[LG V50 ThinQ Guides, News, & Discussion] C D:
I finally got around to rooting my Sprint V50 (LM-V450PM), and I agree that the overall process wasn't difficult. It's just that the guide has little to no explanation for specific models, causing a lot of confusion among users in that thread. It also doesn't help that the guide's OP pretty much posted it, edited it once, and never returned to XDA. And the TWRP installation guide posted by someone else is poorly laid out and has been rightfully criticized by others.

So, here are some pointers from my experience:

- Getting into EDL mode is a bit tricky in getting the timing right, so it may take a few tries to get used to it.

- As has already been mentioned, it's a good idea to use the LG OEM cable to connect the phone to the computer. Some people have been getting a "Sahara fail error" in QFIL that might be due to different cables

- You are backing up the abl and boot partition files for both A and B slots because you don't know yet which slot is active on the phone until you enter fastboot mode, which gets enabled after flashing the modified abl engineering file to replace both abl_a and abl_b partitions.

- For getting root, the newer Magisk versions no longer have a separate Manager APK and ZIP files; they are combined into one APK file now. So, instead of the Manager, you just install the single APK file from the Magisk website. From there, you should be able to patch your boot image file just like it says in the guide.

For TWRP:

- As lallolu mentioned in another post, there are two different versions: One for USA models and one for non-U.S. variants. I'm assuming that the U.S. one is for the Sprint and Verizon V50 while the non-U.S. is for all other types.

- You flash the TWRP ZIP package inside Magisk manually as a module. Note that this will remove root as it tells you on the progress screen when done flashing.

- Since for some reason, the touch screen is not active when entering recovery from a reboot, you need to turn off the phone and then enter recovery via the button combination. Some V50 models appear to have the button combination disabled, and there is a separate guide on here for getting it back, but on the Sprint model, it's still enabled: With the phone off, hold volume-up + power, and when the logo shows up, briefly release the power button while still holding volume-up and then hold power again alongside holding volume-up until the factory reset screen shows up. Answer YES twice, and you will eventually enter TWRP.

- TWRP will greet you with a password, but you just hit cancel to continue and get to the main menu. From there, you'll need to go to Wipe and Format Data (where it will ask you to type "yes") to remove encryption.

- Now you want to get root back by flashing Magisk. All you need to do is rename the Magisk APK file extension to ZIP and flash that in TWRP. Right after that, you should also flash a file called Disable_Dm-Verity_ForceEncrypt_03.04.2020.zip which is also needed to remove encryption.

- Reboot into the system, go through the initial setup, and everything should be set.

For the Verizon model, I'm assuming that the "Enable OEM unlock" switch in the Developer Settings doesn't exist, and so the Verizon FRP image used for the Verizon G8 should also be used. The button combination to enter recovery may also be different. But everything else should be identical to the process for the Sprint model.