yashsingh1/xdaforums huggingface dataset:
[Xiaomi Poco X3 NFC Guides, News, & Discussion] jeryll:
clean flash on encrypted storage = format data (yes), you can always try dirty flash, and if it is not working/booting, format data (yes)

or you can switch to decrypted storage and live with wipe data, cache, dalvik

or

If you have any issues flashing, like persistent GApps or booting issues, try to cleanup the phone with the following procedure:

Download a full MIUI rom recovery package from XiaomiFirmwareUpdater

... (make sure you download the full rom package for RECOVERY, it is about 2.4Gb!) ...

From recovery, flash the zip file. This will cleanup all the partitions.

Now flash again custom ROM.

This problem is related to the fact that TWRP and OrangeFox both don't support dynamic super partitions properly yet.
[Xiaomi Poco X3 NFC Guides, News, & Discussion] Colonov:
Thanks for clearing things up. I'm on decrypted storage so I guess I'll live with wiping data and caches. Not having any booting issues just having a weird Android system error when flashing ANXCamera wide angle lens fix when booting up
[Xiaomi Poco X3 NFC Guides, News, & Discussion] nemo19:
Will flashing the Recovery ROM overwrite ALL partitions, including data and internal storage?

I'm asking, because I want to know if I can flash a recovery rom to upgrade firmware and vendor when updating/dirty flashing a custom rom or if this would cause a factory reset.
[Xiaomi Poco X3 NFC Guides, News, & Discussion] jeryll:
data partition or internal storage are unaffected by that, by all partitions in that special case are meant "they which you don't have direct control over" like system, vendor, product, firmware, etc.

I flashed full recovery MIUI ROM via custom recovery numerous times, but it never triggered factory reset, for that software needs your full consent (that's why you need to confirm formatting data partition with typing yes)
[Xiaomi Poco X3 NFC Guides, News, & Discussion] aviramelbaz:
I currently have TWRP and custom rom and I want to switch to OrangeFox Recovery, how do I do that?
[Xiaomi Poco X3 NFC Guides, News, & Discussion] temporarium:
Flash/install OFox from within TWRP, reboot to recovery and... profit 😉
[Xiaomi Poco X3 NFC Guides, News, & Discussion] Colonov:
Can you just quickly confirm which partitions I should be backing up if I want to try other roms and come back to the one I'm currently running?
[Xiaomi Poco X3 NFC Guides, News, & Discussion] jeryll:
check the post #86 #88 in this thread
[Xiaomi Poco X3 NFC Guides, News, & Discussion] pnin:
@jeryll: you told us you'd make a thread about this... 🤡
[Xiaomi Poco X3 NFC Guides, News, & Discussion] ygb7:
I want to create a complete NANDroid Backup of my Poco X3 NFC (Surya) phone.

I have failed custom ROM upgrades a couple of times and had to completely rebuild my phone. I have 120+ user apps installed on my phone. It takes me 2-3 days to re-flash the phone custom ROM, restore all apps using Titanium Backup, configure all system & user app setting exactly the way I like it & finally configure the OS screen UI exactly the way I like it.

Can I backup & restore a complete NANDroid Backup image of my Poco X3 NFC (Surya) with OrangeFox or TWRP? If no, why not?

My phone storage is encrypted. I read updated Posts #86 and #88. However, after reading, I am still not exactly sure if a complete NANDroid Backup can be done for my phone configuration below.

Android OS - EvolutionX_5.4_surya-11-20210209-1347-UNOFFICIAL.zip

I have remove the security PIN from phone.

Only have Swipe security. No password or pin.

OrangeFox Recovery - Boot Information

------------------------------------------

Welcome to OrangeFox Recovery!

[Release] : Unofficial

[Codebase] : 2021-01-04 (71e4a794)

[Build Type]: Unofficial

------------------------------------------

* Storage is Encrypted

* Display: dsi nt36672c hoaxing fhd video display

* Device: surya

* Custom ROM (Treble)

* QKQ1.200512.002

* (V12.0.3.0.QJGMIXM)

* Fingerprint: POCO/surya_global/surya:10/QKQ1.200512.002/V12.0.3.0.QJGMIXM:user/release keys

------------------------------------------

MTP is enabled

Backup Partitions - OrangeFox Recovery

I have these Partitions Checked for Back Up.

