[Samsung Galaxy Note 8 Questions and Answers] terradune:
First off, thanks to all the members who have contributed to our little pool of knowledge here. I have a Malaysian (XME) F/DS, purchased 22 Sept, and am currently on day 6 of my second week of jail following a firmware reflash & factory reset last Wed/Thurs (unfortunately I can't remember exactly lol).

Info from my first setup:-

- logged into Samsung account w/in an hour of getting the phone, but didn't insert SIM for the next few days. OEM unlock toggle appeared practically to the very hour of the 7th day from turning on / logging in, after a reboot

- switched OEM unlock from "off" to "on", everything ok. Rebooted phone the next day, OEM unlock toggle gone

POSSIBILITIES / HYPOTHESIS:

- am pretty sure OEM unlock countdown is not SIM-triggered, as I only put my SIM in on like the 3rd / 4th day after turning on / logging in as mentioned above. Perhaps this will help those people whose phones still haven't got the OEM unlock more than 7 days later - most posters who said they still didn't have it past the 7th day, didn't give any info whether (or when) they had logged into Samsung / Google accounts.

- since I logged in to my Samsung acct so soon after turning on the phone, I can't accurately say which one triggered the OEM toggle countdown. However based on other posters' info, seems like just turning it on may not be what starts the countdown

- unclear whether after you turn the OEM toggle to "on", it disappears (a) immediately after a reboot regardless of any time lapsed or (b) it disappears if you reboot any time after 24 hours later

My current setup/experiment:-

- I have not logged into any accounts, Google or Samsung, since reflashing and resetting the phone on Wed / Thurs. If by the 8th day nothing shows up, I'm going to log into Samsung and see what happens; basically starting the countdown (again!!) from there :crying:

- I noticed after the reflash (which was done for me by a Samsung Customer Service Centre which I brought it to) that DevOpts was still on, so I factory reset, reflashed to an earlier firmware (AQH9 - what did I have to lose lol) and when OEM toggle was also not in the earlier firmware, reflashed back to AQI1

- turned on DevOpts immediately after flashing - as expected, no OEM toggle

- phone has been SIM-less since the reset, but I did connect it to WiFi

- hope to confirm, or at least narrow down, in the next couple days whether the trigger is related to any of the above.

Other info / experiments:-

RE: Safe Mode

- tried the method suggested here

- but it doesn't work for me, possibly because I had already enabled DevOpts after reflashing so when I went into Safe Mode, OEM Toggle wasn't there even when I turned off DevOpts, restarted phone into Safe Mode and turned it on again. I could have reset phone to try this, but I reeeeaaally don't want to restart my jailtime, sorry lol

POSSIBILITIES:

- can someone who is in jail (either because you just got the phone, or reflashed firmware and reset), but has not enabled DevOpts AT ALL yet, try this?

- [MENTION=5420102]fragtion[/MENTION] has just made some good points here. Basically, try the Safe Mode thing but don't get your hopes up; that said, it at least doesn't hurt to try since the steps shouldn't affect your countdown. Whatchu gotta lose? :fingers-crossed:

When I have the toggle back, I'm going to test [MENTION=1230317]krabman[/MENTION]'s suggested steps, using [MENTION=3931450]dr.ketan[/MENTION]'s ROM ... while nobody from the Renovate camp seems to be having any trouble, I'll have already been down and out for 3 weeks without use of my brand-spanking new baby, and I really don't wanna run into any (more) trouble haha! I'm happy to make some sacrifices for the sake of the community, i.e. my experiment with not logging in and not putting in a SIM, but once I'm done with that I really just want things to be up and running.

I'll post back on my results with [MENTION=1230317]krabman[/MENTION] / Dr Ketan after I've tried it, but in the meantime, do let me know if anyone wants more info. If I've repeated info that others already posted, or if any of the above is inaccurate, sorry and do let me know so I can edit this post for others' reference ... while I've read through pretty much the whole thread, I may have missed posts here and there, or come across info that I've since forgotten.

Keep on keeping on, everyone! :D