER important.
[AT&T Samsung Galaxy S 5] AptLogic:
Yeah the removable battery probably won't happen. However, the Honor 8 is on sale for less than 300usd on Amazon and Walmart so that looks like a pretty good value given the price.
[AT&T Samsung Galaxy S 5] NavSad:
BTW, Is there anything specific that you have to say in that email. Also I heard something about the program requiring a referral.
[AT&T Samsung Galaxy S 5] AptLogic:
I basically just said "I want in" (but in a more professional manner lol)

The referral isn't required, but it increases your chances of getting in the program.
[AT&T Samsung Galaxy S 5] AptLogic:
Happy to help! :)
[AT&T Samsung Galaxy S 5] samccfl99:
The email address I use is [MENTION=419115]sea[/MENTION]., not [MENTION=552516]sta[/MENTION]..

I got 2 surveys in 2016 that I got thru email communication with them and they never accepted me, but I did not lie at all, probably should have fudged some of the questions. Who knows how they choose. I sent also one on 09/20/2016 and got the automated response on 09/22, but no survey. I just sent one of 04/03/2017 and did not even get an automated email yet.

I would love a free S8 even if it was not a G950-F (5.8"), which is now around $830 new on ebay. G935-F's should be going down now that the S8 is on sale. I saw $530, but it is going down. So expensive...

---------- Post added at 02:26 PM ---------- Previous post was at 02:13 PM ----------

So I have tried to nail this down many times before. I still have no need to go to OF1 and go forward, BUT if you Odin OF1 and root, won't you be able to install SafeStrap? I think that answer is yes, BUT when you go to rooted OF3, will you still be able to Use NCEFlasher and then will it boot into SS with the OA1 kernel? and if it does, the next question will be is, what flashable kernel should you flash before leaving SafeStrap to reboot, if even possible?

I know Safestrap is an old tool and FF pretty much does everything it does, but older versions of FF would not change some permissions on some roms, probably depending on how the zip was put together.

Still humming on my original S5 from 06/2014, rooted in 10/2014. I am itching for a new phone, but still no money, but the Honor has no Sdcard (need one of those) and that UMI Super looked nice, but original development is lacking. G935-F on Superman rom with the dark theme would be the best for me. Cheaper and removable battery would be heaven (never happening for the battery...sad).
[AT&T Samsung Galaxy S 5] AptLogic:
If anyone is wondering.. I just tried MultiSystem on my phone and it doesn't work at all... I thought I would be able to at least dual-boot to TWRP or something.

"Supported on the AT&T Galaxy S5" pff.

On the other side of the spectrum, however...

MultiROM has come out for the S5. Of course, that's not the part I'm interested in, the cool part is that MultiROM uses KEXEC, and it took me all of 5 seconds to pull the kexec binary out of the MultiROM zip.

Now all that remains to be done is getting kexec to WORK... *unenthusiastic woo*
[AT&T Samsung Galaxy S 5] taadow1030:
Hope springs eternal. In any case, we appreciate all that you have done and continue to do to improve our phone.
[AT&T Samsung Galaxy S 5] awliya:
I'm having an issue with step 1.

I have a G900A.

I am using ODIN 3.12.3 if that matters.

Once I finish booting, I get "Unknow Error" and the center of my screen says "POWER RESET or UNKNOWN UPLOAD MODE"
[AT&T Samsung Galaxy S 5] AptLogic:
Try going back into download mode and flashing again, sometimes a poor connection can corrupt the installation.
[AT&T Samsung Galaxy S 5] awliya:
I was able to boot before my phone made a very loud beep and entered

"Kernel Panic"

KRAIT INFO

LR is at notifier_call_chain+0x38/0x68

Panic caller " die+0x1f0/0x258

Panic Msg: Fatal exception

Thread : resetreason:2274

:0x0
[AT&T Samsung Galaxy S 5] AptLogic:
Hmm... that's DEFINITELY not normal! I think the issue is out of our control. Try flashing OI5 from the second post and see if that boots up. If it does, try flashing OF1 again.
[AT&T Samsung Galaxy S 5] AptLogic:
So I may need someone with extensive knowledge of Assembly/IDA/that jazz for this lead...

