[Android Software/Hacking General [Developers Only]] cowsngrass:
LG G4 VS986 27C Marshmallow

Refurbished from eBay, Verizon unlocked; running on Tracfone SIM

Hate the Verizon bloatware; would like to root someday, but no hurry

SALT (LinuxMint 18.2) works well except:

Doesn't see phone partitions

Doesn't detect arb

I haven't tried to backup the phone yet; I don't want to screw it up

I'm not a whiz with the Linux terminal, but I can get no results with the lsusb command. Phone is in "Firmware Update" mode, but neither File Manager nor Double Commander will "see" the phone. SALT sees it in this mode, except as above.

After trolling these forums for several months, it seems that before I do anything like downgrade to Lollipop (then root), I need to know the ARB version, and to be able to backup the phone

Obviously I'm a noob, but if it's of any interest to you, here's my latest SALT Debug Log:

2018-01-01 18:51:30: Starting SALT v1.2-4:TESTING!

****************************************************

2018-01-01 18:51:30: F_EGO: started

2018-01-01 18:51:30: F_EGO: /tmp/salt.lock created

2018-01-01 18:51:30: DEVCON before: 99

2018-01-01 18:51:30: F_CHKDEVCON: started

2018-01-01 18:51:31: F_CHKDEVCON: Device seems to be connected!

2018-01-01 18:51:31: RET: 0

2018-01-01 18:51:31: DEVCON after: 0

2018-01-01 18:51:31: EXPERIMENTAL: 0

2018-01-01 18:51:31: F_GETINFO: started

2018-01-01 18:51:31: F_CDARB: started

Traceback (most recent call last):

File "/root/programs/lglafng/partitions.py", line 369, in <module>

main()

File "/root/programs/lglafng/partitions.py", line 330, in main

with laf_open_disk(comm) as disk_fd:

File "/usr/lib/python3.5/contextlib.py", line 59, in __enter__

return next(self.gen)

File "/root/programs/lglafng/partitions.py", line 61, in laf_open_disk

open_header = comm.call(open_cmd)[0]

File "/root/programs/lglafng/lglaf.py", line 264, in call

raise RuntimeError('Command failed with error code %#x (%s)' % (errCode, msg))

RuntimeError: Command failed with error code 0x8000010a (LAF_ERROR_ACCESS_DENIED)

2018-01-01 18:51:33: EMPTY ARB DETECTED:

2018-01-01 18:51:33: Please send this log and the SBL1 dump in /tmp/sbl1.err

2018-01-01 18:51:34: 2018-01-01 18:51:33,472 LGLAF.py: DEBUG: Using endpoints 83 (IN), 02 (OUT)

2018-01-01 18:51:33,474 partitions: DEBUG: Using Protocol version: 0x1000001

Traceback (most recent call last):

File "/root/programs/lglafng/partitions.py", line 369, in <module>

main()

File "/root/programs/lglafng/partitions.py", line 330, in main

with laf_open_disk(comm) as disk_fd:

File "/usr/lib/python3.5/contextlib.py", line 59, in __enter__

return next(self.gen)

File "/root/programs/lglafng/partitions.py", line 61, in laf_open_disk

open_header = comm.call(open_cmd)[0]

File "/root/programs/lglafng/lglaf.py", line 264, in call

raise RuntimeError('Command failed with error code %#x (%s)' % (errCode, msg))

RuntimeError: Command failed with error code 0x8000010a (LAF_ERROR_ACCESS_DENIED)

2018-01-01 18:51:34: F_CDARB:

2018-01-01 18:51:34: F_CDARB: DEVARB=0, DEVARBEMPTY=1

2018-01-01 18:51:34: F_CDARB: ended

battery_level:100 device_sw_version:VS98627C secure_device:S device_factory_version:VS98627C_00 model_name:VS986 target_country:US 2018-01-01 18:51:34: F_GETINFO: ended

2018-01-01 18:51:34: parsing arb:0:1

2018-01-01 18:51:34: parsing battery_level:100

2018-01-01 18:51:34: parsing device_sw_version:VS98627C

2018-01-01 18:51:34: parsing secure_device:S

2018-01-01 18:51:34: parsing device_factory_version:VS98627C_00

2018-01-01 18:51:34: parsing model_name:VS986

2018-01-01 18:51:34: parsing target_country:US

2018-01-01 18:51:51: F_ADVMENU: started

2018-01-01 18:52:36: getlog script started

Thanks for any help you can give me. You guys are awesome! And thanks for this Linux tool.