[Lenovo Zuk Z2 Pro Guides, News, & Discussion] meister:
Hi Folks

I just went through personalizing a brand new ZUK Z2 Pro Z2121 and found a lot of information scattered around the net which I tried to summarize here.

First I noticed my phone was not on the latest Firmware/ROM but the Update function in the settings would not show the SW 2.5.355 to be available.

#-#-#-#-#-# Section 1

Upgrade to 2.5.355

If your phone shipped with something less than the latest Firmware (as of now SW 2.5.355) you may want to update over the air first thing.

The problem is that you need to be in China to receive the update.

Solution:

Install a Free VPN App

(e.g Hola VPN - you will need Google Playstore first - install Playstore via App Center than search for VPN in Google Play)

Select a Server in China

Go to Updates and search for updates. If an update is found download will start.

Unfortunately this may take forever as you are probably using a free VPN server.

But the OTA Tool is not very smart.

If you terminate the running VPN connection while the download is active the download will briefly stop, but then resume (without the VPN).

10min later you should be all set.

#-#-#-#-#-#

Now that you are on the latest SW you may want to unlock the bootloader.

#-#-#-#-#-# Section 2

Unlock Bootloader

Unlocking the bootloader is required if you intend to root your phone.

It will wipe all user data, therefore I recommend to do this first thing.

On your phone go to Settings -> About -> Status to note your 8 digit serial number.

If your serial has less than 8 digits add zeros to the END to make it 8 digits.

While you are in Settings , Enable the Developer Options by going to

Settings -> About and clicking 7 times on ZUI Version.

Then go back to Settings -> Advanced Settings -> Developer Options and enable USB debugging.

We will need this later.

In order to unlock the bootloader you will need to got the zuk website, where you need to register first before you can request to unlock the bootloader.

So go here:

https://passport.zuk.com/wauthen3/wauth/jsp/register.jsp

(use google to translate)

Select Email Registration (upper right corner) and fill in the required data.

Likely a Googlemail Address will not work.

You will receive an Email with a confirmation link.

Now that you are registered, log in and than go to

http://developer.zuk.com/bootloader

(use google to translate)

Click on Carry On.

On the next page select your phone type Z2 Pro.

Enter your serial nuber (8 digits)

Enter an email address where to send the unlock image. It seems that the email address here has to follow some rules.

fist.name@gmx.net or [MENTION=726966]Web[/MENTION].net seems to work. A domain name with a hyphen (-) seems to cause problems.

Check the 2 check boxes and click SUBMIT.

If succesful you get a message that the image has been sent to your email address. No message means something went wrong. Likely the email address was not approved.

I had some trouble here at first.

Next things is to get ADB/Fastboot installed on your PC.

All you need to know is found here.

https://xdaforums.com/showthread.php?t=2588979

Safe the email attachment from ZUK you requested earlier (named unlock_bootloader.img) into the directory where adb is installed. (likely c:/adb)

Reboot into bootloader by:

Opening a Command Window and CD into the directory where adb is installed.

Do a

adb reboot bootloader

If this fails you may need to confirm USB debugging on your phone and try again.

Once the phone is in bootloader mode continue:

This will wipe your phone!!! Factory Reset !!!

Do a

fastboot -i 0x2b4c flash unlock unlock_bootloader.img

The response will look like this

target reported max download size of 1610612736 bytes
sending 'unlock' (0 KB)...
OKAY [ 0.031s]
writing 'unlock'...
OKAY [ 0.063s]
finished. total time: 0.094s

C:\adb>

Do a

fastboot -i 0x2b4c oem unlock-go

The response will look like this

...
OKAY [ 0.031s]
finished. total time: 0.031s

C:\adb>

You may need to do a

fastboot reboot

after this.

In my case the phone rebooted itself.

Credits for this section here.

http://www.theandroidsoul.com/unlcok-bootloader-zuk-z2-pro/

Once the phone boots up it will be in Chinese again.

On the welcome screen tap the bottom of the screen below the highlighted blue text to skip the ZUK login.

To change the language back to English go to Settings.

In the third section choose the last entry. "Advanced Settings" (the gears symbol).

Choose the 2nd menu item.

Choose the first menu item and select English.

While you are in the Settings Enable USB debugging again. See Above. We will need it for the next step.

