yashsingh1/xdaforums huggingface dataset:
[Essential Phone Guides, News, & Discussion] Revolter:
I have installed the OTA OPM1.180104.141 with April 2018 security patches and the phone is still unlocked, currently using on Sprint BYOD plan but just had in the phone FreedomPOP ATT SIM and it worked
[Essential Phone Guides, News, & Discussion] Virus_672:
thank you! it works =)

I can confirm that this method works. Both wifi and sim are working fine. thank you!:)
[Essential Phone Guides, News, & Discussion] x000x:
Thanks for this guide! I want to say that this part kind of frightened me because it took nearly 5 minutes just to complete part 1 of 2 :P the device stated "verifying update package..." and after several minutes I started to think something had gone wrong. But then I checked the power shell and it only stated 45% completion. So this portion of the guide takes a while to complete.

So it was a false alarm, everything seems to be working great now :good:

edit: I used PH1-OTA-OPM1.180104.010.zip from your download link then tried checking for updates. At first it said the phone was up to date, which was odd.. but a few hours later i got a notification update and after installing there was another update to OPM1.180104.141
[Essential Phone Guides, News, & Discussion] DrClaw:
Did you resolve this?
[Essential Phone Guides, News, & Discussion] zswielder:
Unfortunately, no. I got in contact with another Essential Phone owner, who bought theirs from Amazon, and they are using it just fine on XM, so it looks like the problem is with the Sprint variant :( Now I'm wondering if it's the unlock method that I used that led to this issue. Maybe I need to flash different modems.
[Essential Phone Guides, News, & Discussion] jacobee1:
I am curious...if you go into about phone, is there a line that reads "Brand Sprint" ...if so then you may need to go back to 24B. Just a thought.
[Essential Phone Guides, News, & Discussion] zswielder:
I got my phone from Sprint, so I'm sure it does. Would going back to 24B fix an APN issue? I'll have time to experiment this weekend.

Update: I had some time this evening, so I went ahead and installed Oreo Beta 8.1, and this fixed the problem right away. My phone was already on 8.1 via OTA, but my guess is that the unlocking method in this thread makes something not work correctly in the modem, which got fixed when I installed Oreo Beta manually (which likely overrode whatever the problem was). If anyone else unlocked their phone via this thread's method, I highly recommend you to flash Ore Beta once just to avoid possible future issues.
[Essential Phone Guides, News, & Discussion] innoth:
Sorry I'm noob here, I'm in Indonesian :D

My cousin already bought PH-1 for me from ebay with Unlocked status. The Seller wrote that phone would be unlocked after account deactivated.

When the phone came, he checked with at & t sim and phone can make a call. So the phone is Unlocked right ?

But the phone will be used in Indonesia, is there any simple way to check the phone is International Unlocked ?

Thanks.
[Essential Phone Guides, News, & Discussion] xorwin:
CDMA Essential Unlock

Guys, I might buy CDMA Essential phone. Just want to be sure that this procedure can unlock the phone to work with any SIM.

thank you
[Essential Phone Guides, News, & Discussion] Caltinpla:
Just put any international Sim card in and if you don't get the "invalid Sim card" message then your phone is international unlocked.
[Essential Phone Guides, News, & Discussion] innoth:
Ok. i will tell him for check it.

Thanks !
[Essential Phone Guides, News, & Discussion] DrClaw:
Hi everyone. I still haven't been successful with my mint sim. I've spent too much time on this so I'll be returning the phones to sprint but before I do, I thought I'd offer them here first. If anyone wants one for a reasonable price pm me.
[Essential Phone Guides, News, & Discussion] thewoZa:
Thanks to all who contributed to this thread. Just unlocked a Sprint locked version for use in the UK...
[Essential Phone Guides, News, & Discussion] Bad Bimr:
Hey guys thinking about buying this phone to use on Verizon. I am not a sprint customer. I can get the Sprint version for $40 less than a regular version. Reading through the thread I am still a bit lost. Can the sprint phone be unlocked to be used as a Global phone? Will I have issues with t of Verizon as not being recognized? What is the easiest way to do this "unlocking"?

Thanks

BB
[Essential Phone Guides, News, & Discussion] avd:
Just spend the $40.
[Essential Phone Guides, News, & Discussion] :
Can anyone confirm this method working still as of recently with Sprint Essential? some say just putting a tmobile Sim in and manually updating to Oreo or P unlocks it, but that has never ever worked for any Android phone...

