[Moto G5 Plus Guides, News, & Discussion] jodru:
Need a bit of assistance

Hey there NZedPred. First, I would like to thank you for doing all of this research into this issue, most other guides are very choppy and unorganized, and I have never had much luck with any of them.

I was able to use the chown commands to fix the ownership problem at the beginning.

I've got three questions. First, is it possible that a custom 8.1 rom could ruin the persist/efs? While I thought about using someone else's persist to try and fix the problem originally, I never quite got to that step because I didn't know how to replace my persist file in the first place, and I figured out later on that it probably was not a good idea. Second, if on a working device you can delete dhob.bin, leave dhob.bin.bak, and on a reboot IMEI exists and dhob.bin returns, but when you take a dhob.bin that looks like a dhob.bin.bak, rename it to dhob.bin.bak, it doesn't do above? Is it because the file doesn't quite work with shob.bin or something like that? Third, despite all of this, is it still possible to get my IMEI back if I flash to the 8.1 stock roms you mentioned?

As a side note, I would like to try renaming dhob.bin to dhob.bin.bak just to try it. Can you give me the commands needed to do this if it is possible?

Thanks, jodru

My info:

- Which version of STOCK rom are you on? NPNS25.137-93-14

- Are you rooted, and running the commands under root privileges? Yes

- Have you ever flashed someone else's, or another device's persist? 96% positive I did not, though another persist did exist on my SD card for a bit. Doubt it's possible but perhaps when reflashing my stock rom it took that file and replaced my original?

- What functionality are you missing and trying to restore (e.g. IMEI=0, VolTE, etc)? IMEI=0

- Do you get any error messages when trying to execute the commands? No

potter:/ $ su
potter:/ # ls -l /persist
total 224
drwxrwx--- 2 system system 4096 1970-04-10 20:05 alarm
drwxr-xr-x 2 mot_pwric mot_pwric 4096 2018-10-12 23:24 batt_health
drwxrwx--- 2 bluetooth bluetooth 4096 1970-04-10 20:05 bluetooth
drwx------ 2 root system 4096 1970-04-10 20:05 bms
drwxr-xr-x 2 mot_tcmd bluetooth 4096 1969-12-31 19:02 bt
drwxr-xr-x 5 mot_tcmd mot_tcmd 4096 1970-04-11 00:55 camera
drwxrwx--- 2 system system 4096 1970-04-10 20:47 chargeonly
drwxr-xr-x 2 root root 4096 1970-04-10 20:04 coresight
drwx------ 4 system system 4096 1970-04-10 20:04 data
drwxrwx--- 2 system graphics 4096 1969-12-31 19:02 display
drwxrwx--- 2 system system 4096 1969-12-31 19:02 drm
drwxr-xr-x 5 mot_tcmd mot_tcmd 4096 1970-04-10 20:05 factory
drwxrwx--- 3 rfs rfs_shared 4096 1970-04-10 20:04 hlos_rfs
drwxrwx--- 2 root root 4096 1970-04-10 20:04 lost+found
drwxrwx--- 2 radio radio 4096 1970-04-10 20:04 mdm
drwxrwx--- 2 system system 4096 1970-04-10 20:05 misc
drwxrws--- 2 mot_tcmd mot_tcmd 4096 1970-04-11 00:55 paks
drwxrwx--- 2 system system 4096 1970-07-07 05:32 properties
drwxr-xr-x 11 mot_tcmd mot_tcmd 4096 1970-04-10 20:47 public
drwx--x--x 6 rfs rfs 4096 1970-04-10 20:04 rfs
drwx------ 2 root root 4096 1970-04-10 20:47 sds
drwxrwx--- 2 system system 4096 1970-04-10 20:47 secnvm
drwxrws--- 2 mot_tpapi mot_tpapi 4096 1969-12-31 19:02 security
drwxrwxr-x 3 system system 4096 1970-04-11 00:55 sensors
drwxrwx--- 2 system system 4096 2018-10-12 23:24 time
drwxrwx--- 2 media media 4096 1970-04-10 20:47 vpp
drwxr-xr-x 2 mot_tcmd mot_tcmd 4096 1969-12-31 19:02 wifi
drwxrwxr-x 2 mot_drm mot_drm 4096 1969-12-31 19:02 wmdrm

potter:/ # find /persist -type f
/persist/coresight/qdss.agent.sh
/persist/coresight/qdss.config.sh
/persist/coresight/qdss.functions.sh
/persist/sensors/sensors_settings
/persist/data/tz/tz_counter
/persist/data/tz/tz_counter.bak
/persist/camera/focus/offset_cal
/persist/camera/ledcal/rear
/persist/factory/audio/temp
/persist/factory/audio/cnt
/persist/factory/audio/acc
/persist/factory/audio/f0
/persist/factory/audio/ref_diff
/persist/factory/fti
/persist/public/hiddenmenu/data/mobile_data_rx
/persist/public/hiddenmenu/data/mobile_data_tx
/persist/public/hiddenmenu/data/wifi_data_rx
/persist/public/hiddenmenu/data/wifi_data_tx
/persist/public/hiddenmenu/data/activation_date
/persist/public/hiddenmenu/life_calls
/persist/public/hiddenmenu/life_timer
/persist/batt_health/age
/persist/mdm/oma_dm_update
/persist/rfs/shared/server_info.txt
/persist/rfs/msm/mpss/safe/sfs/uim/simlock/config
/persist/rfs/msm/mpss/server_check.txt
/persist/rfs/msm/mpss/dhob.bin
/persist/rfs/msm/mpss/shob.bin
/persist/rfs/msm/adsp/server_check.txt
/persist/.bt_nv.bin
/persist/bluetooth/.bt_nv.bin
/persist/time/ats_15
/persist/time/ats_12
/persist/time/ats_13
/persist/time/ats_2
/persist/time/ats_1
/persist/time/ats_16
/persist/chargeonly/cooldown
/persist/.twrps

EDIT: I forgot to mention that my IMEI still exists when I do fastboot getvar all, it shows up correctly when I cross reference it with the IMEI printed on my phone box. Why is it that the OS does not read this?