#-#-#-#-#-#

As a next step we will ROOT the phone by using a TWRP custom recovery image.

#-#-#-#-#-# Section 3

Rooting

I was a bit uncertain if the TWRP image is stable or not, therefore I decided not to flash it, but only to boot into it.

So I use it temporarily only.

First get SuperSU from here

http://downloadmirror.co/Utz/UPDATE-SuperSU-v2.79-20161211114519.zip

and copy the ZIP file onto your phones internal storage.

Get the recovery here.

https://www.androidfilehost.com/?fid=24591000424960393

Save the image file in the abd directory.

Do a

fastboot -i 0x2b4c boot recovery-TWRP-3.0.2-20160712-ZUK_Z2_PRO-CN-wzsx150.img

The phone will now boot into recovery. Chinese at first.....

Click on the lower right button to change the language to English.

Click on the lower left button to keep the system read only.

On the next screen click install and navigate to the SuperUser.Zip File that you placed on the internal storage.

Confirm the install and finish rebooting. It will do a short loop and than boot up correctly.

Credits for this section to raimondomartire (the recovery image from here also works)

https://xdaforums.com/zuk-z2-pro/development/twrp-recovery-zuk-z2-standard-pro-t3415395

#-#-#-#-#-# Section 4

Get the Google Stuff to work.

Install Google Play.

On the home screen click on App Center. Select Go to Home Screen.

Search for Google Play and install.

#-#-#-#-#-#

Install Google Contact Sync & Contacts

Thanks to Lucaam pointing us to this

https://xdaforums.com/zuk-z2-pro/how-to/google-contacts-import-sync-t3462124

Install Contacts Sync and Contacts out of the Lenovo_Zuk_Gapp_6.0.zip File in that order.

Thanks to m_atze

Play Store I did already so I don"t use that APK from the ZIP.

#-#-#-#-#-# Section 5

Custom Launcher

Installing a custom launcher seems a bit tricky, as you can not permanently set the new launcher as the default.

You can try in Settings -> Advanced Settings -> Applications

At the very bottom you can find the Preferred Apps section.

Set your Launcher as preferred.

This did not work for me.

Workaround: Install Google Now Launcher from the Playstore -> Open it -> Follow the dialog to Settings -> Select your Launcher - Press Home

It basically takes you to the Settings -> Home which is hidden in the ZUK settings

De-Install Google Now if you don't want to use it.

#-#-#-#-#-# Section 6

Widgets not updating or being empty.

There is an App pre-installed called SafeCenter. It has pretty tough autokill rules, which kills the processes / services needed to update the widgets.

I decided to diable SafeCenter completely, for which I had to use a separate App. The Disable functionality in the settings was not active (grey).

You can use several Apps from the Playstore to do this. I use one called SystemCleanup.

While you are at it. Disable Bug2Go -> according to the internet some tracking/spy App used on Motorola phones before.

#-#-#-#-#-# Section 7

Adblocker AdAway

If you want to use an AdBlocker like AdAway which modifies the /etc/host file you may run into isssues that the Adblocker can not mount the system partion read/write.

In that the host file maybe put into a different location. (e.g /data/hosts) and the original file must be replaced by a link.

Make sure you still have USB debugging enabled. Open a command window and change into the adb intall directory.

Do a

adb shell

followed by a

su

Grant permission to adb shell for root access on your phone.

(The command prompt will change from $ to #)

Do a

mount -o rw,remount -t ext4 /system

to mount the system partion RW.

and create the link with

ln -sf /data/hosts /system/etc/hosts

In this case I assume the Adblocker will place the hosts file in /data.

Check or Set in the settings of the Adblocker the correct location.

You should do a

mount -o ro,remount -t ext4 /system

to change back to a read only system partition.

I had to reboot to make everything take effect.

This has been tested with AdAway.

#-#-#-#-#-# Section 8

Finally the Notification LED ....

I am still looking into this, but it seems that the post from Florent here

http://zukfans.eu/community/threads/notification-led-multicolored.275/page-2

provides a solution / workaround. I will provide an update here later.

I hope this is helpful to some of you. Let me know if things can be added or need corrction.

Cheers Ulf

BTW How do I place the attachments (pictures) into the text where they are relevant?