Edit: ok I read the entire thread front to back, I have confidence this method works. I was just hesitant until I read. Thanks for everyone's work in this thread. This is amazing !
[Essential Phone Guides, News, & Discussion] tech_head:
It works.

Just make sure you flash the correct ROM before you try to unlock.

Apparently it only works with a limited number of ROMs.

Other ROMs lock down the partitions.
[Essential Phone Guides, News, & Discussion] :
Ok cool duly noted, going to pick it up now.. if I need help, I'll be sure to ask you fine gents thx!
[Essential Phone Guides, News, & Discussion] Kerimo3:
Sim unlock
[Essential Phone Guides, News, & Discussion] stealthj:
Just picked up a non-paid off sprint variant unknowingly (oh well)

Status : Successfully unlocked but cannot configure APN in android 8.1. Have not tried to flash different modem files to see if that does anything. I will try and report back
[Essential Phone Guides, News, & Discussion] mexicandroid:
I'm going to apply the very first Nougat your firmware and then apply the Oreo beta OTA. Hope it works

No luck for me. After booting the Nougat software so you guys connect it to WiFi and let the software lock you out then install the OTA update?

After I installed Nougat I didn't setup anything or connected to WiFi, just enabled USB debugging and then side loaded the Oreo beta and still network locked. Should I do a factory reset after the OTA update?

Did you guys lock the bootloader before buying up the Oreo OTA?

---------- Post added at 07:14 PM ---------- Previous post was at 06:44 PM ----------

Which Oreo beta OTA zip did you use?
[Essential Phone Guides, News, & Discussion] ziddey:
Newer bootloaders block flashing modem partitions, even with critical unlocked. However, it looks like the partitions can be written to fine with dd (with root of course). Can anyone confirm that this does work for sim-unlocking? There will likely be an influx of users here, since it looks like the latest OTA is somehow relocking a ton of ebay sprint variants (yywirelesss et al)

dd if=/path/to/modemst1.img of=/dev/block/by-name/modemst1
dd if=/path/to/modemst2.img of=/dev/block/by-name/modemst2

Otherwise, instead of fastboot flashing an entire older build, perhaps just downgrading the bootloader will do.
[Essential Phone Guides, News, & Discussion] Scar Software:
I actually work for yywireless and we just found this issue out tonight and we will be working on a solution for unlock that everyone can do if anyone finds information to help that would be greatly appreciated.
[Essential Phone Guides, News, & Discussion] ziddey:
Unless this is something that essential can release an update to fix, the only solution involves unlocking the bootloader (data loss). Newer bootloaders no longer have the ability to flash the modemst partitions, even with unlock_critical. However, it appears they can be written to via dd with root. I'm not positive that it actually takes though, but I haven't tested (writing something different, redumping and comparing), but it does seem to write without error. Otherwise, I'm imagining just downgrading the bootloader (pre-oreo?) would allow flashing these partitions. I haven't tested this to see if there would be conflicts (with running an otherwise newer build), but I imagine it should work.

Either way, unless the user already has the bootloader unlocked, there isn't a way around data loss. I'm guessing the bootloader can be relocked afterwards, but I'm definitely not interested in finding out myself :)

I've got a few friends with your phones ;)
[Essential Phone Guides, News, & Discussion] Scar Software:
Well its not ideal to unlock bootloader, downgrade or root i have another idea what if there was a way to force a uicc unlock just like the s9 sprint if this way works then it will be the ideal solution.

Does any one know the kind of protocols essential uses besides adb and fastboot? For example diag mode or AT Commands?
[Essential Phone Guides, News, & Discussion] ziddey:
Hey [MENTION=9339002]Scar Software[/MENTION] I just thought of something. This is an A/B phone. Perhaps it could be switched without an unlocked bootloader?

fastboot --set-active=a

or b

Wouldn't solve the issue with the current OTA, but would at least switch back to the last version. Could be a reasonable stop-gap to have customers do for now.

Assuming it works
[Essential Phone Guides, News, & Discussion] Scar Software:
Are you sure that's how it works? I thought an ota update would overwrite both A/B if not that would be a very good temp solution!!
[Essential Phone Guides, News, & Discussion] ziddey:
I'm not sure. But I guess I'll see if I destroy my phone right now. Will report back

edit: yeah, this doesn't look good. It does boot the old version, but crashes out and loads into recovery.

