[BQ Aquaris X Pro Guides, News, & Discussion] nuv:
Hi everyone. :)

This Post (post #1) shows the complete process of unlocking, flashing, rooting etc. in general, it may refer to old firmware and/or tool versions but the steps remain the same for newer versions. The chapters rely on each other so to be sure, just follow every step. Note: Check out post #2 for additional information regarding updating, tools, known problems/pitfalls.

----- Info [2021-02-05] -----

BQ/Mundo Reader S.L. stopped producing Smartphones (since ~2019(?)), the website is down since March 2020. Original BQ firmware is still available for download (see post #230):

Last version of BQs website via archive.org: https://web.archive.org/web/20200320014304/https://www.bq.com/en/support/aquaris-x-pro/support-sheet

Direct link to latest firmware file:

Firmware 2.11.0 (Android 8.1.0 Oreo) (MD5: CA7DCCB4BD101AF64DCFFAAB71CBD476 )

https://storage.googleapis.com/otas...-1510-bardockpro_bq-user-2395-Fastboot-FW.zip

----- End of Info [2021-02-05] -----

After all steps you will have your Aquaris X / X Pro with:

- BQ stock ROM

- (unlocked bootloader)

- TWRP recovery

- Magisk

° root access (managed by Magisk)

° (the possibility to install additional Magisk modules)

° pass Google SafetyNet checks

Disclaimer

:

I am in no way responsible for anything resulting in you following the provided instructions in this thread.

It worked for me, but that does not mean it will 100% work for you. You are responsible for any side effects and damage caused to your device which includes, but is not limited to software and/or hardware destruction of the device etc. Rooting may void your warranty.

Only continue if you feel safe in what you are doing.

(Thanks to @shifattk for some text parts (seen here).)

Let's start with an index:

Intro

Boot modes

Set up the PC / Get all files

Start from scratch

Update to newest firmware

Notes/Troubleshooting

Links

Changelog

1 Intro

Recently got me the BQ Aquaris X Pro 128GB and wrote this because of the lack of any documentation on xda regarding unlocking/flashing/rooting/...

In this post you will find a collection of information i found spread over various sources.

I don't know if everything is right, so please report any wrong parts or missing information.

Just a sidenote: At the moment i will be using the stock rom, because it is really clean and slim and i don't want to continuously keep on track with all updates some custom roms have (and get along with possible restrictions in functionality). Because of this, an important advantage for the stock rom is that is 'just works'™ and there are regular updates which are (hopefully ;)) tested by BQ before release.

So here is a screenshot what the default app launcher looks like and which apps are preinstalled

View attachment 4281246

The following parts will include:

- unlocking the bootloader

- installing TWRP recovery and Magisk (low level system access, root, ...)

- update BQ firmware

- re-installing TWRP/Magisk/root

Alternatively, one could easier update first and then do all the Recovery- and rootstuff, but I wanted to verify that a system update will be possible without data loss at any time later on. As i read in other forums, it is a bad idea to use the OTA functionality (over-the-air = regular/stock way for system updates) when running a rooted system with unlocked bootloader. (I didn't test this, but i didn't want to find out either..)

Warning: If you used the phone before - backup your files! The phones data will get wiped in the process (at least while unlocking the bootloader)!

Note: I took out my SIM card for the whole process and never set up WLAN, so the phone never got internet access until i disabled the search for software updates. This may prevent the update notifications.

Thanks to

- everyone at the android-hilfe.de forum, especially syscrh and blur for their threads (see [9],[10])

- topjohnwu, developer of Magisk

- Kra1o5, the TWRP maintainer for the Aquaris X Pro

- the BQ team for their firmware and of course for packaging and hosting the firmware

2 Boot modes

Precondition for both modes: phone off, no usb connection

Fastboot mode: vol_down + pwr

(if entered accidentally, long press pwr for >12sec, screen switches off, then phone will reboot (to system) after 10-20secs)

View attachment 4281235

Recovery: vol_up + pwr

(navigate with vol_up and vol_down buttons, select/confirm with power button)

View attachment 4281238

In detail (for new users): while phone is off, press and hold the volume-up/down button and directly after this (still holding vol_up/down) press and hold the power button as well. Hold both buttons until you see the logo and hold for approx. 1 more second. then release both buttons.