X – Super

X – Data

X – Boot

X – Dtbo

X – Recovery

X – Super (Product, Vendor, System)

Will this create a complete NANDroid Backup image?

Why do I need to backup Super & Super (Product, Vendor, System)?

How do you superusers in this forum backup & recover your POCO X3 NFC?
[Xiaomi Poco X3 NFC Guides, News, & Discussion] LoScienzo:
Hey, I see you're past this issue, thankfully, but I wanted to clear it out for you.

Not sure why noone mentioned it, beside the syrya/surya typo:

when issuing the fastboot boot command, you forgot to prepend "C:\" to your recovery file, both in the post I quoted and in post #178.

To understand why that wouldn't work, just google "terminal working directory".

To clarify the last bit of potential ambiguity:

the fastboot boot <recovery-image> command is referencing a recovery image file that's located on the computer running the terminal, not on the smartphone, hence why you're required to specify the full path of the image, unless it is in the working directory.

Hope this helps you next time you have to do a little command-line work :)
[Xiaomi Poco X3 NFC Guides, News, & Discussion] jeryll:
well, I suggest you re-read post #88 (did you notice it is for users with encrypted storage?) or maybe this

1. not sure we can do a complete NANDroid Backup image on this phone - yet (but backup of the super, data, boot, dtbo partition is pretty close to that IMHO)

2. you don't, only one Super is enough (they're bit by bit identical)
[Xiaomi Poco X3 NFC Guides, News, & Discussion] temporarium:
Great stuff from @jeryll !

How about we do backup/restore commenting in the other thread so as to keep it all in one place? 😉
[Xiaomi Poco X3 NFC Guides, News, & Discussion] ygb7:
Jeryll,

Thank you for your kind reply! It is very much appreciated.

YGB7
[Xiaomi Poco X3 NFC Guides, News, & Discussion] Master One:
@jeryll, so that's still the latest version?

Having looked at several discussions it's still not clear to me what the current recommendation is (TWRP or OF) and why new versions of OF only get released on Telegram (which I am not using).
[Xiaomi Poco X3 NFC Guides, News, & Discussion] pnin:
A little Off-Topic and just my opinion, but XDA-Devs appears to be bleeding developers to Telegram channels lately...
[Xiaomi Poco X3 NFC Guides, News, & Discussion] SkaboXD:
Same, 4 years back no one used Telegram. Only xda was the source (or 4pda if it's not available on xda)
[Xiaomi Poco X3 NFC Guides, News, & Discussion] Master One:
So what's up with block-based incremental OTA for custom ROMs in OFOX?

That functionality has been enabled in the surya build of OFOX by the maintainer, but from the info on the OFOX wiki page it's not quite clear how this is supposed to work. I guess incremental updates have to be supported and provided as separate files by the custom ROM maintainer?
[Xiaomi Poco X3 NFC Guides, News, & Discussion] temporarium:
May I ask why you can't do a full update? Is bandwidth an issue? Download, dirty flash, all done.
[Xiaomi Poco X3 NFC Guides, News, & Discussion] Master One:
Asking purely out of interest, because the OFOX wiki only states "if enabled by the OFOX device maintainer" and does not mention the ROM maintainer (because as assumed incremental updates, as they are offered for MIUI, would require appropriate incremental update packages).
[Xiaomi Poco X3 NFC Guides, News, & Discussion] Abdullah.Csit:
Why I can't mount vendor ? always I got faild to mount vendor !?
[Xiaomi Poco X3 NFC Guides, News, & Discussion] Anoses:
Had the same Problem once what I did was flash twrp and then install orange Fox again that worked for me maybe try different version if that wont help
[Xiaomi Poco X3 NFC Guides, News, & Discussion] sewermike:
Having the same issue with OF version 6 and TWRP 3.5. Neither can mount /vendor. looking for a solution.
[Xiaomi Poco X3 NFC Guides, News, & Discussion] temporarium:
Why do you need to mount vendor?

