yashsingh1/xdaforums huggingface dataset:
[Essential Phone Guides, News, & Discussion] rillo561:
Sorry for the ignorance here, but I'm trying to save a copy of my locked nv-data but I can't find what 'com port' my phone is connect to. I see the device in my device manager but it doesn't give me the port #, and it fails to connect when I select 'connect' with the default setting and both boxes checked.
[Essential Phone Guides, News, & Discussion] zswielder:
I came to the same conclusion. The part that I don't understand is, how Sprint can do that without breaking the law. We "terminated the lease" and "paid off to own the device." So, wouldn't Sprint be basically making a legally false claim about the financial status of the device? If so, I would think that we can take legal actions to rectify this mess. Sprint was once in a big trouble a few years ago for doing something illegal (bogus charge). I read that on BBB. I don't think it'll be that hard for the court to see that they are doing something illegal again.
[Essential Phone Guides, News, & Discussion] bananameat:
I will try to replicate your steps and see if I get the same.
[Essential Phone Guides, News, & Discussion] NavySpark:
I would honestly say it probably relates to their policy of requiring 50 days of service for unlock. I'm sure some legal aspect ties and protects them even if it was an unlocked phone brought to Sprint. So many people selling the phones I am sure as triggered their actions.

Even if I don't get the first month service refunded, I'd be ok for getting the phone for $200. I just hope with non carrier firmware that it won't ever relock.
[Essential Phone Guides, News, & Discussion] dentedilupo:
I hope soon that it will be some solutions, especially for using essential phone sprint in europe with gsm cards

but all networks, especially american networks, are getting this unlock thing more harder year after year, what i understand, because essential phone for 200 usd dol is a great deal only if customers stay in sprint for the network
[Essential Phone Guides, News, & Discussion] rubi76:
Any solution or development is greatly appreciated!
[Essential Phone Guides, News, & Discussion] bananameat:
Found the problem, you're not looking for the com port in the right place. Here it is:

https://imgur.com/Gpi04R4

You have to summon up device manager from Windows. Then whatever com number you see there is the one you use. It's actually very simple, the whole process. Takes a a minute or two total.
[Essential Phone Guides, News, & Discussion] bavarianblessed:
You have to view the properties of the modem in device manager. The port will be under the modem tab as in the pic below.

OP you may want to add that to the original post.

As you can see though, I wasn't able to pull the data. Error message is Failed...phone does not answer

Did I miss a step?
[Essential Phone Guides, News, & Discussion] bananameat:
Look at the screenshot from my post, the one above you. It's listed under the ports section and there it shows you the port number.

I did what you did and it worked. Is your phone connected to your computer?. USB debugging was off for me and in my notifications it said I was having my device charged see if that makes a difference.
[Essential Phone Guides, News, & Discussion] whymoo:
An XDA user has sent me the nv-data of their locked sprint phone and I have compared the files and made a new file with every line that is different (contains personal information or is useless to us) replaced with "// diff" there was also one item that was empty in their data but not in mine I put "// item is active" under it. Now we just need the nv-data of an unlocked sprint phone. Then if we look at the differences between the unlocked phone and the new file, ignoring the items with "// diff" we should be able to find the item that stores the lock status. I have attached the new file I created.

Sorry for the delays I underestimated how busy I would be during the holiday season.
[Essential Phone Guides, News, & Discussion] bavarianblessed:
I couldn't make out your screen shot, it's a bit small but I see what you are talking about.

Yep phone is connected. The Qualcomm modem wouldn't show as connected in the device manager otherwise. I do have USB debugging enabled though, I'll try again with it disabled.
[Essential Phone Guides, News, & Discussion] bananameat:
Nice! Hopefully someone with an unlocked Sprint phone can help out so we can get this SIM unlock started.

I know that for me, my Sprint phone won't get unlocked until 45 days from now so until then you're going to have to find someone else.
[Essential Phone Guides, News, & Discussion] Wredal:
I have an unlocked Sprint variant that I am rocking in Europe with a local provider sim-card. However when I enter the *#*#3424#*#* code in the dialer, nothing happens - the code just disappears. I am on the NMJ32F build.

