yashsingh1/xdaforums huggingface dataset:
[Samsung Galaxy Tab A series Guides, News, & Discus] DJBhardwaj:
Of course, I will continue. Things like these are expected to happen every now then, I just want it to have a constructive outcome.

And thank you for the kind words. I have never been much of a tablet person, but the Tab A7 is really good for the price, like amazing with sound, and screen by Samsung is always pleasing to glance upon ;)
[Samsung Galaxy Tab A series Guides, News, & Discus] ThePaxinox:
Hey man, I wanna take the time to apologize for that PM, that was uncalled for from my end. Ive been working with jailbreaking and rooting phones and tablets for 10+ years (2005-2015 mainly). I usually know what the hell Im doing XD

I did read your guide thoroughly, but I misunderstood the part about soft reboot and hard reboot. Im new to Samsung with OS10 and the latest Knox functions. I think where it went wrong for me was after the Factory Reset inside the Recovery menu. While rebooting, it got stuck somewhere. I waited for a long while, but I concluded with a hard restart. (volume down + power)

The mistake, as you wrote, probably happened during this hard restart, where Knox got tripped and it got stuck with "Only official released binaries are allowed to be flashed (vbmeta)" error.

The problem tho, is after this state (knox tripped, and warrantystatus 0x01) it seemed impossible to reflash with Odin. As no matter what I tried (Stock rom, magisk repeat) it still wouldnt let me flash the Patched AP again. Download mode stopped Odin with the same red line "Custom binary VBmeta". I might be mistaken, but it seems that after Knox is tripped, if Magisk doesnt get to do its thing, it winds up locked without possibility of reflashing patched AP.

Anyways, the end of the story for my Tab A7 was that I flashed stock rom, locked the bootloader and asked for a refund from the store. They didnt check Knox and I exchanged it for a Lenovo MT10+ instead. Better CPU and ram, and cheaper than the Samsung. So a happy ending anyways :p

A couple of things tho:

1) Odin 3.14.4 doesnt seem to exist, Ive roamed the forums and google for this version, and most sites have a bogus download where the CRC is all wrong. The correct latest version is 3.14.1. You might wanna change this in your guide, so people dont get lead down the wrong path.

2) I would highly recommend expressing the importance of not actually hard rebooting your device before Magisk does its finishing touches. Maybe big letters in red and "Warning warning"? Especially seeing as a couple of other members here did the same mistake.

Again, sorry for my noob-rage. I got kinda carried away. Thanks for all the effort youve put into this guide, @DJBhardwaj. Ill read your guide better next time ;)

Greetings from Norway 🇳🇴
[Samsung Galaxy Tab A series Guides, News, & Discus] DJBhardwaj:
That's completely alright. I can understand.

Just for the sake of experimenting, I deliberately rebooted the tablet before completing the additional setup by Magisk to land my Tab A7 to the "Only official binaries are allowed to be flashed (vbmeta)" error.

I will try and explain exactly what happened.

1) This isn't caused by KNOX being tripped or the warranty status string changing its value to 0x1. That will never affect flashing in any way.

2) As I mentioned in my comment, this is caused because Magisk didn't get the chance to patch and disable the important Samsung security features in the kernel. This, in turn, triggers the dreaded "Prenormal KG state". You can verify this from the Download Mode.

When KG state is triggered, it will prevent you from flashing any non-official binary (like the Magisk patched TAR in this case).

3) So, here's what I did to fix this. I force-booted the Tablet back into Download Mode and plugged it into the PC. Then:

Launched Odin and flashed the official stock FW.

Rebooted into the OS and skipped the initial setup.

Connected the tab to WiFi.

Enabled Developer Options and verified that OEM unlocking was present and greyed out in the ON position.

Rebooted back into Download Mode.

Launched Odin again and unchecked "Auto Reboot" within the Options tab.

Flashed the Patched AP TAR, along with BL and CSC (no CP because I have the WiFi variant)

Manually turn it off, and boot it straight into stock recovery mode

Performed a factory reset via the stock recovery and finally rebooted into the OS.

After the tab booted, I went ahead and did the initial setup (connecting to WiFi, logging into Google and Samsung accounts, and so on).

Went to the app drawer and launched Magisk. It prompted to install the full Magisk app. So did that.

Then re-launched Magisk and did the additional setup as prompted. Upon finishing the tab finally rebooted by itself.

And voila! It was rooted without any problems.

As you said, I think it would be a very good idea to mention not rebooting the tablet before the additional Magisk setup is finished. I will do that later today.

v3.14.4 does exist. But I later came to know that it includes a phishy tracking DLL, thanks @realbbb for pointing in his thread.