I think it's dynamic: part of a larger (super) partition, so not independent.

When you flash vendor, it replaces the necessary files.
[Xiaomi Poco X3 NFC Guides, News, & Discussion] sewermike:
You are Correct. I've unlocked my bootloader, and installed both TWRP 3.5 and Orangefox Beta via fastboot. All seems well. Installed the Miui 12.0.7 recovery rom, and Xiaomi.eu 12.0.7 roms without problems. Now I try to install LineageOS 18.1 and keep getting Error 1, failed to install to /vendor or Error 1, failed to install to /product. Both of which are part of the super partition. Just trying to find a solution. Doesnt look like there are a lot of people with this issue.
[Xiaomi Poco X3 NFC Guides, News, & Discussion] temporarium:
Make sure your file downloaded correctly.
[Xiaomi Poco X3 NFC Guides, News, & Discussion] sewermike:
downloaded from a second source...same md5

edit: must have been a bad download or bad transfer to the sd card... second download worked well and I have LOS installed and booted. Thanks
[Xiaomi Poco X3 NFC Guides, News, & Discussion] Master One:
FYI I have just discovered that ArrowOS OTA updates do not work if using OFOX recovery (OrangeFox-R11-Unofficial-Beta-surya-10-01), which resulted in a few error messages ("5 processes already started, not executing adb" or something like that) before it aborts once processing the update in recovery.

I guess that's what the message "requires a compatible recovery" meant before the update started, though I was in the opinion that latest OFOX and TWRP are similar in functionality and interchangeable?

After installing TWRP (twrp-3.5.0_10-4-surya) the OTA update worked out just fine.
[Xiaomi Poco X3 NFC Guides, News, & Discussion] nemo19:
I'm on latest OFox and ArrowOS since end of December, OTA has been working fine from the start and still is.
[Xiaomi Poco X3 NFC Guides, News, & Discussion] Master One:
Then I have no explanation for the experienced issue. I have tried several times and it was a totally fresh and clean installation on my phone. Moved over to latest TWRP (now 3.5.0_10-5) and the problem was gone.
[Xiaomi Poco X3 NFC Guides, News, & Discussion] m0han:
deleted. wrong thread.
[Xiaomi Poco X3 NFC Guides, News, & Discussion] PYCON:
So,

what's the latest version of OF recovery? The first post has not been updated, just to avoid to loose something new :p
[Xiaomi Poco X3 NFC Guides, News, & Discussion] jeryll:
this one
[Xiaomi Poco X3 NFC Guides, News, & Discussion] PYCON:
Thx Jeryll ! (y)
[Xiaomi Poco X3 NFC Guides, News, & Discussion] Saurav singh srv:
Is this work for karna also please reply
[Xiaomi Poco X3 NFC Guides, News, & Discussion] Alin45:
Other users reported it does.
[Xiaomi Poco X3 NFC Guides, News, & Discussion] CounterC:
@billabongstaff can I flash full MIUI (2,2gb) in Ofox when I'm on custom rom to revert to stock without relocking bootloader?
[Xiaomi Poco X3 NFC Guides, News, & Discussion] ygb7:
I flash full MIUI ROMS using MIFlash.

It will not relock your bootloader if you

Do NOT select “Clean and lock” radio button on bottom right corner

.

See attached screenshot

How to use Xiaomi MI Flash Tool
[Xiaomi Poco X3 NFC Guides, News, & Discussion] CounterC:
Thanks! So if I flash full rom will Ofox still be there after flash or will be overwritten? And what does "save user data" do exactly?
[Xiaomi Poco X3 NFC Guides, News, & Discussion] Alin45:
OF will be overwritten....and "save user data" means Data partition will remain as it was before flash (apps and settings u had before remain untouched).
[Xiaomi Poco X3 NFC Guides, News, & Discussion] CounterC:
Will checking save user data work coming from custom rom A10 to MIUI?
[Xiaomi Poco X3 NFC Guides, News, & Discussion] temporarium:
I'm trying to follow your line of questioning and trying to understand: what are you trying to accomplish? If you want MIUI, just flash it. If you want a custom ROM, don't bother with MIUI. If you want newer firmware, just flash the firmware file.

