[Xiaomi Redmi Note 5 / 5 Plus ROMs, Kernels, Recove] DarthJabba9:
Sundry OrangeFox information

FAQ

:

#0.

I HAVE ENCOUNTERED A PROBLEM WHILE USING ORANGEFOX

:

1. Provide the logs - and -

2. Provide a

full explanation

of

precisely

what has happened, and

precisely

how you got to that point. Cryptic or generic statements of something "not working", etc., are quite useless to us. We need

full details of everything

- and the more the details, the better.

3. If you do not provide

both

of these, then we will simply ignore any report of any problem. So, it is advisable to (a)

learn how to take logs

before trying anything, and (b)

always

take the logs

before rebooting

after using the recovery.

#1.

INSTALLING ORANGEFOX RECOVERY FROM STOCK MIUI RECOVERY

(adb/fastboot method):

You need a PC for this

. If you do not have a PC, or access to a PC, then you are stuck!

1. Install adb, fastboot, and the relevant USB drivers onto your PC

2. Install the Mi Flash tool onto your PC

3. Download the correct OrangeFox zip file to your phone, and to your PC

4. Extract recovery.img from the OrangeFox zip file, and copy recovery.img to your PC’s adb directory

5. Reboot your phone into fastboot/bootloader mode

6. Unlock your bootloader

7. Open up a command line window on your PC

8. Change to the adb directory on your PC

9. “Hotboot” OrangeFox by running the command: fastboot boot recovery.img

** Note: some devices do not like the "fastboot boot ..." command (eg,

lavender

). You must

NOT

run this command on those devices. Rather, you should run the command: fastboot flash recovery.img - and when it has finished flashing, then boot into OrangeFox by using the Power+Vol+ hardware key combination.

10. After OrangeFox has booted up,

check that everything is working

– eg, that it has

mounted the data partition successfully

, and that the

touchscreen works

.

11. Select “Install”, then find and select the OrangeFox zip, and swipe to install it

12. After installation, the phone will automatically reboot into OrangeFox

13. Enjoy!

#2.

SETTING UP MIUI OTA

(on supported devices):

1. Download the most up-to-date release of OrangeFox Recovery

2. Download a full MIUI ROM that will be the basis of your future MIUI experience, and copy it to your phone’s storage

3. Flash the OrangeFox Recovery zip with your current custom recovery (or follow the steps in the thread for installing from adb/fastboot)

4. Reboot into OrangeFox Recovery (this will have happened automatically if you flashed the OrangeFox zip)

5. Go to the OrangeFox settings, and enable these MIUI OTA settings -

a. Support MIUI incremental OTA

b. Include system in OTA survival

c. Incremental OTA signature verification

d. Aggressive stock recovery deactivation

e. Disable DM-Verity (note: do not enable this for the newest Xiaomi devices released in 2019, or when flashing the latest MIUI ROMs for Android 9.0 or 10.0)

7. Go to the “Wipe” menu, and wipe data, cache, and dalvik

8. Reboot OrangeFox

9. Flash your full MIUI ROM. After the ROM is flashed, OrangeFox will start the "OTA_BAK" process, which will backup your system and boot partitions into the

/sdcard/Fox/OTA

directory. You must

NOT

delete any of the files in the /sdcard/Fox/OTA directory. If you do, then incremental OTA updates

will most definitely

fail.

10. Reboot your phone, and start to use your phone normally

11. When MIUI notifies you that there is an update, download the update, using the MIUI updater app, and allow it to reboot automatically to OrangeFox

12. OrangeFox will install the update automatically (this might take several minutes)

13. OrangeFox will reboot the phone automatically upon completion of the installation of the MIUI OTA update

14. After this, you will not need to flash a full ROM any more - just follow the steps in #10 above

15. If you want to move to a completely different version/build of MIUI, then you will first need to clean-flash the full ROM of that MIUI build, as described above.

#3.

RETURNING TO A MIUI ROM FROM A TREBLE ROM

:

The cleanest and easiest way

to return to MIUI from a custom Treble ROM is to flash a full fastboot MIUI ROM, using the Mi Flash tool. This method should be used in preference to any other method (just ensure that you do not accidentally lock your bootloader again - else, there will be tears). Note that this method will probably format your storage and replace the custom recovery with the stock MIUI recovery. It is generally a good thing to allow your data to be formatted during the flashing of MIUI (so better first backup your apps and settings and data to an external storage device), because this is the best guarantee of trouble-free MIUI. You will subsequently need to flash OrangeFox again using the method described in #1 above.

