[Redmi K20 / Xiaomi Mi 9T Questions & Answers] blackmatrix64:
Thank you for your reply. You can't even power off, it will simply bootloop forever into fastboot. Nonetheless I managed to fix it by flashing fastboot ROM using MIFlash, but man, didn't expect root solutions to be this complicated, unstable, and outdated for our beloved Mi 9T. I simply want to achieve root in the stock rom, and wasted 7 hours yesterday and still got nowhere. I come from a classic LG G2, when things were much simple and straight forward back then. You can stop reading here, but now I had to:

Wait 1 week for bootloader unlock.

Flash TWRP, which soft bricked my phone right away. Why on earth, a recovery image provided in many reliable tutorials from multiple sources cause soft-brick in the second step is beyond my comprehension. I am still genuinely curious why did this happen, and why such a broken image is still circulating here?

Then I had to inform myself all about Anti Rollback, in order to prevent it happening, and concluded that MiFlash is safe, so I got MiFlash and a fastboot rom.

Apparently Mi Flash is terribly buggy and kept showing .net error exceptions because a "LOG" folder was missing in root folder, so let's waste one hour scratching our heads what the hell is happening because the developer missed a simple MkDir line during development.

After creating LOG folder, and installing drivers, couldn't flash any fastboot ROM because my 9T antiroll back number is 1 while fastboot rom ARB index was 0.

Then it appears that this error has actually nothing to do with ARB, but it is because I had to a) start MiFlash from C:\, b) remove name spaces in target address and c) shorten fastboot ROM folder name. So I had to get all these 3 variables right in order to resurrect my phone. MiFlash terrible programming didn't stop at step 4) but it extends into showing entirely confusing ARB errors that have nothing to with the real problem, rather petty programming bugs such as folder naming.

Finally managed to boot up 9T, and we're back at square one.

Afterward successfully flashed mauronofrio TWRP including vbmeta and got recovery working.

I decided to try out few custom ROMs since all my data were erased anyway, but it appears my system was encrypted and TWRP showed encrypted alphanumeric characters, so I had to format data in order to flash files.

Now every-time I flash stock ROM .zip I lose TWRP, and every-time I reflash mauronofrio TWRP I end up in recovery bootloop, and so I can't manage to have both at same time in order to move with the Magisk flash.

10 steps and 7 hours later and still got nowhere, just risked bricking my phone.

Now we have to deal with

a) bootloader wait,

b) twrp encryption mess,

c) anti roll back risk,

d) buggy MiFlash

e) safety net measures

f) no custom ROMs that are pre-rooted and simple

g) dependency of stock ROM files - meaning you can't wipe everything including system and just flash custom ROM .zips, like I used to do with 5 android phones before this one. Now you are somehow dependent on original ROM files which probably means you will have to base install stock MI before you flash anything Xiaomi.EU, Evolution X, PixelExperience etc.​

When did things get so complicated? It seems every year new limitations are introduced and the sheer combination to get them all right give headaches.

Anyway, all I want is to install latest stock ROM from TWRP and keep TWRP so I can also flash Magisk. In other words, how to simply have a rooted stock?