You can't share data between ROMs.

Am I missing something?
[Xiaomi Poco X3 NFC Guides, News, & Discussion] Alin45:
no.
[Xiaomi Poco X3 NFC Guides, News, & Discussion] CounterC:
Thanks for asking. Here's my detailed explanation. So I tried some custom roms and many are already great in features but still missing on some important parts like camera and fast charging. So I'm on RR A10 now and I want to go to latest 12.0.7 MIUI global but stay rooted. Because I need magisk, viper4android, adaway,...

So how do I this with bootloader kept unlocked and preferably internal storage not formated? Data format is fine, I can set up and restore system and apps afterwards...

Thanks for your patience!
[Xiaomi Poco X3 NFC Guides, News, & Discussion] Master One:
AFAIK fast charging is working but currently just indicated wrongly as slow charging. And Gcam should be better than stock MIUI cam.

Bootloader does not get locked when returning to MIUI, but data needs to be formated every time you move to another ROM.
[Xiaomi Poco X3 NFC Guides, News, & Discussion] CounterC:
What about internal storage when using miflash?
[Xiaomi Poco X3 NFC Guides, News, & Discussion] Master One:
Sorry, can't help you with that as I have never used it (with the new phone I only used MIUI to update to the latest firmware and start the bootloader unlocking procedure, then straight to ArrowOS and have never looked back).
[Xiaomi Poco X3 NFC Guides, News, & Discussion] CounterC:
H

I'll try ArrowOS first before going to MIUI :)

How do you handle the arrow OS nightlies updates? Update every time or only like once a week? Dirty flash or clean flash?
[Xiaomi Poco X3 NFC Guides, News, & Discussion] Master One:
They are OTA updates, which are always dirty flashes, no problems and you can choose to apply an update whenever you want (no need to do it daily, any the updater shows you the changelog automatically once you start the download so that you can decide).
[Xiaomi Poco X3 NFC Guides, News, & Discussion] temporarium:
More likely than not, internal storage will be wiped. Be safe and back it up!
[Xiaomi Poco X3 NFC Guides, News, & Discussion] warisha:
Better then twrp recovery
[Xiaomi Poco X3 NFC Guides, News, & Discussion] Master One:
Indeed, I have just come back from TWRP 3.5.0_10-5 because of an occasional error when processing addon.d scripts after an OTA update.

The only problems with OrangeFox are now that

the OP is outdated and not maintained with the current version from 10th January 2021 to be found here.

it is still labeled as unofficial beta software with the uncertainty when/if it will become official/stable.

@jeryll

@billabongstaff

@LUNARIO

Has there been any more info or update since then?

Because it would be really great to track this here on XDA and not on Telegram (which I'm not using).
[Xiaomi Poco X3 NFC Guides, News, & Discussion] jeryll:
nope, not that I know of

only @ManoloRey know more, maybe he will share some info, when he will be here again...
[Xiaomi Poco X3 NFC Guides, News, & Discussion] ygb7:
CounterC said:

What about internal storage when using miflash?

Temporarium gave the best advice you will ever receive in this or any forum

“Be safe and back it up!”.

If you ever consider flashing a custom ROM or restoring your phone device to Stock MIUI ROM, please, please, please be safe and backup any data & apps you do not want to lose to your external micro-SD card or even copy it to your local computer. Using

tools like OrangeFox, TWRP, MIFlash etc has risks of data lost that you assume when you choose to use these tools

.

If you use MIFlash to flash MIUI ROM, it will return the phone to stock MIUI OS. Just like it was fresh out of the box. The Boot Partition, the Recovery partition, the Super Partition (Product, Vendor, System), etc will all be returned to stock.

That means Internal data will be wiped. OrangeFox or TWRP Recovery partition will be gone after MIFlash of MIUI Stock ROM. It will be the stock MIUI ROM recovery. You will have to flash the OrangeFox of TWRP recovery again.

