[Android Software/Hacking General [Developers Only]] steadfasterX:
FAQ - Frequently Asked Questions

1) How can I get into the download mode?

Boot your phone into download mode--> the following guide is 100% working and bulletproof:

take out battery and unplug USB cable

plugin USB cable to your PC (while battery ist still out)

wait until you see the missing battery icon (question mark within a battery symbol)

press Volume up and while keeping it pressed put battery in (take care that you do not press the power button)

keep pressing Volume up until you see "Download mode"

If that does

not

work for you try it this way instead:

unplug USB cable

power down device or pull out battery

put battery back

press Volume up and while keeping it pressed plugin USB cable to your PC (take care that you do not press the power button)

keep pressing Volume up until you see "Download mode"

Your phones screen should look similar to this afterwards:

View attachment 4284063

2) Does SALT work on LOCKED devices ?

Oh what a great question ;) YES it DOES. :)

But keep in mind.. even when you can flash/erase partitions with SALT this still requires either valid/untouched pure LG files or an unlocked device.

3) Can I unlock my LG G4 device with SALT?

Holy moly --- NO!

YES!

( https://leech.binbash.rocks:8008/g4-links/ for the guide)

4) What is the meaning of ARB?

Anti-Roll-Back a stupid mechanism to brick your device. Read on here

5) Do I need a specific ARB version to work with SALT?

You can start and use SALT with any ARB version. Later when flashing is fully implemented you will be warned when your ARB is lower then then one you want to flash.

6) Which firmware versions does SALT support?

Any of lollipop, marshmallow and nougat

7) Which devices does SALT support?

In theory ANY LG device supported by the lglaf backend.

Confirmed devices are:

- G2

- G3

- G4 (H810, H811, H812, H815, H818, H819, VS986, LS991, F500)

- G5: unknown may only work with modifications like mentioned in the Release Notes for v3.20

- G6 (H871) only with modifications: see Release Notes for v3.20. Please help in making this fully working! OP -> topic "Support"

- V10 (H900)

- V20 (H910) only with modifications: see Release Notes for v3.20. Please help in making this fully working! OP -> topic "Support" OP -> topic "Support"

- yours ;) -> report your device by uploading the debug log from the advanced menu and share the bpaste link!

-

again: in theory any LG device will work with SALT

. All newer devices (G5 and later) will just need the mentioned modification: see Release Notes for v3.20. Please help in making this fully working! OP -> topic "Support" OP -> topic "Support"

.. this will change in one of the next versions as I will implement an automatic detection , of course!

8) SALT is prompting me after a backup for verification. I have many Warnings|Errors what does that all mean?

Read on here about he verification feature in SALT: MD5 verification

9) I have installed SALT already. Is it possible to just update it?

Of course thats one of the awesome features in SALT.

Since v3.7 SALT will check for a new version on startup automatically and prompt you to update if necessary.

If it ever fails just click the update button at the bottom.

10) I have installed SALT already. Is it possible to switch between STABLE and STREAM channels?

Note: STREAM (fka TESTING) may have issues, brick your device, let your phone or PC explode. so use it with care.

So if you wanna still switch the channels click the update button at the bottom first.

If you want to be on/switch to the STABLE channel choose Target mode = STABLE

Click update and restart SALT afterwards.

If you want to be on/switch to the STREAM channel choose: Target mode = TESTING

Click update and restart SALT afterwards.

11) I have a partition file with the extension: [ bin | image | img | mbn ]. How can I convert this?

The extension is not important. The way how you extract files - is. That's why I say all the time use SALT.

On Windows the file extension matters a lot which is not the case for Linux/Android.

So if you see a guide mentioning to use a "bin" file and you have the file but with an extension of "image" (or vice-versa) it does not matters.

There is no need to convert anything as they all are just raw image files.

12) I want to backup but SALT says I have too less space for that! How can I get more disk space in FWUL (or my VM)?

Read FAQ #5 in the FWUL thread (yes even when you are using Windows and do not run FWUL but any other Linux + SALT) and setup a shared folder with enough disk space as described.

Point to that new shared folder (ensure you do not use spaces in the foldername and that you have created a new folder in the start of the shared folder) when asked for a backup location in SALT.

13) I do *NOT* use FWUL because I have my own Linux running and you told me to install tmate. How?

Current instructions can be found here: https://tmate.io/

Ensure you create a SSH key as that is needed to start tmate later:

ssh-keygen -b 4096 -f ~/.ssh/tmate -N ''
(note: the characters '' are 2 single quotes)

Install tmate on Arch Linux / Arch variants like Manjaro, ..:

trizen -Sy tmate
or: yaourt -Sy tmate (yaourt is [U]DEPRECATED[/U]!)