So, it's best to use 3.14.1. I will mention this in the post as well with the apt download link.

At last, thank you for your message. It means a total win for us as a community. :) Take care and enjoy your new Lenovo tab. Hope you find some exciting things to do with it as well. (y)
[Samsung Galaxy Tab A series Guides, News, & Discus] GodOfPsychos:
Definitely nice to have a guide like this. Haven't rooted my tablet yet as i got it a few days ago. Really hope that in the long term there will be a dedicated forum for the tab a7 bcs cramming all tab a series devices into a single forum just makes it all unclear and confusing to navigate properly. Even the sm-t580 (tab a6) should have gotten it by the amount of threads i found with various custom roms for it alone.

But enough about rambling about xda, thanks for this well written guide for the tab a7
[Samsung Galaxy Tab A series Guides, News, & Discus] vvouliotis:
gd day, i am trying to patch my tab a7. No matter what version of Odin i use there is no device in the com ports identified...
[Samsung Galaxy Tab A series Guides, News, & Discus] DJBhardwaj:
Try installing these: https://developer.samsung.com/mobile/android-usb-driver.html

Then restart your computer and try again.
[Samsung Galaxy Tab A series Guides, News, & Discus] DJBhardwaj:
My pleasure.

And sure, I will forward this to the XDA team. I feel the exact same, and I believe the team might be able to do something about it. Thanks for the feedback.
[Samsung Galaxy Tab A series Guides, News, & Discus] vvouliotis:
were you waiting for a comment to appear? whow, thanks for the ultra speedy reply. trying it and reverting!
[Samsung Galaxy Tab A series Guides, News, & Discus] vvouliotis:
and now I am on this screen for a gd amount of time...should I still wait? Perhaps restart it?
[Samsung Galaxy Tab A series Guides, News, & Discus] vvouliotis:
And my device is now bricked? An error has occurred while updating the device software...what should I do now?
[Samsung Galaxy Tab A series Guides, News, & Discus] vvouliotis:
have restarted the procedure but it reached to the point where it flashes the super.img and stays there for quite some time now...certainly not good.
[Samsung Galaxy Tab A series Guides, News, & Discus] GodOfPsychos:
This tablet definitely is a small beast waiting to be awakened. Sure the 3 gigs of ram may be the main bottleneck, but all in all the tablet is quite underpowered, not in terms of specs, but by the bloat and lack of proper optimization by samsung. For one thing, even with game optimizing service disabled, the tablet doesn't really heat up at all even under heavy cpu and gpu load while charging at the same time. It just gets mildly warm. Also of course with a custom kernel, this thing could be overclcocked on both ends (cpu/gpu) without risking any big damage since it doesn't build up any critical heat in the first place.

I guess there will be custom development at some point anyway since this tablet price/performance point is way better than any previous devices in the a series. I mean even the a6 (sm-t580) was incredibly underpowered for 2016 standards (especially the cheap mali gpu and the measly 2gb ram) when it launched and it still got a fair share of custom development.
[Samsung Galaxy Tab A series Guides, News, & Discus] DJBhardwaj:
Not really. I was writing a reply to a previous comment, that's when yours appeared.

I believe you're using the Patched Odin. You have to use the regular Odin v3.14.1. It could be found under the attachments on this thread.
[Samsung Galaxy Tab A series Guides, News, & Discus] DJBhardwaj:
Couldn't agree more. I really feel like I made the right choice not going for anything else.

I am looking forward more towards a custom kernel, and then there's nothing else I would personally need.
[Samsung Galaxy Tab A series Guides, News, & Discus] vvouliotis:
all in order even with the patched Odin. thank you, a well put guide.
[Samsung Galaxy Tab A series Guides, News, & Discus] vvouliotis:
Now a debloat guide could be in next...
[Samsung Galaxy Tab A series Guides, News, & Discus] DJBhardwaj:
Fanastic! And you're welcome.

I did cover it on my blog but didn't get to do the same here on XDA. I will try and cover it next weekend for sure.
[Samsung Galaxy Tab A series Guides, News, & Discus] vvouliotis:
will be glad to test it out 😉
[Samsung Galaxy Tab A series Guides, News, & Discus] Snekk8:
Could you put a link to your tutorial? A debloat guide would be great... Also thank you for your commitment
[Samsung Galaxy Tab A series Guides, News, & Discus] acinfo64:
If I follow your guide. But after step 9 in

https://xdaforums.com/t/guide-sm-t5...loader-root-with-magisk.4185993/post-84598443

I'm not able to boot in the OS (that is booting to the "desktop / home screen"). The tablet start up in the first boot mode and after setting the Language it reboots. So it's not possible to run Magisk.

