[Moto G7 Questions & Answers] SmilingPerson:
So I have a ton of questions, and maybe some answers for someone having similar issues. I *have* RTFMs, but I am not positive things are still the same in the real world. Maybe they are, and I am just doing something wrong. I have been a paint by numbers copy/paste Android person for years, and I work with unix (mostly AIX7 these days) in the real world, so I have some familiarity with technology and unix in general, but Linux and Android are very different animals. I am not a complete clown, but it is probably safest to treat me as one when it comes to Android phones, and the Motorola ecosystem is pretty much brand new to me.

I have a rooted, unlocked bootloader Moto G7, a XT1962-1. The file I happen to be flashing to recover is named: river-user 9 PPO29.114-134 fee207 release-keysM632_26.100.01.120.01R. I am using RSDLite 6.2.4 to flash it.

I have Total Wireless, and after uninstalling/reinstalling Magisk, I cannot keep a cell signal. I tried a trial SIM from Mint Mobile, and it also would not work. The Total Wireless SIM, which I had been using without issue for months, keeps getting a full, strong signal, then completely dropping to zero, in cycles that last about 10 seconds. Connect, great signal, nothing, great signal, nothing etc. I am stationary in a location that ordinarily has excellent service, so this isn't a signal issue. The indicator shows SIM Locked/No Signal/5 bars back and forth, in those ~10 second intervals. Very f'ing frustrating, to say the least. Total Wireless support is a joke, they couldn't help at all. (I spoke to someone for literally several hours, he eventually tansferred me to a supervisor. I had told the first guy "My signal is FLUCTUATING" - when the "supervisor" got on the line, she said "I understand your signal has been FLATULATING" - Correcting her English would have been like telling Costello that "Who" isn't a proper noun, so my gassy phone and I let it...go). They told me my SIM was bad, so I ordered another and it just flat out wouldn't activate at all. The Mint Mobile SIM just wouldn't get a signal at all, and when I called their (terrible) support, they told me the phone was locked (it isn't). So I restored the phone to full stock, relocked the bootloader and tried again, and both SIMs work fine, perfect signal. As soon as I start flashing or tinkering with anything, the cell signal starts going up and down again. I have found that a fresh flash from RSDLite will get the SIM to connect and behave properly, relocking the phone bootloader is not necessary.

What I have been doing is flash fresh with RSDLite, then push TWRP to RAM Recovery and installing, then boot and patch a boot.img with Magisk Manager, then fastboot install that image to install Magisk and get root. Sometimes this works, sometimes it bootloops.

So I have been tinkering for the past week trying to get this phone back up and running properly with root, and trying to track down exactly what breaks it. So this brings me to a short list of questions that would really, really help a lot if anyone knows the answers and would be willing to take a moment to post. In no particular order:

Can MVNOs detect root or unlocked bootloader? If so, is there a way to hide? I have tried many different ways, so far to no avail, after I start modding, I lose cellular. What apps should be hidden to avoid this?

When you do a TWRP Restore from a backup, what boxes do you check (What partitions do you recover)? When I restore an old TWRP backup, I hit a bootloop every time. Multiple backups do this.

What is the best way to install Magisk? Do you still patch a boot.img from within Magisk Manager? Can the patched boot.img be installed using Install Image from within TWRP?

I did a SHA512 of the magisk_patched.img file between two different installs, and it is different. Unless I screwed up and used 19.3 instead of 19.4, it should be the same, unless there is a random number involved in each installation. Is there?

What is the newest version of TWRP for river? I am running twrp-3.3.1-0-river.img. I *assume* this is the newest for river, but ASSume, right?

Thanks for any thoughts or guidance, I am kinda at wit's end. If this were my only phone, I'd be hosed. It is, however, my current favorite, and I'd love to get it chugging along again.