Can you check what application/activity should be triggered? I can try to trigger it manually.
[Essential Phone Guides, News, & Discussion] jaminw:
I have two of these that are locked to Sprint, I paid off the leases but a bill generated before the auto unlock so I got screwed. Would be glad to test or help out in any way that I can.
[Essential Phone Guides, News, & Discussion] grod46:
Just want to chime in here and say I've called in so many times into care and International support and all said that they were going to make a ticket to unlock my essential. It never got unlocked, but since I was staying with sprint anyways I just kinda gave up for a while. But yesterday morning I found out Sprint has an International live chat that CAN unlock phones and is way easier to deal with then CS over the phone. I chatted with them around 10 am yesterday and by 8 PM I got the message on my phone saying" Your device has been unlocked to support any inserted UICC" Heres the link I used, under requests I put "Active Sim Unlock" https://sprintworldwide.custhelp.com/app/chat/chat_launch/
[Essential Phone Guides, News, & Discussion] bananameat:
This happened to me 1 time but mostly it's worked for me.

Just try doing it several times and under different conditions. Do it without pausing while typing or after restarting your phone, make sure other apps aren't disturbing and so on.

Here's a quick video of me doing it: https://youtu.be/5IJL9kE8liU

---------- Post added at 11:07 AM ---------- Previous post was at 11:00 AM ----------

Nice, will keep that in mind. Do you think you can help us by providing an nv-data backup as described in the first post here? You would just need a usb cable that connects your phone to a Windows computer.
[Essential Phone Guides, News, & Discussion] grod46:
I'm trying to right now but I'm having issues with windows locating the drivers, in connecting it to my Laptop running windows 10 with the USB C to C Cable to a USB C Port on my Laptop, If anyone can help out getting these drivers I would be more then happy to help out as best as I can. I'm currently running Nougat on my essential, was going to update to Oreo Beta but will wait until I can get the NV Settings so I can get the settings on both Nougat and oreo
[Essential Phone Guides, News, & Discussion] bananameat:
All I did was enter the code given and enable diagnostic, and then connect my phone to my computer and then I opened the device manager and found the device under ports:

https://imgur.com/Gpi04R4

That's literally all I did, I never installed drivers or anything like that.
[Essential Phone Guides, News, & Discussion] strictlyphat:
ymmv but from what i can see, flashign the modems 100% unlocked my phone. i think the firmwares are the same, but the sim dictates if sprint bloat should load up. dont quote me on that tho. just flash themodems and youll be good to go.
[Essential Phone Guides, News, & Discussion] yanky_1586:
Did you bought the phones on ebay recently ??
[Essential Phone Guides, News, & Discussion] Jaxidian:
Yes I did
[Essential Phone Guides, News, & Discussion] cell2011:
I'm getting a used one on eBay. Would anyone be willing to offer there service to get my phone running on straight talk att towers when I get it? Can someone that knows how to do this PM me
[Essential Phone Guides, News, & Discussion] jacobee1:
post #360 has been edited to include new instructions...and important tips
[Essential Phone Guides, News, & Discussion] yanky_1586:
If possible can you plz pm me the ebay url of the phone that you bought....Just wanted to compare a few things...
[Essential Phone Guides, News, & Discussion] cell2011:
Can I just bring a Sprint essential from eBay and get Sprint prepaid service? What is the least of plan I could purchase?
[Essential Phone Guides, News, & Discussion] Jaxidian:
It was the 9/10 condition phones from yywireless (or something like that), the deal that got them for ~$185 each the other day.

---------- Post added at 05:24 PM ---------- Previous post was at 05:21 PM ----------

If you port a phone number to Sprint, there's a deal where you can get a full year of service for a total of something like $35. I don't know the details but I bet you'd be interested in that based on your question. Search around for "free year of Sprint" and you'll find it (it's free plus taxes and fees).
[Essential Phone Guides, News, & Discussion] luisipr1:
I just bought the device from them myself
[Essential Phone Guides, News, & Discussion] Revolter:
so I got this Essential from Ebay, unlocked by following tutorial and flashed modemst1 & 2, upgraded to Oreo, got in Freedom pop (ATT sub) SIM, all worked

now I got service with Sprint and want to use this phone there, had Sprint to add the phone and give me SIM for it but then the phone reported "error 639e" and it is not working on Sprint network

I then tried to downgrade the Essential phone back to Android 7.1 by flashing official ROM from Essential for Sprint, it flashed OK but the same "error 639e" come on...