So I'm stuck again with the message:

"Only official released binaries are allowed to be flashed (vbmeta)"

So skipping initial setup (i.e. setting Language (then automatically tablet reboots) and then remaining settings) is not possible. And thus the tablet forces a reboot before you can start Magisk.

How can I solve this?
[Samsung Galaxy Tab A series Guides, News, & Discus] DJBhardwaj:
Odd. Haven't faced this one yet.

Try reflashing the stock FW (the one you have already downloaded). Then let the tab boot into the OS, connect it to the internet, enable Developer Options, and verify that the OEM unlocking is greyed out in an ON position.

After doing this, repeat the rooting process.
[Samsung Galaxy Tab A series Guides, News, & Discus] acinfo64:
Thanks for the replay. But I constantly read here that I have to boot into OS but my problem: "That's not possible!". After flashing (stock or not it does not matter) it does first time boot that is:

I get a white screen where I can only chose "lets go". I press it

Next screen I can set my language and on only have the option "Next"

Then I get a white screen where I can set my country. And the only option I have is REBOOT.

Then it reboots and after the reboot it continuous with the setup as shown in the video below from position 2.09 on.

So I'm forced to reboot before the OS can be started. So forget the "boot into OS (that is boot to home screen)" because that's not possible without a reboot.
[Samsung Galaxy Tab A series Guides, News, & Discus] DJBhardwaj:
Okay. So the same thing happens when you boot into the OS/homescreen after rooting as well, right?

And since the tab reboots before Magisk could complete the additional setup, you see the "Only official binaries are allowed to be flashed (vbmeta)" error, correct?

Are you sure that you have downloaded the correct FW for your Tab A7? I mean the model number and CSC codes?
[Samsung Galaxy Tab A series Guides, News, & Discus] Fatzkuh!:
Thanks for the Tutorial!

Fully rooted SM-T500[EUX] + fix sd-card fix. (private)

Works Fine! AppMGRIII Accept all Files for moving!
[Samsung Galaxy Tab A series Guides, News, & Discus] t2noob:
I am getting the vbmeta only official binary error. It just boot loops from the Samsung first logo and reboots. I had to flash official firmware to get it to start again. The patched magisk file didn't work. Anyone edit the boot to disable the check?
[Samsung Galaxy Tab A series Guides, News, & Discus] Grims187:
I tried this method on my Samsung Galaxy Tab A7 10.4 and it didn't work for me.....SD card still showing as "Portable Storage" and no options to "Change" storage option or "Move" to SD card....? i followed the steps to setup ADB step by step and followed this guide step by step.....adb devices recognizes my device but it isn't changing anything or unlocking anything.....help?
[Samsung Galaxy Tab A series Guides, News, & Discus] Fatzkuh!:
tried "sm set-force-adoptable" ?

or

take a look in the Developer Options, at the End in Apps u will find something like enable move files to external disk.
[Samsung Galaxy Tab A series Guides, News, & Discus] Grims187:
i have the developer options enabled and turned on the force move files thing and it doesn't work.....i didn't try too many commands for the ADB Shell other than what was posted on the guide, but i have read that the A7 10.4 is one of the hardest to try to unlock the SD Card options and idk why samsung would lock a tablet like this when almost all other samsung devices have the option for SD card usage enabled... even my Galaxy S20 FE smart phone has it enabled, and there is almost no difference between my phone and this tablet other than my phone uses Android 11 and the Tab A7 10.4 uses Android 10.... really frustrating when it claims in the specs you can use an SD card but fails to mention it is locked to only be used for pics and media files but for apps it is basically useless......
[Samsung Galaxy Tab A series Guides, News, & Discus] Mogster2K:
AFAICT these instructions don't work, and there is no way to mount the sdcard as internal/adopted. Tho I would love for someone to prove me wrong. With screenshots and the output of the "mount" command.
[Samsung Galaxy Tab A series Guides, News, & Discus] Becanovic:
Hello acinfo64,

I encountered the same problem as you, i.e. the ”forced” reboot at step 3.

The solution that works for me is to get backward using the arrow displayed on the screen (2 times).

Then i clic on the symbol "accesibility", get back again, and then appears the screen with policy contrats to select.

And no need to restart this time :). I hope this will help. I found this by chance.