For further information or other BQ phones, take a look here: [8]

3 Set up the PC / Get all files

Get Android Debug Bridge (adb) drivers and newest firmware from BQ [1](DE) / [1](EN)

- Install drivers

- extract the firmware zip

If you already got adb on your computer, check the version - some commands may not be availlable.

For adb sideload via TWRP recovery, you should have at least adb version 1.0.32 [2]

You can get the SDK Platform Tools from Google. [3] At the time of writing (2017-09-14), they are on version 1.0.39.

A good choice may be to use the adb tools packaged in the firmware update .zip from BQ.

For the Aquaris X Pro firmware 1.4.3_20170809-1111-bardock-user-983-Fastboot-FW.zip, the tools are on version 1.0.36.

Get the TWRP image file for the Aquaris X Pro [4].

(Take a look at [5] if you own the Aquaris X.)

Get Magisk flashable .zip [6]

To be sure get the uninstaller and the Magisk Manager .apk as well.

4 Start from scratch

preconditions:

- New phone with unmodified stock rom

- Versions as reference:

View attachment 4281235View attachment 4281249

- using windows 10 here, so some of the following parts may be windows specific. Linux users (ok, debian based linux users) should take a look at the packages 'android-tools-adb' and 'android-tools-fastboot'.

4.1 Prepare phone

Activate developer mode and, from the developer options:

- allow unlocking of the bootloader

- enable USB debugging mode.

Disable software update search:

- Settings -> About phone -> System updates -> untick the checkbox 'Auto-check'

Detail regarding activation of developer options:

cite from [4]

On the same screen enable the option 'OEM unlocking' as well.

View attachment 4281248

Note: User overbim reported in post #240 that the 'OEM unlocking' option was greyed out. After having activated WIFI and having connected to a WLAN the option was accessible short time after that.

4.2 Unlock the bootloader

Go to fastboot mode (Power off, then hold vol_down + pwr).

Connect to PC via USB.

After allowing unlocking in the developer options, you should see:

View attachment 4281260

We will be using the following fastboot commands: (from 'fastboot --help')

Check if bootloader unlocking is allowed, it should give the response '1'

E:\backups\android\BQ-Aquaris-X-Pro\04_firmware\1.4.3_20170809-1111-bardock-user-983-Fastboot-FW>fastboot flashing get_unlock_ability
...
(bootloader) get_unlock_ability: 1
OKAY [ 0.018s]
finished. total time: 0.020s

If you missed the 'OEM unlocking' option earlier, then you'll get:

E:\backups\android\BQ-Aquaris-X-Pro\04_firmware\1.4.3_20170809-1111-bardock-user-983-Fastboot-FW>fastboot flashing get_unlock_ability
...
(bootloader) get_unlock_ability: 0
OKAY [ 0.013s]
finished. total time: 0.013s

Stop here and go back to step '4.1 Prepare phone'

FYI, additional information:

E:\backups\android\BQ-Aquaris-X-Pro\04_firmware\1.4.3_20170809-1111-bardock-user-983-Fastboot-FW>fastboot oem device-info
...
(bootloader) Device tampered: false
(bootloader) Device unlocked: false
(bootloader) Device critical unlocked: false
(bootloader) Charger screen enabled: true
(bootloader) Display panel:
OKAY [ 0.053s]
finished. total time: 0.053s

Okay, now the first part of the unlocking process:

E:\backups\android\BQ-Aquaris-X-Pro\04_firmware\1.4.3_20170809-1111-bardock-user-983-Fastboot-FW>fastboot flashing unlock
...
OKAY [ 0.074s]
finished. total time: 0.076s

Choose yes:

View attachment 4281242

wait a couple of minutes, there will be this screen:

View attachment 4281233

After that, you will get to the welcome screen.

