[Samsung Galaxy A7 (2018) Guides, News, & Discussio] JoostA:
Hi guys,

I see many questions in this thread, some of which seem to doubt whether Kchoudhry´s instructions do actually work. After some days testing I can assure you: they do work perfectly well , at least on a Samsung SM750FN/DS (European model). So if it doesn't work: start all over again and read carefully!

However I will share some issues with you I ran into when I continued experimenting.

My original starting point was Android 9 which I upgraded using Smart Switch (rooted phones do not get an OTA update, this is a good alternative). Having installed Android 10 that way and strictly following Kchoudhry´s instructions *will* give you root, there is no question about that.

Although I have not the slightest doubt about above instructions, it still might be advisable to have the original firmware at hand. In that way you can re-install (via Odin) the original configuration if something goes wrong. Sammobile is one option, but as it is very slow and troublesome to download unless you pay for it, I guess a better one is https://samfw.com/firmware. Samsung itself offers its firmware in source-code, but then you have to compile it yourself.

The moment I knew I could get root, I started experimenting a bit.

First advise: don’t experiment like I did, when you are not sure you can restore your phone yourself (or when you don’t have the money to buy a new one). You need both the original firmware and Odin to do that. See text above.

Difficulties began when I had to re-install my software from scratch when my phone failed to boot altogether when trying to get rid of Facebook using the app “system app remover” (my tip: don’t ever use this app!!). Re-installing the firmware was simple (once you have your firmware and Odin installed). I think you can do that in less than 15 minutes. Downloading it took a lot more time:(

I will now elaborate on the problems that I came across from this point on (and as far as I can remember them).

1) It is possible that although you stick strictly to the instructions of Kchoudhry, you still discover your phone does NOT boot into recovery (TWRP), it falls back to download mode, whatever you try.

This happens because TWRP is simply not present. The phone is unable to reboot into recovery and falls back to fail-safe mode (which is the download mode). Download mode enables you to flash TWRP again. This solves the problem Equinoxx17 describes in his posts. To re-install TWRP It is not necessary to start all over again: when you end up in download mode, just flash TWRP again and you are done. (Root is retained.)

At this moment I do not have the slightest idea as to how it can be that you lose TWRP (that you flashed moments earlier and *did* work). So don’t ask me about this.

2) Our version of TWRP (which is not an official one) it self has a number of problems one of them being the fact that when using it, you cannot link it to your PC (which is normally possible and is possible anyway when you connect you phone to a PC when not using TWRP). However I think we have to live with this and other bugs, as Ashyx (who did not own our phone in the fist place) has stopped developing it. We can just be grateful to him we have at least a working TWRP for our phone.

-3 Another problem I ran into that I did not yet solve is that TWRP does not make proper backups. You will get a message like:

“Could not mount /data and unable to find crypto footer

Failed to mount /data (Invalid argument)

Unable to recreate /data/media folder¨

I thinks this as something to do with the fact that data it is still being encrypted (?) but I have not found a way to undo that. That is to say: repeatedly doing a full “format data” (which is required to get root) did not cure the problem nor did it help to flash Magisk_patched_boot.tar (which is required anyway to get root).

In a way this is certainly not the biggest of all problems: your root is still perfectly OK and a backup (although not a nandroid backup) can be made via Smart Switch as well.

I still have to sort out whether this problem has something to do with Magisk_patched_boot.tar (I guess so). I still have to read quite a bit about that. For those of you who want to do the same: just read what TopJohn himself has to say about Samsung smartphones at https://topjohnwu.github.io/Magisk/install.html. For me this is quite complicated stuff. Moreover I think re-installing Magisk the way TopJohn explains, will wipe my phone again. That is not an experiment I now want to do now, because apart from the issues I already mentioned, it really is working fantastically now.

4- Removing bloatware. Android 10 re-installs Facebook, Youtube, Word, PowerPoint and Excel as system apps. I don't like that. These are apps that are not required for the system to work properly. For example: Microsoft replaced Word, PowerPoint and Excel are obsolete, they have been replaced by the Microsoft Office app. Maybe you would like to get rid of them. However reputable programs like Titanium backup (licensed version) don’t seem to be able to cope with it. But there is an alternative way.

Just start TWRP. Tap MOUNT. Check “System” (system is not mounted by default and thus not accessible). Go back. Go to ADVANCED. Go to FILE MANAGER. Tap “system”. Tap “system” (again). Goto “priv-app”. Next remove apps and directories you don’t want on your phone. Don’t remove anything that doesn’t bother you. You might end in a soft bricked system and in that case you will need to re-install your firmware and start all over again.

Have fun and thanks to Kchoudhry for kicking the forums about the Galaxy A7 (2018) alive again!:o

---------- Post added at 01:00 PM ---------- Previous post was at 12:29 PM ----------

Download screenshot assistant from Google play. Should solve the problem.