[Samsung Galaxy Note 9 Guides, News, & Discussion] elliwigy:
now back on track lol..

an update with some not so good news...

EDL was not successful.. Apparently theyve even upped security in EDL flashing.. not sure if its just sammy (probably is) but the important protected partitions are on LUN0 such as system, vendor, odm etc...

i tried multiple systems from aosp to gsi to modified stock and all failed in sparse and raw formats...

get various errors.. raw images start but then freeze up shortly after...

sparse images gives error.. something about failed to verify SHA256 (hashes) or flashing to LUN0 not permitted..

essentially this means one or both of two things:

1) Only stock signed partitions can be flashed to LUN0 (modified fails SHA256 checks and is blocked)

2) LUN0 is a protected LUN that cannot be flashed to (similar to why I cant use root script to DD the system.img)

Heck, it wouldnt even let me erase the partitions on LUN0 while in EDL, said it was not allowed

Any partitions on LUNS 1 2 3 flashed no problem such as bootloaders...

bootloaders from other variants however do not boot (stays in EDL mode)

This would explain how ppl in china can convert n960u into chinese variants.. chinese partitions are signed such as system but bootloaders willnot be changed so no way to unlock the bootloader as it wil still have the bl from n960u so it will boot

I also sent the one i bricked back to verizon so i woukdnt be charged for it so back to no test device so edl testing is put on hold as i dont want to risk my daily device and have to take it apart again if something goes wrong

I am still the only one actively working on it.. have family stuff going on and still work full time so not a whole lot of time to try stuff out..

sammy really did a number on this one.. i am still searching tho..

I got the scripts down to make everything except system, vendor and odm readable/writable to any user..

i tried to inject my own cmdline to trick the bl to load my props but it is blocked by secure boot and is detected as a modified boot without a custom boot (kernel cmdline injection) which then reads a custom system in odin but doesnt boot up until i reflash

i also can update the combo firmware in a way the root script works on latest combo but that has proven to be useless also..

proc is touchy.. if i modify certain things it crashes..

sysfs or even root dir stuff changes no problem but no way to reinit without device reboot which in turn any changes are gone as the kernel reloads when device is rebooted..

i also tried various ways to install su into sbin but unfortunately cannot install it using system root because cannot touch system where zygote and other daemons are (still learning this stuff)

so still no su

it would b nice if there was some other high profile devs that could chime in.. i am fairly new to the exploit world and learning as i go...

any devs that are good (or so they say) have onky tried to get the method from me and repeatedly tell me not to release anything pubicly. I assume bcuz they have shops or services they make $$$ on and dont want it to b patched so they are unwilling to help which sucks but i suppose how the world works