Disconnect USB and switch off the phone.

Enter fastbook mode again, connect usb

View attachment 4281236

Now the first lock should be gone:

E:\backups\android\BQ-Aquaris-X-Pro\04_firmware\1.4.3_20170809-1111-bardock-user-983-Fastboot-FW>fastboot oem device-info
...
(bootloader) Device tampered: false
(bootloader) Device unlocked: true
(bootloader) Device critical unlocked: false
(bootloader) Charger screen enabled: true
(bootloader) Display panel:
OKAY [ 0.054s]
finished. total time: 0.058s

And now for part two of the unlocking process:

E:\backups\android\BQ-Aquaris-X-Pro\04_firmware\1.4.3_20170809-1111-bardock-user-983-Fastboot-FW>fastboot flashing unlock_critical
...
OKAY [ 0.075s]
finished. total time: 0.076s

Choose yes again:

View attachment 4281242

You will get the encrypting screen again:

View attachment 4281233

Followed by the screen with the 'Aquaris X' animation and finally the welcome screen.

Disconnect USB, switch off.

Enter fastbook mode again, connect usb and check if both unlocks went fine:

E:\backups\android\BQ-Aquaris-X-Pro\04_firmware\1.4.3_20170809-1111-bardock-user-983-Fastboot-FW>fastboot oem device-info
...
(bootloader) Device tampered: false
(bootloader) Device unlocked: true
(bootloader) Device critical unlocked: true
(bootloader) Charger screen enabled: true
(bootloader) Display panel:
OKAY [ 0.058s]
finished. total time: 0.060s

Done.

Stay in fastboot mode for the next step.

4.3 Install TWRP and Magisk

Now we only need one command to flash the TWRP recovery (adjust to your filepaths)

E:\backups\android\BQ-Aquaris-X-Pro\04_firmware\1.4.3_20170809-1111-bardock-user-983-Fastboot-FW>fastboot flash recovery ..\..\03_TWRP_Magisk\twrp-3.1.1-0-bardock_pro.img
target reported max download size of 536870912 bytes
sending 'recovery' (28078 KB)...
OKAY [ 0.635s]
writing 'recovery'...
OKAY [ 0.180s]
finished. total time: 0.817s

Now we restart the phone and go into TWRP recovery immediately at reboot - there will be an info screen with a 5 second timeout. press volume_up as soon as you see this screen.

E:\backups\android\BQ-Aquaris-X-Pro\04_firmware\1.4.3_20170809-1111-bardock-user-983-Fastboot-FW>fastboot reboot
rebooting...

finished. total time: 0.006s

Here is the screen you'll see after reboot:

View attachment 4281239

After pressing volume_up, you'll see an options menu

View attachment 4281240

Select 'Recovery' with vol_up/down and chose the option with the power button.

You'll see the options screen again, but this time just wait 5 seconds or press the power button and TWRP recovey will start.

TWRP will ask if it should modify the system partition. Don't apply the modifications, instead choose 'Keep Read Only'.

View attachment 4281244

Note: If you chose 'yes', then take a look at section '6.1 troubleshooting'.

Now we flash Magisk from TWRP with the adb sideload function.

In TWRP choose 'Advanced' and there 'ADB sideload'. Just swipe and start the sideload mode.

From the PC, we initiate the transfer and installation of the Magisk .zip:

E:\backups\android\BQ-Aquaris-X-Pro\04_firmware\1.4.3_20170809-1111-bardock-user-983-Fastboot-FW>adb sideload ..\..\03_TWRP_Magisk\Magisk-v14.0.zip
loading: '..\..\03_TWRP_Magisk\Magisk-v14.0.zip'* daemon not running. starting it now on port 5037 *
* daemon started successfully *
Total xfer: 1.69x

View attachment 4281243

Now we can reboot to system. TWRP will be kept (although we only selected the temporary variant before).