According to http://bits-please.blogspot.com/2016/06/trustzone-kernel-privilege-escalation.html our systems are vulnerable to an interesting exploit that uses QSEE to gain arbitrary code execution in the TrustZone kernel, which is a very low-level utility and one of the first things to come up when the phone boots.

Seeing as the TrustZone (may) store firmware verification data, what if we were to use this ability to REWRITE the public key for firmware verification and replace it with a key that has a publicly-available private key. Doing this should let us sign our own firmwares, kernels, recoveries, etc, and would even allow us to simply flash G900F firmware and unlock the bootloader.

The exploit code is readily available, what's stopping us from looking into this?
[AT&T Samsung Galaxy S 5] sonofbry:
wow this is so tedious

So I'm running 5.0 on my smg-900a. I don't want to flash a custom rom. I just want root access to this firmware. Is this possible? If not what steps should I take to get this darn thing rooted? Please respond thanks in advance :confused:duh
[AT&T Samsung Galaxy S 5] GetSet:
Freedom At Last!

This is my first time post on XDA ever! I have to say thanks to everyone here for a lot of hard work. I followed the instructions in Post 1 and got my phone rooted! This is after years of fighting off pesky messages trying to lure me into an OTA. So I kept my phone on OF2 as best I could in almost vain hopes that a root method would turn up someday, and the day came. I wanted to thoroughly know what I was doing, so I scanned through ALL 161 PAGES OF THE THREAD. I was a little foggy on rooting :confused:, since it had been a couple of years since I rooted my last phone. Anyone care to guess why? Hint: I got my G900A a year and a half ago.

A few extra things to note:

•	I would strongly suggest using Helium to back up first. It backed up the app data for at least 3/4ths of my apps, even without root (there are relatively few apps that it doesn’t handle). After restoring the app data later, most apps work seamlessly just like they did before I backed them up.

•	I didn’t know whether the version of ODIN made any difference. I downloaded version 3.11.1 from the link in post #2. Version 3.11.1 seems to be mentioned several times throughout the thread. When I flashed the AP I just left all the other options set to the defaults (with REBOOT and RESET TIME enabled). Everything went well with this version of ODIN.

•	I made note of arrmo’s post #1555 that says when using FashFire, you select "Flash ZIP or OTA", not "Flash firmware package".

•	After flashing the No-Ship OF3, it wasn’t long before I noticed it was starting to download an OTA update without asking! That alone made it worth the time reading through all the posts previously. I found post #1130 and followed AptLogic’s instructions for disabling the OTA update via ADB. By the way, this fix seems to persist after reboot :o.

I expected that this procedure would trip Knox, but to my surprise it still looks like it hasn’t been tripped (Phone INFO app says 0x0).

Thanks again for helping me use my phone again the way I always wanted to use it. This has been a long time coming.
[AT&T Samsung Galaxy S 5] NavSad:
Well we need to start out with QSEE one first and then move to the TrustZone one. I tried the QSEE one and it fails. But I think with a couple of modifications, it could work.
[AT&T Samsung Galaxy S 5] AptLogic:
Well if we only need a couple modifications that's really good news. Brings us ever closer to a bootloader unlock being a reality.
[AT&T Samsung Galaxy S 5] NavSad:
I tried this and it gave me this:

There was a temporary problem delivering your message to samsunginsights@sta.samsung.com. Gmail will retry for 47 more hours. You'll be notified if the delivery fails permanently.
[AT&T Samsung Galaxy S 5] AptLogic:
Yeah then try samsunginsights@sea.samsung.com
[AT&T Samsung Galaxy S 5] Joeohoh:
I really want to get rid of gapps and use microg instead, out of the few roms that we can flash does any of them support this?

I believe they need to support signature spoof for this.
[AT&T Samsung Galaxy S 5] AptLogic:
Any progress on the QSEE exploit?
[AT&T Samsung Galaxy S 5] NavSad:
Not yet, you mean the modifications?
[AT&T Samsung Galaxy S 5] nthacks:
Does this method work on AT&T S5 which is having the latest official update installed? (6.0.1)

Or is it only for those who didn't update?
[AT&T Samsung Galaxy S 5] AptLogic:
This currently works for all versions.
[AT&T Samsung Galaxy S 5] nthacks:
Thank you! I'm new to Samsung sorry for the noob questions.

