I think you are making an incorrect assumption about the unlock option. It is my understanding that when you place a SIM card from another carrier in a locked phone you should be prompted to enter an unlock code without the need of any app. The message might happen only when you power on your phone, but it should show up at least once with every reboot while the unrecognized sim is inserted.
He may be afraid that you will then offer to do that for others and take business away from him. Or it could be illegal in your country to do that. Without knowing exactly what he does to unlock phones, it's anybody's guess.
Hi,
Lunatic59,
After a lot of efforts done by you, and me, I found out this very little app called 'GT(idoneapps) disabled the magic done on my phone.
Could you please read and reply to my points below? I know they are quite a lot, but they only need confirmations and a few answers.
I tried launching that GT app three times, and in each time, I didn't find any option as 'unlock' in the app interface. Where
"SIM UICC Unlock" under the 'SIM uicc' isn't an command option to be set with a value. I got firstly stumbled with how to unlock my SIM.
So, I couldn't know from where I could start to unlock my SIM card.
Even I still don't remember how the interface of commands options were setup before my SIM card got unlocked. I wish that I had taken a screen shot of the interface of that GT app's commands before my SIM card got unlocked to see how the values of the commands were setup before my SIM got unlocked.
I even still haven't seen anythings added or shown on my phone after my SIM got unlocked.
However, that below screen shot below was only taken after my SIM card had been unlocked. So, all those command options shown in the interface might be setup/edited with the correct values after my SIM card was unlocked.
Anyway, in the fourth time launching the GT app, I tried guessing to change the the values of the following commands, I changed the command "
a ro.build.type" from the default value '
user' to '
Eng', and once I had done that, I was prompted to 'reboot system to let the changes take effect. The second command I changed is the
Keystring from
OFF to
ON 'ON' .
Then, when restarting my phone, I got the SIM being recognised.
This is the screen shot of GT app after the SIM got recognised.
Bear in mind that when my SIM got recognised after running the GT app, then whenever restarting/running on my phone, then I see 'Android is upgrading'(screen shot below) while booting.
Bear in mind that before or after my SIM got recognised, in each time, I restart my Android system, and when launching GT app, I would have been faced with 'Unfortunately, idoneapps has stopped'. So, to let GT app launch well, I would need to reinstall it again and open it although it is still being installed. Or otherwise, launching it, I would have been faced with 'Unfortunately, idoneapps has stopped'.
It seems as if it works for one session in each time, and after phone got restarted or powered off/turned on, then that app will need to be reinstalled again, and will need to be reopened once it was reinstalled after restarting my phone.
Now, my questions are as follows:
1- What do you guess might be causing the issue of SIM was being invalid/not recognised by my phone? In other words, if I want to rolled back to the case when my SIM was not recognised by my phone to retest the GT app again and see quite what was the steps of unlocking SIM card.
2- As long as my phone is working well and I don't have any issues with it, could you kindly give me the guide to make a full Android system image with TWRP recovery to be in a safe place if that issue or others come again(
Lunatic59, kindly mentioned to some steps of how TWRP does,
Do you have TWRP recovery installed on your phone? It's not an app, it's the recovery utility installed in its own partition on the phone and only accessible through special commands (either issued through adb or via a special key combination.)
Let's check.
- Turn off the device.
- Press and hold the Volume Up key and the Home key, then press and hold the Power key.
- When the Samsung logo screen displays, release only the Power key
- When the Android logo displays, release the Volume Up and the Home key('Installing system update' may show for about 30 - 60 seconds before showing the Android system recovery menu options).
- Press the Volume up and down keys to highlight menu options.
- Find the option to reboot or restart the phone (Do not select factory reset now).
- Press Power button to select.
Then your phone will restart.
If that happened then you have stock recovery. Making a system image backup is not possible using stock recovery.
If, on the other hand, you have something else display and it says TeamWin or something similar, you have TWRP already installed and you can make a nandroid backup. Let us know what results you get. If you aren't sure, post a screen shot, if possible.
3- As TWRP is not an app, it's the recovery utility installed in its own partition on the phone and only accessible through special commands (either issued through adb or via a special key combination.), then how could I install it, and how to boot to the TWRP recovery environment?
4- If I have TWRP installed and I see something else display and it says TeamWin or something similar, then how to make nandroid backup?
5- If have TWRP installed and I see something else display and it says TeamWin or something similar, and I can make nandroid backup, then why Laun mentioned to 'Don't select factory reset now' in "Find the option to reboot or restart the phone (Do not select factory reset now).".
What is the relation to mention to 'don't select factory reset' while mentioning to how to find if TWRP is installed or not.
6- Now the display language of my phone cannot be selected as Arabic as it was. However, all the available languages are English, Chinese, Espanel, etc.However, to how to add the Arabic language in the drop-down menu of languages. I don't know if that happened once I had flashed the new downloaded and uploaded firmware from the SamMobile since the Arabic language was there before flashing my phone. The firmware my phone was having was modified by the person "Fawzi Bakramha'. So, this name is written under the build number. Thus, that person is the one who might have modified the firmware and added the Arabic language)
The build number was shown as follows after flashing phone with new firmware.
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