[Samsung Galaxy J7 Guides, News, & Discussion] Justin1198:
Message for all the people looking for root.

I created another copy of the debrick.img if that one does not work for you. (This being my T-Flash). I have attempted to downgrade the device down to a version lower than the ARF2 and failed as it's saying that it can't fuse (even tried to flash just the system file). I also tried to run all root methods I know of on the combination and stock files and failed (The root methods mostly freezing on the combination). I can confirm that combining the files from combination and stock WILL cause a brick to the point where the phone won't turn on, yes, they flash. Another user in another thread says he managed to enable "volte" on his device with some modem file, haven't got my hands on it as I can't test due to no service being on the phone.

I keep seeing people saying "Enable OEM Unlock and then update and flash TWRP" in the other threads that are popping up about the SM-S727VL.

NO.

The "Unlock OEM" feature in the developer settings

is only used to restore the stock update regardless of FRP being enabled

or any type of actual "Google" interference of the restore. The setting does not actually unlock the bootloader. Yes, You could use CROM and it will say it's successful however it will not be for non-Chinese devices. The bootloader is still locked and this is

why you are getting secure check fail

. I know what you are thinking at this point...what about fastboot? Sorry, This is one of those Samsung devices that does not fastboot.

THE OEM UNLOCK FEATURE

DOES -NOT-

UNLOCK THE BOOTLOADER! Do not think that if you enable the oem unlock, that it will magically allow you to install TWRP.

CROM does not unlock it either. CROM will report that the bootloader is unlocked however it will not be.

The TWRP located on the TWRP Builder website is for an older version of the firmware for the phone. You cannot downgrade the stock firmware once you update it on this phone as I described above. That means you cannot install the May 2018 update if you have the July 2018 update installed. The TWRP build could be updated to match the latest recovery build however that is completely pointless and a waste of time at this point

until

you can actually 'find a way' to actually get the TWRP installed. If you want TWRP on a device that has a bootloader, you might actually have to gain root beforehand and install something like SafeStrap with the SafeStrap installer.

Well since you guys have all the heartbreaking news, here is the kind of good...

Tracfone is not very responsible when it comes to making sure their phones are up to date and even are sloppy (You might have noticed the duplicated stock ringtones, haha). This means that it could be possible for someone to find an exploit in the latest firmware or one of the internals (engineering firmware) then gain root access.

Now everyone looking for TWRP: Our first priority would be to gain root so that we

can

tackle the bootloader issue. Once we get root then we got everything we need. KingRoot, Kingo, and all those methods are failing so we got to get creative in finding a method, it takes time.

This was the crazy method done to an Verizon S5, root access is pretty difficult to gain especially when you get higher up in Android versions: https://xdaforums.com/verizon-galax...oot-method-t3561529/post71202995#post71202995