Is it possible to backup everything beforehand using Odin or something in case something gets borked?
[AT&T Samsung Galaxy S 5] AptLogic:
You can use Helium from ClockworkMod to back up anything you want backed up. Just remember to back it up somewhere safe, and not the internal storage!

https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.koushikdutta.backup&hl=en
[AT&T Samsung Galaxy S 5] nthacks:
Thanks but I mean is there any way to do a nandroid backup or something? I've heard safestrap recovery doesn't work in lollipop.

My phone is also carrier unlocked, does flashing any of these things revert that?
[AT&T Samsung Galaxy S 5] xdanilva:
[MENTION=7148782]nthacks[/MENTION] Nandroid backups don't work on marshmallow either as you would need to be rooted to get safestrap which you can't do on marshmallow.
[AT&T Samsung Galaxy S 5] carmonben:
Just want an update

Is there any way to get 6.0.1 with root?

Is it possible to get 7.0?
[AT&T Samsung Galaxy S 5] technohunter123:
No it is not at this time. AT&T really looked the BL to oblivion on this phone.
[AT&T Samsung Galaxy S 5] nthacks:
What do I do if I get a bootloop or something?
[AT&T Samsung Galaxy S 5] xdanilva:
Well reinstall it all over again

---------- Post added at 05:07 PM ---------- Previous post was at 05:02 PM ----------

Do the process all over again
[AT&T Samsung Galaxy S 5] khakiman:
hey guys i just picked up a g900a i am wondering what path i should take to customize this thing as best i can. so it says my version is 5.1.1 and baseband version is G900AUCU4COI5 Kernel version 3.4.0-5869384 dpi@SWHD4323 #1 BUILD LMY47X.G900AUCU4COI5 Knox 2.4

can anyone recommend me which firmware/bootloader/kernel/root to get me started? thanks for any info!
[AT&T Samsung Galaxy S 5] AptLogic:
All you really have to do is follow the guide in post 1.
[AT&T Samsung Galaxy S 5] khakiman:
ok good deal thanks
[AT&T Samsung Galaxy S 5] naelstrof:
I recently Odin flashed v6.0.1, with bootloader and all to fix a touch screen issue I was having.

Retracing my steps to get rooted again, I get stuck at step 3. (Just getting the stock rooted rom running) I keep running into a screen that says

I've repeated steps 1 through 3 repeatedly, with little variations to always get stuck on step 3. Did I mess up my system permanently by installing the updated firmware?
[AT&T Samsung Galaxy S 5] AptLogic:
Flash the OF3 kernel in ODIN
[AT&T Samsung Galaxy S 5] naelstrof:
Wow thanks for the quick reply! I'll let you know if that works.
[AT&T Samsung Galaxy S 5] naelstrof:
Figured it out, I was accidentally installing "G900A_OF3_Stock_Rooted_ROM.zip" instead of "G900A_OF3_Stock_Rooted_ROM-from-noship.zip" for step 3. My bad.

Works great now, flashing the OF3 kernel from your android file host didn't help since it was the wrong rom in the first place!
[AT&T Samsung Galaxy S 5] khakiman:
is there a difference between this This modified "from-noship" pre-rooted OF3: https://www.androidfilehost.com/?fid=673368273298933039 from step 3 of rooting

AND

this Download the G900A_OF3 pre-rooted stock ROM from here: https://www.androidfilehost.com/?fid=24052804347788226 from step 1 of custom rom

i feel like i am flashing the same thing twice in a row
[AT&T Samsung Galaxy S 5] davidalindsey:
I think the first one is the engineering firmware??
[AT&T Samsung Galaxy S 5] AptLogic:
Instead of just installing the system and the kernel, like the pre-rooted stock ROM, the modified one reinstalls EVERYTHING that's included in the OF3 ODIN files, as well as the modified system. This is done to prevent you having to go into ODIN and flash all the stock partitions yourself.

