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Just had a system update on Eris??

eu1,

Just another thought / question...

If we "defer" the OTA install, hasn't the download (presumably to /cache) already happened (and if we are rooted, we can snag the OTA.zip file from there before its installed)?

This is pretty-much what the Droid X guys were doing when the first OTA was sent out for that phone...

I defer to your greater knowledge, of course :).
 
I will do the Nandroid backup right after I get my phone charged. Then if you want me looking into anything, just have to give me very basic steps

From Minnesota...
 
eu1,

Just another thought / question...

If we "defer" the OTA install, hasn't the download (presumably to /cache) already happened (and if we are rooted, we can snag the OTA.zip file from there before its installed)?

This is pretty-much what the Droid X guys were doing when the first OTA was sent out for that phone...

I defer to your greater knowledge, of course :).

If I am remembering correctly, you get notified that "an update is available", and only after you initiate the update, does it download it to your phone and then reboot into recovery all in one go.

Apparently there is *something* stored on the phone locally that the phone uses when it communicates with google's servers (for instance after delaying the install), so that when you next perform a "check for updates", googles servers will hand you what it wants.

I sort of vaguely remember "trying to get at the OTA download" by yanking the battery at the beginning of the reboot - but as soon as /sbin/recovery starts to run, it finds the command file at /cache/recovery/command, and starts to unpack the (pointed-to) OTA file. It fails immediately if you are using Amon_RA because of the "asserts" that are built in to the updater-script inside the OTA package (well, OK, you have a couple of seconds while the zip file is unpacked), and I believe what happens is that as soon as the "update" operation completes- whether it succeeds or fails - it erases the update package in /cache.

A very simple modification to Amon_RA that would disable this behavior is to simply add the line "disabled" to the "recovery" service definition in init.rc, as in:

Code:
service recovery /sbin/recovery
   disabled

Because adbd runs by default in Amon_RA, if you customized the a recovery boot this way, /sbin/recovery would never run, and you would have all the time in the world to copy files, poke around, etc, using adb. But there would be no menus to interact with by default.

I didn't put the hack-job recovery together that way because then you would need to be at a computer to use the recovery menus - (/sbin/recovery could be manually started to get the normal Amon_RA menus to come up with "adb shell /sbin/recovery".) I sort of wanted something that would still be useful to flash ROMs and so forth, but be able to "catch" an OTA without letting it proceed or delete the OTA file.

Hmmm, that just gave me a testing idea.
 
I will do the Nandroid backup right after I get my phone charged. Then if you want me looking into anything, just have to give me very basic steps

From Minnesota...

The "hard way" of getting at the contents of the OTA would be for you to post up the "system.img" file from your Nandroid backup. (The "system.img" file contains absolutely zero personal information - all that stuff is in /data and your SD card in a stock 2.1 ROM). It's a pretty big file - I'm guessing more than 100 MB.

OTA's generally only patch a subset of the files in /system, so the "hard way" means that we (well, really I mean "me") would have to compare all the files against the prior release's files to figure out which ones changed. There is a way to automate this by using checksum comparisons, but it's still a fair bit of work. (Dang, where did I put those scripts? I lost them once in a computer crash, and then re-wrote them, and now I can't find them again... arrrrgh)

Probably I won't ask you for that unless somehow the OTA gets delayed. I can wait a couple of days. Thanks for the offer though - stay tuned!

eu1
 
Got the backup complete. Did lose all my programs I had, can I get them back and also my customized screens.

I see stuff about ROM's. Is this inportant? What are tips to do now that I am rooted?
 
Got the backup complete. Did lose all my programs I had, can I get them back and also my customized screens.

I see stuff about ROM's. Is this inportant? What are tips to do now that I am rooted?

Whoaa... hold on there!

Making a Nandroid does not delete anything!

Did you do a "wipe" or "factory reset" or something like that AFTER you did the Nandroid?

(Hopefully if you did that, you did it after the backup, not before!)

???

eu1


If you did your wipes AFTER taking the Nandroid backup (which is what you would normally be doing if you were going to follow up with a new ROM installation), you can do a Nandroid "restore" of the same backup to get back to exactly how you had the phone before the backup.
 
eu1,
If we "defer" the OTA install, hasn't the download (presumably to /cache) already happened (and if we are rooted, we can snag the OTA.zip file from there before its installed)?