Install tmate on Ubuntu / Ubuntu Variants like Kubuntu, Linux Mint, ... :

sudo apt-get install software-properties-common
sudo add-apt-repository ppa:tmate.io/archive
sudo apt-get update
sudo apt-get install tmate

14)Is there a Windows version of SALT available or planned?

No. NEVER. Just use FWUL which has SALT already included and everything setup to manage your Android device.

If you have issues in running FWUL report them in the FWUL thread.

15)What is GPT compability (LG G4 only)?

I saw people often confused about that option and here is what it is and does:

1) This is only valid for the LG G4 models. If you have another one ignore it.

2) If you have a LG G4 and not UsU'd (so an official unlockable model) - just ignore it.

3) If you have a LG G4 and UsU'd your device (or planning to do so) this option is for you.

Background:

SALT checks the partition table (GPT) to find out what ROM model is compatible with an UsU'd device. The reason is quite easy: all G4 models have the same hardware (except the h818 but thats another story). Due to the incredible amount of country specific models not many ROMs exist for every model so I checked what's needed to bring a ROM meant for another model to an UsU'd device. I recognized quickly that the partition table is different on several models and even on a same model with another firmware (e.g. between LP and MM it changed for some models). The only thing we need on custom ROMs for the G4 is a correct sized system partition as that one differs for some. Another thing needed on some (mostly US models) is a carrier partition instead of a cust one. Basically that's all SALT checks at the end as if a ROM expects to mount the carrier partition it must be there.

TL;DR

The GPT compatibility shows what ROM you can install on an UsU'd device - if there is none for your specific model.

16) Is it possible to extract TOT files with SALT?

No but you can use this windows tool to extract TOTs: https://xdaforums.com/showthread.php?t=2600575

17) I want to backup/extract my user data (internal storage) with SALT and my device is encrypted. Is that possible and can SALT unencrypt that data?

SALT is doing 1:1 copies of your partitions which is really 100% identical to what is on your phone. If your data is encrypted SALT will backup that in the current state which means encrypted because within the download mode your userdata partition does not get mounted. So what does that mean? Yes you can backup your userdata but .. you can NOT mount it afterwards as it is just encrypted data. afaik there are no tools available to unencrypt but I may be wrong (let me know if you are aware of any).

Does it makes sense to backup encrypted data? Depends on what you want to get. If you want to have a really full 1:1 copy of the current phone it might be useful if you are able to restore that data (e.g. via TWRP). Keep in mind though that encryption usually needs more partitions to be restored (e.g. persist or others) which contain information/keys,... as well.

TL;DR

You can but it is usually not very useful.

18) Isn't it possible to flash with SALT (yet)?

Well the flash mode is not enabled by default - while it can be enabled manually. The main issue here is that you can easily hard brick your device and I tried to find a way of making it possible to avoid that. Unfortunately and due to the wide range of models SALT supports this can't be guaranteed.

That is the first reason and the second is that LG limited/restricted the LAF protocol used for communicating with the device in later versions and so flashing will simply not work on these.

Fully supported are LAF protocol version: 1000001, 1000002. Anything later like 1000004 (e.g. Nougat on LG G4) will NOT work.

If you want to take the risk read on here

19a) (was FAQ 1000 before) I have an issue not listed here - what should I do?

19b) Is there a SALT logfile and how can I share it?

While your device is connected in download mode:

Advanced Menu -> SALT Debug log -> Upload button -> right click the link or open it in a browser and copy from there

Picture guide:

View attachment 4492760

do NOT share it as an attachment in a post or sending it as file via Telegram/Matrix. If the above does not work for you (then it is a bug which needs to be fixed) always use a paste service - never plain files.

See also the next FAQ reg. paste services

20) Sharing logs / Using a paste service

when sharing logs or longer texts it is recommended a so-called "paste service". This is useful to keep a forum / chat readable for everyone and it dramatically helps a developer to read the log without saving tons of log files on their phones/PC's.

Here are some examples (use your fav search engine to find more):

- https://hastebin.com

- https://controlc.com

- https://justpaste.me

- https://privatebin.net

- https://pastebin.com

- https://gist.github.com (no size limit!)

- https://gitlab.com/dashboard/snippets (no size limit!)

There you will always have an option how long you want to

store

that paste:

Please ensure you choose at least several months (better 1 year) because developers have a real life, too and so its uncertain when they might find time to look into it.

Once you pasted your text in there you will get an paste URL which you then can simply share without spamming a group/forum.