For example,

OrangeFox

fastboot flash recovery OrangeFox-R11.0_6_Alpha-Unofficial-surya.img

adb reboot recovery

TWRP

fastboot flash recovery twrp-3.5.0_10-5-surya.img

adb reboot recovery

As I mentioned previously, It will not relock your bootloader if you Do NOT select “Clean and lock” radio button on bottom right corner of the MIFlash UI. Even if you did relock the PX3NFC bootloader, you can easily &

immediately

unlock it again with Xiaomi Mi Unlock Tool . You will not have the Xiaomi 5-10 day waiting period if the phone bootloader has already been previously unlocked.

This is the way it worked for me when I received my new PX3NFC phone a couple months ago. I bricked my POCO X3 NFC phone over 10 times with trial & error. I had to restore my phone to MIUI v12.0.4.0 Global Stock ROM, unlocked bootloader again, install TWRP again over 10 times before I finally identified this solution that worked for me.

Do not use any hacks. I used the official way to unlock my bootloader by Bind your Mi Account which means sign in to the Poco device using your Mi account by heading to Settings > Additional Settings > Developer Options > Add account and device and log in.

Best wishes & Happy flashing. I hope this email helps you.
[Xiaomi Poco X3 NFC Guides, News, & Discussion] CounterC:
Thanks a lot bro. I saw your post too late though. Yesterday I already managed to get back to the latest MIUI rooted with Magisk, Viper4Android, OFox, and other mods I need. Just what I wanted!

Thanks anyway. I'm sure it will help some other people as well.
[Xiaomi Poco X3 NFC Guides, News, & Discussion] Alv32:
I'm on latest MIUI global ROM with device encryption and have recently installed OrangeFox from post #102, my concern is now I am unable to install OTA updates because I no longer have stock recovery.

Can I flash the OTA zip using OrangeFox using the steps below once the OTA update has been downloaded to the "downloaded_rom" folder?

1.) Unroot via Magisk "Restore Images"

2.) Reboot to recovery

3.) Flash the OTA zip

4.) Reboot to system

Is it safe to assume OrangeFox recovery in still intact after the steps above?

Are there any pitfalls that I should be aware of with this version of OrangeFox because I would like to prevent a bootloop or hard brick due to MIUI boot check and dm-verity check?
[Xiaomi Poco X3 NFC Guides, News, & Discussion] CounterC:
Two more questions:

- Being on MIUI and OFox I always need to decrypt storage upon entering OFox. Will the disable enryption zip work permanently in my case?

- Also OFox has the option for (MIUI) OTA. I tried it yesterday but it failed. Next update it would be nice to test again instead of installing the whole system image. There are some devices that can do it but we don't have the wipe system option so it might not work like that. Anyone any ideas on this??

Thanks in advance.
[Xiaomi Poco X3 NFC Guides, News, & Discussion] Master One:
Found a bug:

OTA updates don't work if an OrangeFox access protection (Settings >> Security) is active.

I thought it's a good idea to protect OrangeFox with a PIN code and disable "Run ADB on startup", but with that setting and after an OTA update has been initiated, when the ROM reboots to recovery to perform the update, first the data encryption PIN is asked, then the OrangeFox PIN is asked, and then it ends in the "Files" tab without proceeding to performing the update.
[Xiaomi Poco X3 NFC Guides, News, & Discussion] jeryll:
please read how OTA in OFOX should work

also I'm not an OFOX maintainer for POCO X3, so even if it's a bug, I can't do anything about it, sorry
[Xiaomi Poco X3 NFC Guides, News, & Discussion] Master One:
That wiki page has absolutely nothing to do with the bug I have mentioned.

With OrgangeFox access protection disabled, everything is working, but OTA updates definitely don't work if enabling that security feature in OrangeFox settings.

So where/how to report a bug? @ManoloRey?
[Xiaomi Poco X3 NFC Guides, News, & Discussion] Morello12:
Hi all!

Is there any chance to return to stock recovery without flash all stock ROM?