Apparently I need to recover the original radios back to whatever was there before I flashed modemst1 and 2, anyone knows how to do or what to do ?

Apparently unlocking the Essential is making it work elsewhere but Sprint own network :( that was unexpected.

**

Found this commands on the net:

fastboot erase modemst1

fastboot erase modemst2

Tried to execute but got :

.\fastboot erase modemst1

erasing 'modemst1'...

FAILED (remote: Flashing is not allowed for Modem Partitions)
[Essential Phone Guides, News, & Discussion] ziddey:
This is why you were supposed to back up your original modemst images.

That said, I'm not sure if the error is related to the modemst images or not. I did the same thing and got an error message as well (don't recall which but assume it's the same).

Tried multiple reboots and was actually about to revert the images when it finally provisioned the Sim on its own about an hour and a half later.

Edit: tried prl and profile update now and get error 6305 for both.

https://www.reddit.com/r/Sprint/comments/85kur8/essential_phone_error_code_6305/

I'm inclined to think it's just Sprint being dog****.
[Essential Phone Guides, News, & Discussion] Jaxidian:
Try flashing that same stock Sprint image a second time. I've seen some funny things happen when both A/B slots have different modem images in them. When you flash that image using "flashall", it only flashes to one slot.
[Essential Phone Guides, News, & Discussion] SPIK3:
Did you do anything special to get the update? I popped in my Tmo sim but I only got two security updates and still on 7.1.1.
[Essential Phone Guides, News, & Discussion] Jaxidian:
Nah, just used an active TMobile postpaid sim card. I inserted the Sim while the phone was off and checking for updates pulled it right up over WiFi.
[Essential Phone Guides, News, & Discussion] Revolter:
*****

so for my PH-1 that was not activating on Sprint after unlocking by flashing modemst1&2 (the phone initially did not accept ATT SIM, but did so after unlock), I have tried to downgrade, flashed 7.1 multiple times with no change, finally I deleted modemst1&2 after I unlocked bootloader and bootcritical.

After that I have flashed once more original Essential ROM 7.1 for Sprint from manufacturer page and I have had Sprint CS to re-provision the phone. The advanced tech support I chatted with said there is some problem with phone IMEI and SIM and he said he did fix it, had me reboot phone several times and keep trying to update Sprint system config and PRL which phone keept failing to do. On one reboot I decided to do full erase before restart, when phone booted up I used WIFI to sign into my account and updated play store, that pulled Sprint app into the phone by itself, I have rebooted once more and there was it, phone worked all of sudden all the configuration completed.

I was hesitant to mess with the phone again but I did insert active ATT SIM to phone I just had provisioned to Sprint and voila, the phone did accept the SIM, that means it stayed unlocked, it immediately offered me to update to 8.1 android which I did, upon finishing update ATT service was working but I did not test it in detail. I swapped SIM to Sprint again and did factory reset again to clear the phone config from ATT SIM and when it booted, with newly updated to Oreo 8.1 Android I completed device setup and it provisioned to Sprint right away. YEY! Happy to have phone working and it seem there was problem not with modemst1&2 but with the fact the phone was not set up correctly on Sprint side. But I am just guessing. Whew what a curveball. Seems now the phone is unlocked, I hope it stays that way.
[Essential Phone Guides, News, & Discussion] jacobee1:
Post #360 (thanx to yall) does have a bunch of over-directions (for noobs and such) BUT no modem back ups needed. Once the files are on your computer...pretty quick process. Also these post directions will recover you from bad flashes.
[Essential Phone Guides, News, & Discussion] x000x:
what is the advantage of doing this vs asking sprint to unlock it? (mine is currently on sprint)
[Essential Phone Guides, News, & Discussion] jacobee1:
you may not be eligible for unlock?