This should be the first system bootup after the wipe from the bootloader unlocking process, so you will get to the welcome wizard. At this point I chose to skip the SIM card step (because i did not insert any SIM) and leave the WLAN unconfigured.

In the settings menu, go to 'About Phone' and 'Software Update' and disable the automatic updates

View attachment 4281245

This should prevent any notifications regarding OTA updates as we will update via PC with the .zip firmware downloaded from BQ.

In the system you will notice the Magisk Manager App. Through this App, you can allow and deny root access for any app (a notification will pop up if any app requests root permission).

View attachment 4281247

Enable developer options (see step '4.1 prepare phone') and enable USB debugging mode again.

Allow your PC in the popup notification and check the option to always allow this PC.

5 Update to newest firmware

preconditions:

- some older stock firmware

- unlocked bootloader (both options 'unlock' and 'unlock_critical')

- TWRP recovery

- Magisk

(these should be met if you went through all steps above...)

- newest BQ firmware from step '3 Set up the PC / Get all files'

On the PC go to the folder with the extracted BQ firmware .zip

Create a copy of 8953_fastboot_all_images.bat

Comment out or delete the following lines:

fastboot flash userdata userdata.img
fastboot flash recovery recovery.img
fastboot reboot

Here is a patch, if anyone is interested:

--- 8953_fastboot_all_images.bat 2017-08-09 12:27:24.000000000 +0200
+++ 8953_fastboot_all_images_nuv.bat 2017-09-10 22:07:54.794986400 +0200
@@ -37,8 +37,11 @@
fastboot flash modem NON-HLOS.bin
fastboot flash system system.img
fastboot flash cache cache.img
-fastboot flash userdata userdata.img
-fastboot flash recovery recovery.img
+
+rem nuv: omit userdata and recovery to keep data and TWRP
+rem fastboot flash userdata userdata.img
+rem fastboot flash recovery recovery.img
+
rem fastboot flash sec sec.dat
fastboot flash dsp adspso.bin
fastboot flash mdtp mdtp.img
@@ -47,7 +50,9 @@
fastboot erase DDR
fastboot flash boot boot.img

-fastboot reboot
+rem nuv: omit reboot to allow a manual reboot and start of TWRP before first boot of new image
+rem fastboot reboot
+
pause
exit

With the modified batch file ready to start, we connect our phone (phone is switched on and in system) and run the batch.

[...]
erasing 'DDR'...
OKAY [ 0.020s]
finished. total time: 0.023s
target reported max download size of 536870912 bytes
sending 'boot' (22485 KB)...
OKAY [ 0.502s]
writing 'boot'...
OKAY [ 0.132s]
finished. total time: 0.636s
Drücken Sie eine beliebige Taste . . .

After the batch file finishes, manually reboot the phone and go directly to recovery! Do not boot the system yet!

Reboot:

fastboot reboot

and choose recovery with volume up and volume down like earlier in section '4.3 Install TWRP and Magisk'

Now we flash Magisk from TWRP with the adb sideload function. (again ;) , see step 4.3 Install TWRP and Magisk'

adb sideload ..\..\03_TWRP_Magisk\Magisk-v14.0.zip

Reboot to system.

All done.

View attachment 4281250

6 Notes/Troubleshooting

6.1 System update notifications

As written in step '1 Intro' and '4.3 Install TWRP and Magisk' i did not let the phone get an internet connection after the wipe (bootloader unlock) and disabled the software update feature.

I don't know if this will reliably prevent the update notifications.

As a further note, user Schubbie stated on android-hilfe.de [10], that the OTA updates get saved to the path /data/data/com.bqreaders.ota/files/bq_update_ota.zip so maybe you can delete the file if an unwanted update notification pops up.