Thx un advance.
[Xiaomi Poco X3 NFC Guides, News, & Discussion] pnin:
Probably yes, provided someone still on stock is able to extract the recovery image. No one has bothered with it up to now...
[Xiaomi Poco X3 NFC Guides, News, & Discussion] Morello12:
Deleted
[Xiaomi Poco X3 NFC Guides, News, & Discussion] brackenhill_mob:
Download the ROM that you are on from Xiaomi and extract the recovery
[Xiaomi Poco X3 NFC Guides, News, & Discussion] Morello12:
and then just flash in Fastboot mode?
[Xiaomi Poco X3 NFC Guides, News, & Discussion] brackenhill_mob:
Yes, or an image flash in orange
[Xiaomi Poco X3 NFC Guides, News, & Discussion] Alin45:
Did u do all procedure to activate OTA in OrangeFox as discribed in the link Jeryll provided (activate that option - flash the custom ROM - use in build ROM update app only) and did not work? I used this method with ArrowOS about 1 month ago and all worked as expected (I had PIN protection on OF tho).

If u don't use in build OF OTA option, but in build ROM update app, having problem to update because of security measures of OF is because of the update script inside the ROM which is not adapted for OF specific functionality (so, u can blame developer not OF.....if u wanna blame someone :)).
[Xiaomi Poco X3 NFC Guides, News, & Discussion] Master One:
Yes, it already worked before I added PIN protection, but not after.
[Xiaomi Poco X3 NFC Guides, News, & Discussion] Master One:
FYI Do NOT enable OrangeFox access protection because it can bork your system if trying to expand from "show less information" during an OTA update!

So with OFOX access protection enabled (this time I tried with a pattern instead of a PIN) the OTA update is possible, but if "show less information during an OTA update" is enabled and you try to access the full information, it will ask for the access pattern and then crash the update with some error messages about processes already running.

This left my system in an inconsistent state which did not boot anymore and even (dirty) reflashing did not solve the issue. I didn't want to risk any more inconsistencies, so (clean) reflashed the full MIUI ROM and started over installing my chosen custom ROM (ArrowOS 11).
[Xiaomi Poco X3 NFC Guides, News, & Discussion] jeryll:
- new version of OFOX is here (finally!), many thanks to @brigudav

- no official changelog yet, but first look tells this:

-- files sorting is finally remembered between reboots

-- naming of your external sdcard changed from sdcard1 to external_sd

-- location name of your existing backups changed (was some numerical value, now is POCO_X3), so you need to relocate your backup files from old directory to POCO_X3 else they will not be visible in this version of OFOX

- enjoy!

redownload new version here
[Xiaomi Poco X3 NFC Guides, News, & Discussion] PYCON:
Thx for the news mate !

Could u please inform @billabongstaff for every new update in order to add it in the first post of this topic ?

Thx again !

EDIT : flashed. So far so good (y)
[Xiaomi Poco X3 NFC Guides, News, & Discussion] jeryll:
@billabongstaff si MIA for almost two months (last visit 6. feb. 2021), nothing I can do about it
[Xiaomi Poco X3 NFC Guides, News, & Discussion] Master One:
Maybe a new thread would be in order?
[Xiaomi Poco X3 NFC Guides, News, & Discussion] Master One:
Will there be a new flashable ZIP archive with the extras in the Fox folder?
[Xiaomi Poco X3 NFC Guides, News, & Discussion] jeryll:
that depends entirely on @brigudav, in the meantime you can download attached zip file and unpack it to your Fox folder...
[Xiaomi Poco X3 NFC Guides, News, & Discussion] jeryll:
seems brigudav is on fire, so here's new version of OFOX, probably bugfix release, no changelog, but different md5, than yesterday, so redownload please, thanks, this time we also have flashable zip too, enjoy...

md5 (img): 751933e8d51141f3faca61fecd8a756c

md5 (zip): 38311773dc6fa006cefe5deae2872503
[Xiaomi Poco X3 NFC Guides, News, & Discussion] iakoboss7:
the one you uploaded and this are the same? or different?

https://xdaforums.com/t/recovery-shared-orangefox-r11-0-beta-new-by-brigudav.4252623/