And also does anyone have info on undone Sprint Essential's...are they getting 8.1 also?
[Essential Phone Guides, News, & Discussion] jacobee1:
Please help. Can someone confirm that getting into the *#*#4636#*#* settings is the best way to get Verizon fully functional with Essential? And what settings or other ways worked for you? Thanx in advance. Only texting working for my friend with this issue.
[Essential Phone Guides, News, & Discussion] Caltinpla:
Your phone gotta be active with Sprint for at least 50 days and your account must be in good standing to be eligible for unlocking your phone.
[Essential Phone Guides, News, & Discussion] luisipr1:
I can confirm that putting in a At&t sim and updating to Oreo when the sim is installed unlocked my phone. Working great !
[Essential Phone Guides, News, & Discussion] kennymase:
I bought one off eBay, hopefully mine will do the same!! But if for some reason I cant get the unlock to work, will someone in this thread help me out if i need it?
[Essential Phone Guides, News, & Discussion] luisipr1:
That's what we are here for
[Essential Phone Guides, News, & Discussion] cell2011:
I've got a used Sprint coming Monday. I'm on straight talk att towers. It's on 7.1.1 the seller said. Can I just pop in my sim take updates through wifi?
[Essential Phone Guides, News, & Discussion] tech_head:
It needs to be unlocked first.

Being a phone that was originally on Sprint means it may or may not be.
[Essential Phone Guides, News, & Discussion] DrClaw:
I'm still having problems and hope some folks here can help. I've tried flashing modems and that didn't work. I have 3 phones so I took another out of the box. It's 7.1 so I installed my mint sim started phone. Got the invalid sim message. I connected to WiFi and downloaded 8.1. Phone rebooted. I don't have the invalid sim message but can't get any data connectivity. This is the same state I had when I flahsed modems on 1st phone. I tried adding the mintsim APN and connecting to that then restarting but still no luck. I've tried toggling the automatic network and manually selecting mintsim but then I get an error that says - sim card cannot establish a connection with this network. This card is currently working fine I'm my DD Moto.

I'm not sure whats going on. I also have a prepaid att sim and I've tried inserting that but same issue. No data connection. Anyone have any thoughts?
[Essential Phone Guides, News, & Discussion] Revolter:
try:

1/ factory reset with the MintSim in the phone

2/ set up the phone with your account, let the play store install all updates and reboot it

3/ follow: https://www.mintsim.com/setup-for-android/
[Essential Phone Guides, News, & Discussion] DrClaw:
Thanks. Do u think I need to relock bootloader etc? Before factory reset? Pefrorm factory reset from settings?

Step 3 is what I've done to setup the APN etc but did not do that prior to factory reset and installing account info. Always done it with no Google account info.
[Essential Phone Guides, News, & Discussion] Revolter:
no need to lock anything other than to be safe and if you are really done and are not planning to mess with FW again, I hope the steps will resolve your issue, if not then perhaps try to set your phone radio mode to "global"

BTW, if you ever decide to lock the bootloader later, it will by default wipe your phone.
[Essential Phone Guides, News, & Discussion] DuMKaSD:
Any idea if it will relock once you put a Sprint SIM in? My gf is on Sprint and I'm on Tmo, got this as a backup phone for us both, want to make sure it'll remain unlocked
[Essential Phone Guides, News, & Discussion] DrClaw:
Just finished trying the troubleshooting steps recommended. Still no luck. Slightly different result. Now when I start the phone I get a notification saying phone services phone not allowed. I've tried cycling different radios between LTE, Global Etc but nothing seems to work. The strangest thing is that the first time I did this I was able to get on the mintsim network for brief moment and then when I looked again a couple minutes later it was no longer available and doing the symptoms I'm currently experiencing. I guess I'll go back to step 1 roll back to the OEM software and then try the original procedure one more time. I was having trouble with the flashall step. So maybe that's where the problem was.
[Essential Phone Guides, News, & Discussion] tech_head:
It will.
[Essential Phone Guides, News, & Discussion] kennymase:
I got the phone, is there anyway to trigger the oreo update?

---------- Post added at 08:14 PM ---------- Previous post was at 07:26 PM ----------

I'm good, I followed the 360 post steps.. phone is fully unlocked on cricket!!!
[Essential Phone Guides, News, & Discussion] roldieh397:
So I used another carrier's sim on this phone to update OREO and was able to unlock it. Now its active on Sprint.

My question is if you press the UICC unlock button what would happen? This was the original way to unlock the phone originally on Sprint.
[Essential Phone Guides, News, & Discussion] ziddey:
nothing
[Essential Phone Guides, News, & Discussion] tritrancs:
Confirmed that just update to 8.1 and phone is unlocked

Hi,

I can confirm that update to Oreo 8.1 unlocks the phone. I just did the same with my phone this morning, so far so good. I was from NMI81C with invalid sim message. After factory reset, got a 8.1 update notification, after updated to 8.1, no invalid message any more, can make and receive calls.