If you choose to not use method of restoring MIUI that has just been described above, then see the instructions below:

A.	Treble ROMs on many older devices use MIUI’s “cust” partition for their vendor image. This process removes the Xiaomi proprietary files that are necessary for MIUI to run. These

files must be restored

, otherwise MIUI will not work properly. This is not required for devices that have a dedicated vendor partition (ie, those that shipped with a full Treble ROM).

B.	For older devices (eg, kenzo, mido, vince) where the cust partition is also used for the treble ROMs' vendor partitions, if you did not create a backup of your MIUI cust partition to MicroSD or USB-OTG

before

installing a Treble ROM, then you

must

use the method just described above (ie, flash a full fastboot MIUI ROM, using the Mi Flash tool.)

C.	If you DID create a backup of your MIUI cust partition on these old devices (in the newest versions of OrangeFox, this would be the “vendor” partition – it points to the same location as “cust”) to MicroSD or USB-OTG, then you can use OrangeFox to install MIUI when coming from a Treble ROM.

D.

Take the following steps

:

1)	Backup your internal memory

to an external device

(eg, MicroSD, USB-OTG, or your PC).

DO NOT SKIP THIS STEP

!

2)	Copy the latest stable MIUI ROM to your MicroSD or USB-OTG storage

3)	Boot OrangeFox

4)	Make sure that OrangeFox can read your MicroSD or USB-OTG storage, and can see the MIUI ROM that you copied there. This is the ROM that you will install in the steps below.

5)	Select the “Wipe” menu and wipe the Dalvik/Art Cache and Cache partitions

6)	Format data (“

format

” -

not

“wipe”) - you

will lose all the contents of your internal memory

after doing this

7)	Reboot OrangeFox - you might see a message saying “No OS installed …” - just swipe to reboot OrangeFox

8)	Flash your MIUI ROM

9)	Reboot to system, and wait for a long time ...

10)	When ready, restore your backup of your internal memory from your external storage device.

#4.

FLASHING ROMS

:

Flashing a ROM is usually a straightforward process. You can either do a "clean" flash, or a "dirty" flash.

First things

:

When flashing a ROM, you want to ensure that

the recovery is in a known state

, before you start flashing the ROM. Therefore, you should

always

observe the following:

1. Do NOT flash a ROM in a queue with other zips. Always flash a ROM

on its own

, and when flashing is completed, reboot OrangeFox,

before doing anything else

.

2. If you ever wipe the

/vendor

partition, then you

must reboot OrangeFox

immediately afterwards -

before doing anything else

(eg, flashing a ROM or anything else you might want to do).

3. If you ever wipe the

/system

, partition, then

you must reboot OrangeFox

immediately afterwards -

before doing anything else

(ignoring any warnings about no OS being installed).

4. If you ever

format

the

data

partition, then you

must reboot OrangeFox

immediately afterwards -

before doing anything else

.

5. If your Xiaomi device has ARB, and

you are on a MIUI ROM

, then you had better

tread very carefully

if you want to change your MIUI ROM to a different MIUI ROM, or to a different version of the same MIUI ROM. Search on Google for "ARB",

read and understand everything

, and then decide whether you really need to proceed.

6. Make a

full backup

of your current ROM -

before

performing any other operations in the recovery. At the very least, backup the /system, /data, /boot and /vendor partitions.

7. Please

note

that, if you do not follow

all

of the above instructions, and you encounter problems afterwards (which you

definitely

will), I will not answer any questions.

A.

"Clean flashing" (Very strongly recommended)

1) Backup your internal storage, applications, settings, SMS messages, call logs, etc

Do NOT skip this step

.

2) Bootup OrangeFox Recovery

3) Select "Wipe", then tick

Data

,

Dalvik/Art Cache

, and

Cache

4) Swipe - this will restore the system to a known state, and will remove apps/settings that might be incompatible with the ROM that you wish to install (

NOTE

: if you are moving from MIUI to custom ROMs, or vice versa, you must format your data partition - "Menu->Manage Partitions", select "Data", click on "Format Data", and type "Yes"; this will format your data partition and will also wipe your internal storage).