Without doing this, the phone would not boot.
[AT&T Samsung Galaxy S 5] khakiman:
ok thanks again! i got alliance to install! pretty pumped.
[AT&T Samsung Galaxy S 5] pinheaD420:
I don't think the first one (eng fw) is prerooted pretty sure when I went through all this that you had to root the first one to install ff to be able to flash second one ....
[AT&T Samsung Galaxy S 5] AptLogic:
The engineering firmware is not pre-rooted, I believe he was talking about the from-noship firmware that you flash afterward.
[AT&T Samsung Galaxy S 5] taadow1030:
Is there a way for a novice to create a flashable zip (using flash fire) of a debloated 6.01 ROM (though not to the extent of X-ROM) ? My idea would be to install the universal performance mod in the init d folder. Then, I would have an updated (though unrooted) OS that would be very fast and have long battery life. Is this possible?
[AT&T Samsung Galaxy S 5] AptLogic:
I think it could be possible, but I think it would be a good idea to try to get that working on 5.1.1 first just to see if its possible.
[AT&T Samsung Galaxy S 5] lingo2012:
This threads came along way since discovering root. Awesome job bro
[AT&T Samsung Galaxy S 5] taadow1030:
If I do it, might as well go for the gusto with marshmallow. Either way, if I fail, I would have to start from scratch. I think the steps would be:

Flash stock ROM via Odin

Run debloater script via ADB

Install Universal init.d app from the Play Store

Add (via ADB ?) performance mod and perhaps divine beats

Am I missing anything?
[AT&T Samsung Galaxy S 5] AptLogic:
Thanks! Wouldn't have been possible without everyone :)

Well the problem with that would be that you can't debloat much on an unrooted system. My advice would be to unpack the system image, strip stuff out and add what you want, repack the image, and then create something like a from-noship zip to flash over OF3 in FlashFire. Because if you want to pull this off you have to overwrite everything

with Marshmallow.
[AT&T Samsung Galaxy S 5] taadow1030:
Wow, I didn't realize my idea would have such a high level of difficulty. Thanks as always for advising. You are a tremendous asset to our XDA community!
[AT&T Samsung Galaxy S 5] AptLogic:
Happy to help! I might try seeing if a Marshmallow-based AptOS without root is feasible... if you guys want it I'll try :)
[AT&T Samsung Galaxy S 5] taadow1030:
I really appreciate the offer. I read your update in the AptOS thread and encourage you to continue instead with your outside endeavors. I'm not sure if there is enough interest among users for a non-root version of any ROM. I just wanted a fast, updated, themed (via Play Store themes) ROM with the latest Google goodies that are open to only the latest OS version (like Google Assistant). I'll just be satisfied with what we currently have with Lollipop and will continue to tweak my current setup as new discoveries are made. Thanks again!
[AT&T Samsung Galaxy S 5] AptLogic:
Hey here's an idea... what if we use the fact that APKs in the /system/priv-app directory have system-level privileges to persistently root Marshmallow?

What I think we would have to do is write an app that runs at startup, mounts the system r/w, inserts the su binary, and then mounts the system ro again. The fact that this is a system app with system-level privileges should bypass SELinux restrictions since its running within its own context, right?

Calling all smart people to tell me if this is doable or not (or better yet we can just implant the code to actively root the system in a pre-existing app like the SystemUI)

Also: updated my signature pic.. the old one was pretty bland and I wanted to do something cool for hitting my 1100th post! :3
[AT&T Samsung Galaxy S 5] taadow1030:
I really wish I was one of the smart ones you speak of. Lol Can the Universal unit.d app serve a useful purpose? Or perhaps Magisk, since it is system less root? Can they or a script be placed in the system privapp folder?

One other idea: perhaps you may wish to post your feedback call out in the Galaxy S5 subreddit. You would quickly gain vast exposure in an international community.
[AT&T Samsung Galaxy S 5] AptLogic:
What we can do is wrap a shell script into an apk and have it execute using an init.d script at boot. That's how they did it with Safestrap except they put a user interface in it.