"Can't load Android system. Your data may be corrupt" with options to retry or factory reset.

edit: switching the slot back and everything is fine (after art runs its course again)
[Essential Phone Guides, News, & Discussion] arjunv:
I downgraded to NMK24B, checked for signal it was still locked. Flashed the modem files, and voila it started to work again. I updated to 9 via system update but it got messed up and somehow and had to flash 9 via fastboot. I can confirm everything is work and i am on build PPR1.180610.091.

It took me couple of times and some android error messages to make this work as i tried multiple combinations
[Essential Phone Guides, News, & Discussion] matika77:
i also got the "invalid sim" error and can't get it to work again. downgraded to serveral former firmwares (including flashing the modem files) but no luck.

which modem files did you flash ? did you flash them via fastboot or the "dd" method described above ?

thanks
[Essential Phone Guides, News, & Discussion] arjunv:
My phone was not rooted, so first i did unlock bootloader and also unlock_crticial. Then i flashed 24B via fastboot. let it boot and checked and still it said invalid sim. Then i flashed the modems using fastboot. checked again and i had signal. Then it started to give me OTA alert which i upgraded but somehow the phone got stuck on the essential boot picture. Finally i flashed the Android 9 package via fastboot and it rebooted without any issues and is working. I haven't updated it to the current OTA to check if the modem flash still holds.
[Essential Phone Guides, News, & Discussion] matika77:
tried it, but didn't work for me. still "invalid sim card".

baseband/modem version doesn't seem to be relevant to this issue.

thanks anyway
[Essential Phone Guides, News, & Discussion] arjunv:
why don't you try using the method posted back in post no 221 https://xdaforums.com/showpost.php?p=75507693&postcount=221

Also someone had mentioned back that he had used NMJ81C and flashed modem files.
[Essential Phone Guides, News, & Discussion] matika77:
okay, my fault. i flashed the modem.img from former firmwares instead of modemst1/modemst2. flashing them did the trick. sim card ist working again.
[Essential Phone Guides, News, & Discussion] kenbrownstone:
U guys got any info to help me out on what to flash ,I also have invalid sim was really running T-Mobile
[Essential Phone Guides, News, & Discussion] arjunv:
Just refer the above post for the old method and follow step by step. If your phone is rooted or bootloader is unlocked, skip the initial steps. The point is to flash an old firmware and followed by flashing modem files described in post 221. The modem files are also available in link 221.
[Essential Phone Guides, News, & Discussion] kenbrownstone:
What if I don't want to root ,is there another way? Mine is unlocked..
[Essential Phone Guides, News, & Discussion] awireless:
I am able to get access to the efs system with QPST has anyone tried to use this to unlock the device?
[Essential Phone Guides, News, & Discussion] TheYetti1:
I believe someone tried the a/b thing? And it caused boot errors.

I just bought my Essential from eBay about a month now.

Got P right when it was official. Everything was cool till the update that applied last night.

Woke up with invalid sim...boo

Is it possible to isolate the previous security patch with Septembers patch and compaire codes and somehow flash or push a modified file...because it deff seems to be something with this latest patch that's tripping the phones status or something?

Or does that sound easier said then done??
[Essential Phone Guides, News, & Discussion] awireless:
I would love to see the source code lol i don't think its accessible in that way. I believe the best solution is to use qualcomm tools and there protocols and find exploit in the nv items where we can unlock that's pretty much how all other phones these days are being unlocked. Is anyone familiar with qualcomm protocols???
[Essential Phone Guides, News, & Discussion] LOVE ME PLEASE:
Hey guys. After flashing twrp it's frozen. Cannot slide for modifications. Any help? Thanks.

Also I am getting this error when trying to flash modemst1

Writing 'modemst1' FAILED (remote: 'Flashing is not allowed for Modem Partitions
[Essential Phone Guides, News, & Discussion] arjunv:
Just flash an oldbuild 24B and then the modem files. I also did unlock critical before flashing 24B. Then flash 9 . Worked for me.
[Essential Phone Guides, News, & Discussion] awireless:
Can you provide link to the firmware you use?

Also could you do this as mentioned in the very first post and send it to me please while your on the android 9 September patch!!!

We need backed up nv-data from at least one locked and one unlocked sprint phone, here is how you can back it up.

