[General Questions and Answers] Lusty Rugnuts:
Just found out something new... the systemless installation of the Xposed Framework as a module in Magisk Manager causes the phone to fail the SafetyNet Check (ctsProfile and basicintegrity). This occurs even if you've got Magisk Hide enabled and the Xposed Framework, Google Play Services, Google Play Store and Google Services Framework hidden from root status.

This means that some apps can't be downloaded, updated or run... mainly games, banking apps and some media apps (NetFlix). This isn't a big deal for me, as my phone isn't a gaming phone, I do all my banking in person and I'm not one to watch much TV. I'm a bit of a Luddite in that respect.

I'm researching a solution.

{UPDATE}

DO NOT USE:

Xposed module named 'HiddenCore Module'

This purports to hide Xposed Framework from SafetyNet Check.

It installs the following packages:

package:/data/app/com.cofface.ivader-1/base.apk=com.cofface.ivader

package:/data/app/com.C95dLCPN.Hd.qLqN-1/base.apk=com.C95dLCPN.Hd.qLqN

It then reboots your phone into Recovery Mode without warning... I'm guessing it was trying to install itself as bootloader, making the assumption that the bootloader on a rooted phone is unlocked... ours isn't.

It also wipes out Magisk Manager. If you try to reinstall Magisk Manager with either of those packages installed, it will install but it won't do anything.

Further, just as I installed HiddenCore Module, I got what appeared to be an OTA update (BLU_L0150WW_V7.0.04.13_GENERIC to BLU_L0150WW_V7.0.04.14_GENERIC)... except I have OTA updates disabled, and I was in Airplane Mode at the time... very suspicious.

I had a recent Nandroid backup, so I wiped and restored, and all is back to normal.

{/UPDATE}

{UPDATE2}

It wasn't HiddenCore Module which rebooted my phone into TWRP Recovery Mode... it was Google (more about this below)! This messed up HiddenCore, which was trying to install at the same time. I've been playing around with the settings a lot in trying to lock Google out unless I want them in, and apparently that triggered some SafetyNet thing where Google pushes you the latest ROM and reboots the phone to try to install it... except I don't have the stock fastboot loader anymore, I've got the TWRP Recovery Mode loader, so once the phone reboots, it just sits there doing nothing. I still wouldn't use HiddenCore Module until the author of that app details what the two packages are and do. That second package looks very hinky.

One good thing about this... I was able to pull the update_s.zip file to the computer... it's got the latest .img and scatter files for this phone. I also tried to correct the script in the updater so it'd work... more on that below.

TL;DR: It didn't work. The script expects the default bootloader, so it just errors out. And it's too much trouble to manually do the installation, for just a single sub-step in ROM version.

{/UPDATE2}

When you get your phone to the state that you want (all apps installed and configured, etc.), do a Nandroid backup in TWRP. Save it on your SD card and on your computer. I take a new Nandroid every few days, deleting the older one on the SD card, and keeping the backups on the computer in an external drive. If anything goes wrong, I can roll back to a known-working configuration. If whatever the problem is also occurs in that backup, I can roll back further... it only takes about 10 minutes total to restore the phone. You don't need an antivirus app (most of them are bogus anyway) slowing your phone down and draining your battery, you just need a series of full backups.

---------- Post added at 07:11 AM ---------- Previous post was at 06:52 AM ----------

I've noticed that when listening to podcasts via BlueTooth headphones, the volume control is too granular... down one notch is too quiet, up one notch is too loud. So...

A build.prop tweak... this one increases the number of steps between no volume and maximum volume for the phone:

#Increase the number of volume control steps

ro.config.vc_call_vol_steps=14

ro.config.media_vol_steps=30

Just add these, then follow the directions in this thread above to push the build.prop from your computer to your phone.