@DJBhardwaj, thank a lot for this guide, very usefull for me :)

And sorry for my english, i’m a french guy with a low level of English. This is my 1st post.
[Samsung Galaxy Tab A series Guides, News, & Discus] DJBhardwaj:
Thank you so much for sharing this. I am sure it will be very helpful to @acinfo64 and others facing the same problem.

I still wonder why I didn't observe the same behavior. Got lucky I suppose.

Pleasure's all mine! Good job with English and welcome to XDA-Developers :)
[Samsung Galaxy Tab A series Guides, News, & Discus] Saulouk:
Hi, did you manage to root your device in the end?

I have the same issue with it triggering Knox after Odin flash as mine is the EUX version as well...
[Samsung Galaxy Tab A series Guides, News, & Discus] Tirofog:
Big thanks @DJBhardwaj for this straightforward guide, the only slight difficulty I had was catching the boot to recovery with the button combo. Both the guide and the positive comments about the tablet persuaded me to purchase one, and so far I'm really happy with it.. not a fan of Touchwiz but the One ui isn't too bad, now just need to sort out the Magisk CTS fail.. then see if I can find those TWRP and Pixel/Lineage threads :giggle:
[Samsung Galaxy Tab A series Guides, News, & Discus] DJBhardwaj:
You're welcome. With the key combos, it's all about getting the timing right, could take a few tries.

Indeed, One UI is the sole reason that led me to buy my first Samsung (always been a Nexus/Pixel fanboy :D ).

As for CTS, is it showing evalType Hardware?
[Samsung Galaxy Tab A series Guides, News, & Discus] acinfo64:
Thanks for the great help!! Sorry for the late reply. I missed some emails.

@DJBhardwaj. The answers to your questions where yes. And I did use the right FW. But because it forced me to reboot I could not finish the last Magisk step.

Thanks to the tip of @Becanovic my problems is solved!!! Now I could finish the last Magisk step. Thanks to you all !!!!
[Samsung Galaxy Tab A series Guides, News, & Discus] Tirofog:
Yes it is, basicIntegrity is okay but not CTS.. Magisk is hidden etc so I guess next up is the Hideprops module (y)
[Samsung Galaxy Tab A series Guides, News, & Discus] DJBhardwaj:
In that case, try the Universal SafetyNet Fix module. Make sure to grab the latest version from GitHub.

Glad to know it's finally solved! Good luck with the rooted tab ;)
[Samsung Galaxy Tab A series Guides, News, & Discus] Tirofog:
Thanks for the links, success after installing the module although my banking app still tells me there's a network error :unsure: I think I'll need to check this with the bank first.
[Samsung Galaxy Tab A series Guides, News, & Discus] Tirofog:
Been using this tab for a day now and I'm impressed, for less than 200 euros it's punching well above it's weight.. the author of this guide deserves to be on Sam's payroll imo 😉🙂
[Samsung Galaxy Tab A series Guides, News, & Discus] Aramir:
Does rooting this device downgrade its widevine from L1 to L3 ?

mainly asking for netflix HD content. I'm new to the whole magisk thing... My previous tablet is about 10 years old at this point (archos 101xs)
[Samsung Galaxy Tab A series Guides, News, & Discus] Becanovic:
Hello DJBhardwaj,

I’ve got a pop-up which informs me of a new version of android that is ready to be install.

Is this upgrade safe ? If it's possible will i lost root on my Tab A7 ?

Thanks in advance for your feedback :)
[Samsung Galaxy Tab A series Guides, News, & Discus] Tirofog:
Still L1 for me after rooting..
[Samsung Galaxy Tab A series Guides, News, & Discus] Deano1889:
Big thanks for this guide. Followed it step by step and now rooted.

Magisk isn't passing SafetyNet for me though. It's not a massive issue as will only be using it for games n such but would be a the icing on the cake if can fix that too
[Samsung Galaxy Tab A series Guides, News, & Discus] Tirofog:
The Universal SafetyNet Fix module from a few posts back fixed Magisk safety net for me.
[Samsung Galaxy Tab A series Guides, News, & Discus] Aramir:
It worked perfectly for me, thanks.

And thanks for the guide overall obviously.
[Samsung Galaxy Tab A series Guides, News, & Discus] JCARLOS123:
Hello,

I have unlocked bootloader and have TWRP installed. Will following this process give me root access? Do you think I will run into any issues because I have already installed TWRP?