1. Open the dialer and input the secret code *#*#3424#*#*

2. On this screen enter 000000 and tap confirm (very great for us that essential left the default msl value).

3. On this screen check the diagnostic mode and close the app.

4. Download and extract the nv-data reader on a PC http://phonegeek.us/NV-items_reader_writer.rar

5. Connect your phone, in device manager, a new Qualcomm device should appear.

6. Run the program, in the top bar: select the com port (it should be shown in device manager), check both of the boxes in the top bar, and click connect.

7. Now in the top bar click read, if the log says "Log message: > SPC is correct. Phone unlocked" you have done everything correctly so far. (The unlocked part has nothing to do with the SIM lock status)

8. Under "Range (Dec):" enter 0 to 07300 and click read (07233 seems to be the last useful value but a little buffer is good)

9. Save the file with any name you like and send me a private message with it.
[Essential Phone Guides, News, & Discussion] deepu458:
is this issue happening for the Sprint variant phones that were officially unlocked form Sprint via UICC method? as im currently on Aug Firmware with ATT sim. but mine got unlocked from Sprint Officially when i left them.
[Essential Phone Guides, News, & Discussion] metal1f3:
Flashing NMK24B, letting it boot and then booting back to bootloader and flashing modems worked for me. I then took the OTA upgrade to the 180610.091 build. Everythings working great but I'm afraid to upgrade to the latest again. Has anyone tried it to see if it sticks?
[Essential Phone Guides, News, & Discussion] Pesti13nce:
So basically is the only option right now for those of us with Sprint variants (These are questions as i haven't rooted or done anything since the old Droid 2 days)

-Unlock Bootloader (and flash an older bootloader version?) Currently on Mata-84F7CCE

-Root device using TWRP

-Flash (PIE? something?)

-Flash new Modems?

-Not install the new OTA.

i'm understanding this also means the phone will have to be factory reset which isn't a big deal for me but i'm curious exactly what files are people flashing to get back?
[Essential Phone Guides, News, & Discussion] ziddey:
According to one user on reddit, it's still working:

https://www.reddit.com/r/essential/comments/9czni3/the_update_locked_my_sim/e5f6yhd/

---------- Post added at 04:01 PM ---------- Previous post was at 03:45 PM ----------

There are potentially a few ways of doing this. I forgot to unlock_critical back in the day and don't feel like having my data wiped at the moment so I can't test them all. But here's the most straight-forward:

1. Download the oldest fastboot release (NMI81C): https://storage.googleapis.com/essential-static/PH1-Images-NMI81C.zip

2. Enable developer options by going to settings->system->about phone, and tapping build number 5 times

3. Go back to system, enter developer options, and enable oem unlocking

4. Power off and boot into bootloader (hold power+voldn)

5. Plug in usb

6. Install drivers: https://storage.googleapis.com/essential-static/Essential-PH1-WindowsDrivers.exe

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

8. For simplicity, extract both NMI81C and platform-tools to the same directory

9. Open powershell: hold shift and right click on some whitespace in the directory, and select open powershell from menu.

10. In shell, run: flashall.bat (reason for doing this is so you can see any errors)

11. Boot back into bootloader

11. Download sim-unlocked modemst zip: https://drive.google.com/file/d/1LQC-2QOC-PWX7vza-82tpwFrnUjaGZVq/view?usp=sharing

12. Extract to same directory

13. In shell, run: fastboot flash modemst1 modemst1.img

14. In shell, run: fastboot flash modemst2 modemst2.img

Now you're unlocked, and on the first release.

I haven't tested the sept pie fastboot, but I hear it's bugged. It may be better to instead get the august fastboot and flash that. Then, take the OTA to sept.

---

Otherwise, for existing bootloader-unlocked / rooted users, I believe the dd method may work. This could save you from a data-wipe.

It looks like the device routinely overwrites the modemst1/2 partitions while the radio is on. This means if you simply dd the sim-unlocked images, they'll quickly get overwritten before they can take effect.

However, by switching the phone into airplane mode and waiting a minute, the md5sum of the partitions seems to stay the same. This should allow any changes to actually remain. To try and ensure these images aren't overwritten, hold the power button until the device forcibly powers off. Test on the next boot if it is now unlocked.

If someone with a rooted sim-locked device could test this method, it could help a lot of people.
[Essential Phone Guides, News, & Discussion] Pesti13nce:
Thank you! i'm going to try this right now at work and leave be so i can get my phone back! This Nexus 5X just doesn't have the same entertainment level.