6.1 Troubleshooting

As an additional information to step '4.3 Install TWRP and Magisk'

At the point after flashing TWRP and starting it the first time, I let TWRP apply the system modifications.

After that i rebooted to check if the TWRP installation was successful...

I got "device is corrupt" when I wanted to boot into system. I continued the boot process with the power button and after that, the phone got stuck at the screen with the BQ logo and the text 'Powered by Android' (waited >10min).

To revive the phone from that state, you can flash the recovery and system images from the BQ firmware .zip

Important: Use the 'old' firmware which is still on your phone - the images have to match your current installation!

Bring the phone into fastboot mode and use the commands:

1.3.5_20170620-0532-bardock-user-594-Fastboot-FW\fastboot flash recovery recovery.img
1.3.5_20170620-0532-bardock-user-594-Fastboot-FW\fastboot flash system system.img

(In my case, the phone came with 1.3.5, so obviously I used this firmware .zip from BQ)

Now the phone is back to the state unlocked bootloader with stock rom and stock recovery.

Continue with step '4.3 Install TWRP and Magisk'.

7 Links

[1]

Official BQ website - Downloads Aquaris X Pro

https://www.bq.com/de/support/aquaris-x-pro/support-sheet

https://web.archive.org/web/20200320014304/https://www.bq.com/en/support/aquaris-x-pro/support-sheet

(

Firmware 1.4.3 | MD5: 16ff81c74642189a5d09f6b73feb06d5 | https://storage.googleapis.com/otas...0170809-1111-bardock-user-983-Fastboot-FW.zip

Drivers | https://shenron.bq.com/otas/2014/Smartphones/Aquaris_E5_LTE/Tools&Drivers/Drivers qualcomm + adb.rar

)

[2]

TWRP - ADB sideload information

https://twrp.me/faq/ADBSideload.html

[3]

SDK Platform Tools

https://developer.android.com/studio/releases/platform-tools.html

[4]

TWRP recovery

https://twrp.me/bq/bqaquarisxpro.html

Section 'Download Links'

[5]

TWRP - BQ devices

https://twrp.me/Devices/BQ/

[6]

[2017.9.6] Magisk v14.0 - Root & Universal Systemless Interface [Android 5.0+]

https://xdaforums.com/apps/magisk/official-magisk-v7-universal-systemless-t3473445

https://github.com/topjohnwu/Magisk/releases

[7]

root Alternative

TWRP maintainer for Aquaris X (Kra1o5) mentions SuperSU in a forum about flashing TWRP and rooting

http://www.htcmania.com/showthread.php?t=1312725

http://download.chainfire.eu/supersu

[8]

[info] recovery menu on BQ devices

http://www.mibqyyo.com/en-articles/...lla/discussion/embed/?vanilla_discussion_id=0

[9]

[Anleitung] Aquaris X/X Pro Bootloader entsperren/unlock

https://www.android-hilfe.de/forum/...-pro-bootloader-entsperren-unlock.830125.html

[10]

Aquaris X/X Pro - Firmwareupdate mit Root

https://www.android-hilfe.de/forum/...s-x-x-pro-firmwareupdate-mit-root.834283.html

8 Changelog

2021-12-27: added info in chapter '4.1 Prepare phone' regarding OEM unlocking and WIFI

2021-02-05: added Info regarding BQs website on top of post

2020-07-31: added link to Magisk Github release page

2018-03-23: Added disclaimer...

2017-12-31: Edited info at top of post

2017-12-30: Played with the hide-content-buttons. Hopefully it'll be easier to navigate through the long post now. Adapted First sentences.

2017-12-26: Edited info at top of post

2017-11-18: Added info at top of post, moved changelog to post #1

2017-11-11: Added links to the [<number>] References - wow!

2017-11-11: fixed typos, little cosmetics, little text changes in '4.1 Prepare phone', corrected section references

2017-09-23: added pictures, codeblocks, formating...

2017-09-23: initial post, work in progress

[EOF]