Magisk is completely out of the question though because it's Systemless, which would mean it will tamper with the boot image breaking chain of trust resulting in a brick.
[AT&T Samsung Galaxy S 5] taadow1030:
I'm not sure if you saw my edit, but what about posting your idea on Reddit?
[AT&T Samsung Galaxy S 5] AptLogic:
Yeah sorry didn't see it until now... I'll see about putting it on Reddit sometime tomorrow. Hopefully we can get something working. :)
[AT&T Samsung Galaxy S 5] taadow1030:
Your ideas sound feasible to an admitted novice, but I just worry about the possibility of an unrecoverable brick. The three other phones I've owned (Htc Evo, Note 1 and Moto G 2013) all had unlocked bootloaders. This is a whole new world for me, but that's why I'm grateful to you for your root method and easy to follow outline.
[AT&T Samsung Galaxy S 5] AptLogic:
Don't worry... The most something like this could do is a soft brick since all its doing is changing parts of the system partition. All the critical stuff (bootloader, recovery) is not being touched.

The only time I've come close to a hard brick on this phone was my attempt to flash the full Cricket firmware onto the device.

Edit: now attached is a flowchart for further understanding :)
[AT&T Samsung Galaxy S 5] wachiramwangi:
hello everyone. thanks you all folks for this great tutorial. i was wondering if there is another mod that has been tested like cynogen...thank you again
[AT&T Samsung Galaxy S 5] nthacks:
I know this is a stupid question but, if this was possible, would any changes done to the system by root apps and everything be persistent across boots? Wouldn't it mess up some check and stop it from booting?
[AT&T Samsung Galaxy S 5] AptLogic:
Well this is all new territory that we're in right now... I think it would depend on what the root is used for but ultimately we have to wait and see what happens.
[AT&T Samsung Galaxy S 5] taadow1030:
I'm just hypothesizing, but for such a root method to work, perhaps the root apps would also need to be in the system folder as well? I'm guessing (hoping) that we would have limited root. That still would be colossal, as we are already used to operating on a somewhat limited basis when compared with versions that have an unlocked bootloader. Still Marshmallow, with improved sound, speed tweaks and no bloat ware would much better than stock AT&T.
[AT&T Samsung Galaxy S 5] AptLogic:
No the root-using apps wouldn't need to be system apps because all those apps need is a way to access the su file in /system/xbin. This is usually handled by SuperSU (which we might have to install as a system app), so putting every app in the /system/priv-app folder is not necessary.
[AT&T Samsung Galaxy S 5] khakiman:
yo guys (apt) i havent been able to get gps lock on my s5 since i went through this process and installed alliance. any ideas?
[AT&T Samsung Galaxy S 5] AptLogic:
Try a cache clear and afterwards check your location settings... I didn't have that issue when I was using Alliance so I don't really know what's wrong.

When in trouble, logcat!
[AT&T Samsung Galaxy S 5] taadow1030:
I had that problem once. What fixed it was the solution from the Talking Monkey thread:

GPS Fix

If you're running the debloated build goto this post before you try this and post asking why it won't work.

http://xdaforums.com/show...&postcount=964

Edit: don't know why the full comment is not posting. Will try again later.

---------- Post added at 04:59 PM ---------- Previous post was at 04:02 PM ----------

On your dialer type in this USSD *#0011#

Press menu key > press back

Press menu key > press key input > Q

Press menu key > press key input > 0000

Wait for a few seconds and the screen options will change

[2] UE SETTING & INFO

[1] SETTING

[2] SYSTEM

[3] NVREBUILD

Press on System, Protocol, GPS, IMS

Wait for 30 seconds and then shutdown your phone

Power On phone
[AT&T Samsung Galaxy S 5] commodiusvicus:
Just posting to say this worked for me on a G900a previously running 6.0.1. Thanks very much.
[AT&T Samsung Galaxy S 5] NavSad:
Looks like our wishes have finally come true.

https://twitter.com/Garnet_Sunset/status/871836581883256832
[AT&T Samsung Galaxy S 5] taadow1030:
I sure hope so! I really appreciate that people are still working hard , even though our bootloader locked device is a pain to work with.