BTW, I am not in the US.
[Essential Phone Guides, News, & Discussion] jacobee1:
I always roll back to 24B and update (flashall, sideload, etc) without sim.

---------- Post added at 05:53 AM ---------- Previous post was at 05:38 AM ----------

***ATTN***Swappa's ESN check is not as accurate as TING's BYOD check...it found one of my couple dozen Sprint Essential's (yywireless) Financed/Ineligible. https://ting.com/byod
[Essential Phone Guides, News, & Discussion] adamjeeps:
I bought a YYwireless phone off Ebay. Said locked to Sprint at first, but updated to 8.1 with Verizon sim and now works ok. Is there any reason I should flash the unlocked firmware? Would it enable WiFi calling? Would it be truly unlocked? It says locked to Sprint in recovery mode, and would go to 3g sometimes in NYC. Using the *#*#4636#*#* method would get it back.
[Essential Phone Guides, News, & Discussion] tech_head:
In recovery mode it should say VARIANT- Sprint

DEVICE STATE - locked; means the boot loader is locked.
[Essential Phone Guides, News, & Discussion] adamjeeps:
You are correct. I do have Sprint variant. I guess it still has the Sprint software even though it is unlocked to use on Verizon. Would flashing the modem files be advised or should I just leave well enough alone?
[Essential Phone Guides, News, & Discussion] tech_head:
I flashed my modem and I'm on Verizon.

The variant is baked into a part of the low level firmware you can't touch. It will forever say it's a Sprint variant.
[Essential Phone Guides, News, & Discussion] bchokheli:
hi alll

can somebady write right instructions how to unlock my sprint ph1
[Essential Phone Guides, News, & Discussion] lqvd:
Post number 360 explains it all.
[Essential Phone Guides, News, & Discussion] bchokheli:
i did everything but its not worked for me
[Essential Phone Guides, News, & Discussion] lqvd:
Try again and make sure to check for any errors during the process. Without those it will be hard to help for anyone here.
[Essential Phone Guides, News, & Discussion] Dooky51:
Hello!

Has anybody already installed new firmware with april security patch by OTA?

Does the phone stay unlock after update?
[Essential Phone Guides, News, & Discussion] zswielder:
Is anyone having a problem with mobile data after using this method? I'm trying to use it on Xfinity Mobile, and I can't get mobile data to work. It also doesn't let me change or add APN. Someone please help.

---------- Post added at 06:09 PM ---------- Previous post was at 06:03 PM ----------

Were you able to fix this? I have a slightly different but similar issue, so I'm curious if you managed to solve yours and if so what you did.
[Essential Phone Guides, News, & Discussion] DrClaw:
No I haven't been able to. Haven't tried going all the way back to the beginning yet.
[Essential Phone Guides, News, & Discussion] zswielder:
Thanks for the reply. It looks like my problem is an APN being fixed to Verizon when it needs to be Xfinity Mobile. But, the APN setting doesn't let me change anything. I may need to root this phone and force change it.
[Essential Phone Guides, News, & Discussion] mechon23:
Device not updating

I followed the same update process for three devices, I noticed one device is not updating like the others, even when I search for new updates it says its up to date with the February security patch unlike the other two which downloaded and installed the April updates. I tried the process again and its for sure unlocked but still no update messages. Anyone know why this might be?
[Essential Phone Guides, News, & Discussion] jacobee1:
Strange but usually this is the case because one of your phones had a different build on it. I'm not sure if you started with 24B on all of them? make sure Sim is out and downgrade back to 24b, install the beta 8.1 (beta 8.1 will always prompt for upgrade to official 8.1 - I find this long method much more reliable)
[Essential Phone Guides, News, & Discussion] mechon23:
I tried the downgrade and reinstall beta and it still seems to not look for updates. I notice when i try to run the command to unlock_critical I get a message saying, "FAILED (remote: Device already : unlocked!)".

Does that have anything to do with it? If that is the issue how would I allow it to prevent this failure?

Thanks
[Essential Phone Guides, News, & Discussion] arturgig:
I can confirm after updating from 7.1 to 8.1 Oreo phone is now unlocked with full LTE speeds. Im using it now with Telcel Mexico. My phone is the sprint variant. Btw, if you cant manually update to Oreo, unlock the bootloader and then search for updates, that simple trick allowed me to update to Oreo.