Probably a REALLY dumb question but how do i get to the Command promp/Powershell to navigate to the directory? Steps 9 and 10?
[Essential Phone Guides, News, & Discussion] deepu458:
if u r on windows 10. open the folder where u download the modemst1/2 files and the right click in that folder and u can see an option in tht list where it says "Open PowerShell from Here" in Win 7 it says "Open Command Prompt from Here"
[Essential Phone Guides, News, & Discussion] ziddey:
Easiest way is just to open the directory, hold shift, right click on some whitespace and open powershell directly from the menu.
[Essential Phone Guides, News, & Discussion] Pesti13nce:
Thanks guys! Looks like i don't have the right cord or i'm being locked down from work, lol. I'll have to wait till i get home to finish the install. The phone isn't showing up in the directory on the computer and when i run the prompt it says "waiting for any device".
[Essential Phone Guides, News, & Discussion] awireless:
Did you install drivers??
[Essential Phone Guides, News, & Discussion] Pesti13nce:
Yes, i ran the installation of the drivers
[Essential Phone Guides, News, & Discussion] ziddey:
Does fastboot devices show anything?

How about fastboot -i 0x2e17 devices?

Are you able to pull up device manager and see the phone?
[Essential Phone Guides, News, & Discussion] Pesti13nce:
no those options do not show in device manager ziddey, it says "unknown USB device", which is acting like the drivers aren't installed but the program is showing the drivers were installed. I think this is a work computer related issue, it might not be allowing me to install the drivers even tho i have the admin because of the work network, i'm not too worried about it i'm off work in 20 mins i'll handle it then.
[Essential Phone Guides, News, & Discussion] metal1f3:
I'm not on Windows but I had to sudo on Linux to execute commands. You may need to make sure you opened the shell as an admin on Windows.
[Essential Phone Guides, News, & Discussion] Pesti13nce:
So I have everything installed properly but I'm unsure as to what command I need to enter in adb to get to the physical phone. Please advise.
[Essential Phone Guides, News, & Discussion] metal1f3:
What do you mean "get to the phone"?
[Essential Phone Guides, News, & Discussion] Pesti13nce:
Ok it rebooted and have this issue.
[Essential Phone Guides, News, & Discussion] Pesti13nce:
Forgot the photo...

Having thought about it I need to unlock the bootloader first don't I?
[Essential Phone Guides, News, & Discussion] metal1f3:
Nm
[Essential Phone Guides, News, & Discussion] Pesti13nce:
Well it's unlocked and back to stock but now the touch screen doesn't work and I can't power the phone back down..hmm

---------- Post added at 08:52 PM ---------- Previous post was at 08:30 PM ----------

Well it's unlocked and back to stock but now the touch screen doesn't work and I can't power the phone back down..hmm
[Essential Phone Guides, News, & Discussion] ziddey:
Ok, good news for rooted users. I can confirm that dd can work for flashing the modemst partitions.

Enable airplane mode, and watch the hash of the partitions until they stop changing. Something runs while the cell radio is enabled that rewrites the partitions frequently.

while true; do md5sum /dev/block/by-name/modemst*; sleep 30; done

After flashing the partitions, again, watch the hashes to ensure they don't change on you.

This may or may not be necessary, but to be safe, hard reset the phone by holding the power button. This would prevent anything in the shutdown sequence from overwriting.

After it boots, disable airplane mode, and tada!

For those who don't currently have an unlocked bootloader, this method can still save you a bit of time compared to unlock_critical, downgrade to nougat (or at least the bootloader), flash the modemst images in fastboot, upgrade, etc.
[Essential Phone Guides, News, & Discussion] metal1f3:
I had the same problem. The NMK24B build is what worked for me. The other builds killed my touchscreen.
[Essential Phone Guides, News, & Discussion] Pesti13nce:
I'm trying right now to flash that version.. should I wipe all the other stuff I've done? I flashed it once (nmk build) and it didn't take. After I tried to flash the modems and it told me flashing wasn't allowed remotely..
[Essential Phone Guides, News, & Discussion] sriram_s:
Argh.... I downloaded the latest update, but I haven't restarted yet. Is there a way to delete the update and prevent it from applying??
[Essential Phone Guides, News, & Discussion] metal1f3:
It will wipe everything when you flash it. Let it boot but don't bother setting anything up. After it boots just hold down the power button, as soon as the screen turns off let off power and hold down volume down. This should should get you back into the bootloader. Then flash the two modems. This is what worked for me.
[Essential Phone Guides, News, & Discussion] Pesti13nce:
Nope... Neither will take.