5) Reboot OrangeFox

6) In the OrangeFox File Explorer, select the ROM that you want to flash

8) Swipe to flash the ROM

9) Reboot OrangeFox recovery - before doing anything else - so that any changes to partitions/filesystems done by flashing the new ROM will take full effect

10) Boot up the ROM (so that it can complete whatever it first needs to do) - you might need to wait for

a long time

while the new ROM sets itself up (note that, for some ROMs, flashing magisk might first be required before booting up the ROM for the first time)

11) Reboot to OrangeFox recovery

12) Flash whatever else you might want to flash (eg, GAPPs, magisk, etc)

13) Reboot your device

14) Enjoy

B.

"Dirty flashing" (NOT recommended)

1) Bootup OrangeFox Recovery

2) Select "Install"

3) Choose the ROM that you want to flash

4) Swipe to flash

5) Wipe cache and dalvik

6) Reboot OrangeFox recovery -

before doing anything else

- so that any changes to partitions/filesystems done by flashing the new ROM will take full effect

7) Flash whatever else you might want to flash (eg, GAPPs, magisk, etc)

8) Reboot your device

9) Enjoy (or experience a bootloop)

NOTE:

Dirty flashing a ROM is NOT recommended

. It can cause all kinds of random problems. Always choose to "clean flash"

#5.

"YOUR SYSTEM HAS BEEN DESTROYED" scenarios

:

A) If you have one of these, then, yes, you might be in deep trouble! But this has

nothing

to do with OrangeFox. It is rather a result of

your decisions

and what you have chosen to do, or to flash.

B) For possible solutions, Google is your friend.

C)

Salient advice

: next time, look very carefully

before

flashing anything. It is

your responsibility

to ascertain and

completely

understand, a) what you are installing, b) what instructions it is giving to the recovery, c) what it will do as part of the installation, and d) what it will do after the installation. Otherwise, there

will

be tears.

#6.

MY DEVICE IS ENCRYPTED

:

This is excellent. If your device gets stolen or lost, at least your data on non-removable storage is secure. But, if, for some reason, you would prefer for your data to not be secure, then you can remove the encryption by

formatting your data partition

(note -

format

- not just wipe). This process will also

permanently delete all the contents of your internal storage

. So, you had better backup your internal storage onto an external device before formatting - else, you can say "good bye" to

all

the photos, files, music, videos, etc, on your internal storage.

Note

: ticking "Disable Forced Encryption" will most certainly

not

remove encryption from your device. That is not its purpose. The

only

way to remove encryption is to format your data partition.

#7.

I GET "ERROR 7" WHEN TRYING TO INSTALL <whatever>

:

* This is a

very old

problem, which has nothing at all to do with OrangeFox. So, Google is your friend.

*

Hint:

this is usually an issue with the "updater-script" inside whatever it is that you are trying to install. It is checking for a specific device (with "getprop ro.product.device"), but either finds an empty value, or finds another device. Check that what you are trying to install is the correct version for your device (run the previously mentioned "getprop" command yourself, from a terminal). If so, then speak to whoever released the zip installer that you are trying to install, and ask them to fix their script. If you wiped your system partition, reboot the recovery.

* Also check that you have the correct firmware version installed. Sometimes, error 7 is a result of not having the minimum firmware version that the zip installer is expecting.

*

Hint2

: whenever this happens, take a copy of the recovery logs

immediately

(ie, before doing anything else) and post the logs when you are trying to report the problem. The recovery.log file will provide devs with a lot of useful information in trying to get to the bottom of what has happened.

Reporting the problem without posting the logs would be a complete waste of everybody's time

.

#8.

I GET "ERROR 1" WHEN TRYING TO INSTALL <whatever>

:

* This is a

very old

problem, which has nothing at all to do with OrangeFox. So, search Google.

..............................................................................................................................

Other useful downloads/information

:

•

Android SDK platform tools (adb, fastboot, etc)

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

•

ADB, Fastboot, & Drivers

: https://xdaforums.com/showthread.php?t=2588979

•

Mi Flash tool

: https://www.xiaomigeek.com/download-xiaomi-mi-flash-tool.html

•

Xiaomi USB drivers

: https://www.xiaomigeek.com/download-xiaomi-usb-driver-windows.html

•

How to install TWRP

: https://www.xda-developers.com/how-to-install-twrp/

•

How to install adb

: https://www.xda-developers.com/install-adb-windows-macos-linux/
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