Thank You
[Samsung Galaxy Tab A series Guides, News, & Discus] Deano1889:
You got a working TWRP for the SM-T500?
[Samsung Galaxy Tab A series Guides, News, & Discus] Deano1889:
Couldn't get this to work for me but hoping a custom ROM will pop up soon from Lineage and solve all worlds problems lol
[Samsung Galaxy Tab A series Guides, News, & Discus] JCARLOS123:
I have TWRP for SM-T290
[Samsung Galaxy Tab A series Guides, News, & Discus] DJBhardwaj:
It's really good to see the way this thread and more importantly Tab A7 is picking up!

To all the people here, I wouldn't be able to follow up much on the thread for a while due to some sudden family problems. Hope to be back soon!

And yes, I have edited the OP and replaced Odin v3.14.4 with v3.14.1.
[Samsung Galaxy Tab A series Guides, News, & Discus] Deano1889:
Thank you for your guide and sorry to hear about family problems. With anything in life family comes first! I've trawled the thread and I think for the most part we've all got this (thanks to your guide!) and helping each other out.
[Samsung Galaxy Tab A series Guides, News, & Discus] myxiplx:
Thanks for the detailed guide, it's been a great help. I've tried following the steps here to flash my wife's SM-T500 Galaxy Tab A7, and all went well until Odin3 hung about 2/3 of the way through. I left it overnight with no progress so this morning pressed the buttons to cancel the download and the tablet is now stuck in a boot loop stating "an error has occurred while updating the device software".

I've tried twice now, but every time it hangs at this point, while transferring "super.img". Any suggestions on how to recover, or get past this stage?
[Samsung Galaxy Tab A series Guides, News, & Discus] myxiplx:
Solved my problem. Changed to a different USB cable and port, and running Odin again while still on that "An error has occurred while updating the device software" went through fine.

Odd that it got 2/3 of the way through the file transfers before hanging, but switching to a different cable resolved the problem.
[Samsung Galaxy Tab A series Guides, News, & Discus] flamadiddle:
I just installed the March 17 update following this guide, and it worked perfectly again. I used the HOME_CSC file and skipped the factory reset. I'm upgraded and still rooted. Thanks again for this guide!
[Samsung Galaxy Tab A series Guides, News, & Discus] myxiplx:
Hmm, I spoke too soon. I followed the process, did the factory reset, completed the setup wizard, and then the tablet locked up with:

"only official released binaries are allowed to be flashed"
[Samsung Galaxy Tab A series Guides, News, & Discus] dylerb:
Successfully rooted SM-T505, Android 10, XEV. Thank you for the very meticulous instructions.
[Samsung Galaxy Tab A series Guides, News, & Discus] chalybeum:
Hey there,

just a little FYI for my fellow Linux users:

The described method works flawlessly with Heimdall from git. I couldn't establish a connection with 1.4.2-3.

It is sufficient to extract boot.img from the patched AP and flash just that.

I have to warn you however when trying to update your tab via Heimdall. For some reason super.img isn't recognized as genuine. It works flawlessly with Qemu/Win10/Odin.

Take care all...
[Samsung Galaxy Tab A series Guides, News, & Discus] Loganberry:
Oh, my word. That was it! My shiny new SM-T500 arrived today, so obviously the first thing I did with it was void the warranty. But I kept getting stuck at the "Only official released binaries are allowed to be flashed" message, and couldn't work out how to bypass the mandatory reboot after choosing the language.

Once I did as you suggested, I was able to bypass that reboot and launch Magisk to finish the rooting process.

Thank you so much for stumbling across that workaround and for sharing it! I wish I could like your post more than once!
[Samsung Galaxy Tab A series Guides, News, & Discus] eeter:
Why Tab A7 is the only tablet not getting Android 11 or LineageOS 18.1 ???????
[Samsung Galaxy Tab A series Guides, News, & Discus] chalybeum:
Well, 10.4 isn't very old. I am confident, that there will be an official update later this year.

Regarding LOS or Custom Roms in general there is some activity. It simply takes some time.

You can read about it here: https://xdaforums.com/posts/83955323/
[Samsung Galaxy Tab A series Guides, News, & Discus] zestfully:
Greetings to everyone, I'm a newcomer to this forum - created an account to reply to this thread.

I am at the final step of updating Magisk after flashing the patched AP firmware and performing a system reset. I'm faced with the error below "There was a problem while parsing the package." I've allowed Magisk (v22.1) to install unknown apps under the settings but to no avail.

Appreciate if a kind soul could shed some light.

Thanks!

View attachment 5281925
[Samsung Galaxy Tab A series Guides, News, & Discus] Vaesel:
Download/transfer (usb) magisk and then install it. Open it and install magisk and then reboot.