[Android Q&A, Help & Troubleshooting] rlb596:
Hi all,

I recently splurged on a Lenovo K5 Pro which was released in October '18. It seems to be fine overall. Specs are nice with 4gb RAm 64gb ROM, and has android 8.1 with a ZUI 5 skin. This is my issue: I've run into a problem with unlocking the bootloader. I can toggle the 'OEM Unlock' in the dev settings all day, but when putting it into the bootloader and running 'fastboot flashing unlock' , I'm met with 'Flashing unlock is not allowed'.

fastboot flashing get_unlock_ability returns 0, no matter the state of the OEM Unlocking toggle, and 'oem device-info' returns the below:

C:\Program Files (x86)\Minimal ADB and Fastboot>fastboot oem device-info

...

(bootloader) Verity mode: true

(bootloader) Device unlocked: false

(bootloader) Device critical unlocked: false

(bootloader) Charger screen enabled: false

OKAY [ 0.010s]

finished. total time: 0.015s

Honestly, I'm kind of stumped. There aren't any forums on this pretty much anywhere given that its new, and 4pda only has discussions surrounding the potential of such a phone. I've seen pixel users run into this, but the issue is resolved with removing screenlocks. So far, no luck for me.

Let me know if you have this phone and have done any development on it. It seems to have quite a lot of potential. Thanks.

edit:

So I'm still unable to unlock the bootloader, but I've successfully rooted the L38041. I'll include the steps below. Please note, I'm only relating how I did this. There are probably more efficient methods, but, for me, this worked.

I'm not responsible if you hardbrick your device

.

Requirements:

a. Latest QPST from qpstflash (sorry, can't post links yet)

b. Magisk Manager

c. Stock L38041 rom. I used the global version from FirmwareX. Make sure it has ROW in the title, not CN, otherwise it'll be the Chinese ROM.

d. ADB and Fastboot

Steps

1. Download and extract the ROM to your PC.

2. Copy the boot.img file from the extracted folder to your device storage.

3. Open magisk manager on your device and install via 'patch stock boot image'. Navigate to where you put the stock boot.img and select it.

4. Take the patched_boot.img, rename it back to boot.img, and put it back in the extracted ROM folder on your PC. Make sure you've backed up your stock boot. because you'll be replacing it with the patched.

5. Install the QPST package on your PC and run QFIL. Select Flat build, then navigate the programmer path to your ROM folder. Select the prog_emmc_ufs_firehose_Sdm660_ddr.elf as your programmer path. Next, load XMLs RawProgram0.xml and patch0.xml.

6. At this point, attach your adb enabled device via usb and run the adb command "adb reboot edl." This will put your device into emergency download mode, in which you will be able to use QFIL . QFIL should go from 'No Port' to 'Qualcomm HS-USB QDLoader 9008'. Immediately after you see this pop up, select 'Download'. This will completely reset your device.

7. If flashing was successful, wait a bit then boot your device. You should see a little warning complaining that the software has been altered. Wait a little bit more. You can install magisk manager at this point if it didn't show up after the flash. Reboot the device again.

8. Et voila, you should have a rooted device now. Due to the locked bootloader, you still can't (or at least I couldn't) use a custom recovery, were there even one available.

Note: if you get a sahara error in the flashing process, it's probably because you waited too long to hit download.

Hope this helps for those of you with issues.