[Moto E4 (Qualcomm) ROMs, Kernels, Recoveries, & Ot] ollakolla:
[BLANKFLASH] Motorola Moto E4 [XT1766] (Qualcomm.:.MSM8920.:.NCQ26.69-64)

I am reasonably confident that the attached blankflash.zip will unbrick the Motorola Moto E4 XT1766. I'm eager to learn if it actually works. I can't test myself until midday today as I am an idiot who left his brick in the passenger seat of a friends vehicle. Said friend is pulling an eighteen hour shift at her job, while SWiM sits in agony unable to paint pig lips and fire off a known good blankflash to you, my most favorite internet friend.

Don't judge me for forgetting. She's stupid hot. I'm a computer nerd. You do the math.

ANYHOW...

Everything published on the internet about the unbrick process, all of the various tools and samples I've been able to acquire, countless hours staring at binary dumps inside of disassemblers and a little bit of dumb luck collided into a eureaka moment last night. I found two executables in a blankflash package that I had previously not seen. Logic suggested that one was a window CLI application (star.exe) while the other was a linux CLI program (star). I must confess... I was intrigued by this unexpected turn of events.

After a quick looksee at these two executable files in the Interactive Disassembler I felt comfortable enough to throw them onto an airgapped laptop. Much to my surprise when I invoked the windows version these magical words scrolled across my screen...

Honestly... The output gave me a warm fuzzy feeling. This little tool seemed to be the missing piece of the puzzle that thus far had consumed all the spare time I've had this week. After doing a few victory laps around my condo and suffering the scolding issued by my neighbor on the grounds of "waking the baby" I settled into a coding session that ended abruptly with my forced participation in a horrific weekly ritual known as "dinner with family".

Trust me... This so called dinner is a well crafted plot to murder me on the down low using the "red meat and high cholesterol" method. My sister just so happens to be a cardiovascular surgeon. She knows exactly what she is doing... Payback for deleting her Zelda game saves and forcing upon her the joy of do-over or don't, WTF do I care. She can deny it until hse is blue in the face. I know what's up. I know the subtle infliction of lasting damage to my heart she has been dosing me with for the last 30 something years.

I am powerless to defend myself against this weekly assault on my existence. It seems I am also powerless to self-correct an unfortunate behavior pattern know as "leaving **** lying around". This horrible affliction that I suffer with each and every day of my life occasionally flares up into a full blown outbreak of "where is my ___?". Unfortunately this evening after dinner my sister left for her twelve hour shift at a regional hospital with my brick riding shotgun.

At this point I am full on jonesing for my fix of "work *****... just one time, work".

The night before last I was able to find a programmer.mbn file that strongly indicated support for the MSM8920 SOC. After wishing upon star.exe I invoked the list command and was delighted to read -

The output got me super excited. I knew from past sessions of "find wall. bang head. rinse. repeat." that the possibility of actually solving this problem went from "as-if" to "duh". During the cycle of failure that preceded my epiphany I found a flashable zip that contained partition images specific to a working XT1766 bootloader. The file "Updater_NCQ26.69-64.zip" was sourced here. It is a companion to 'XT1766_SPERRY_SPRINT_7.1.1_NCQS26.69-64-5_cid50_subsidy-DEFAULT_regulatory-DEFAULT_CFC.xml.zip' factory image, also sourced here.

With nothing more than logic and reason - mad props and a shout out to my homies Encyclopedia Brown, Nancy Drew and the Hardy Boys - i made changes to the xml documents embedded in the source blankflash file. These edits will probably work. I say probably because I can't say for sure; remember I am a moron who finds success with computer stuffz via the dumb luck method.

TMI... I know. It's the triple shot cafe mocha I drank upon arrival at the free public office provided by Howard Schultz Kevin Johnson and his overly friendly band of caffeine peddling minions.

I humbly and patiently await qboot log reports.

--OK