You seem to be right about this after all, scary.

I realized in writing out the prior reply to you that I could easily test my "recovery" hack by installing the Leak-V3 ROM, because then I would get the OLDER OTA (not the new one) immediately.

I did get the (older, July) OTA - without even configuring a gmail account on the Leak V3 ROM. I captured everything via logcat - and my "hacked Amon_RA" worked did it's job flawlessly.

But, in doing that, I did notice that, yes, the (old) OTA file was already on the phone, because the phone basically rebooted almost instantaneously after I pressed on the "accept" button. So, if we just install a rootkit on the July OTA ROM, we should be able to get the file that way, too - don't accept the notice when the notification comes, and just move the OTA .zip file out of /cache with a root-aware file manager (doh!)

Either way will work.

eu1
 
You seem to be right about this after all, scary.

I realized in writing out the prior reply to you that I could easily test my "recovery" hack by installing the Leak-V3 ROM, because then I would get the OLDER OTA (not the new one) immediately.

I did get the (older, July) OTA - without even configuring a gmail account on the Leak V3 ROM. I captured everything via logcat - and my "hacked Amon_RA" worked did it's job flawlessly.

But, in doing that, I did notice that, yes, the (old) OTA file was already on the phone, because the phone basically rebooted almost instantaneously after I pressed on the "accept" button. So, if we just install a rootkit on the July OTA ROM, we should be able to get the file that way, too - don't accept the notice when the notification comes, and just move the OTA .zip file out of /cache with a root-aware file manager (doh!)

Either way will work.

eu1

lol...even a broken clock is right twice a day, eh? :D

Well, that's good news...I can just carry my Eris with me and check on it occasionally. I've already rooted with Z4root (skipped the engtools3.zip this time ;)), so I'll just watch for an OTA update and copy the file from /cache when / if it shows up.

I've also got aLogcat running in the background too.

By the way, don't know if you've heard, but I believe that Google has patched the exploit that the rageagainstthecage method uses for AOSP 2.2.2 and Gingerbread (Google pulls Market apps with root exploit -- one patched in AOSP, but you probably didn't get it | Android Central).

Cheers and thanks again for all of your efforts!
 
I just got the update 15 mins ago.
Phone says:
2.1 firmware
2.42.01.04.27 baseband
2.6.29... kernal
2.41.605.6 build
 
I woke up with the update this morning, when I went to install it it rebooted to Amon's recovery, said the signature had failed. Now I checked for a system update and it said my software is up to date, weird.
 
I didn't get the update last night - was up until 11:30 flashing Flashback21, fastboot flashing that OTA grab recovery, and setting things up with minimal apps etc. - but I'm very pleased that I now have a Nandroid of stock for those times that I want to go back. (I'm back to running GSB right now but will Nandroid back to stock tonight to try to catch the OTA again.)

As I remembered, using stock on a brand-new install wasn't so bad. I'm sure that as it gets mucked up I'll remember why I rooted in the first place.
 
just update myself but cant tell if anything is changed....

2.1 firmware
2.42.01.04.27 Baseband
2.6.29-bcb140a0 Kernel Ver.
Build number 2.41.605.6 release-keys
 
I'm on XTR ROM 5.0 am I going to have a problem if I install this update?

Not to worry. xtrROM is specifically designed not to look for or let you download the OTA system updates. My guess is that at some point, after somebody captures the OTA, Zach.xtr will incorporate the changes into a new version of xtrROM and xtrSENSE.
 
I woke up with the update this morning, when I went to install it it rebooted to Amon's recovery, said the signature had failed. Now I checked for a system update and it said my software is up to date, weird.

That is exactly what will happen if you have a "nearly stock" ROM, but with the Amon_RA recovery installed. The install did not run, and it will not prompt you again, either.

I assume that you originally did a "minimal" root (sometime after the middle of July), and never flashed a ROM; if so, then what you observed would be the expected behavior.

If that is the case, and you want the (small) upgrade, there will be a way to do it in a couple of days, after the devs get their hands on the OTA.

Ask me about it in a couple of days.

eu1
 
I clicked wipe after backup complete happened

moz-screenshot.png
moz-screenshot-1.png
per the backup that was suggested. How would I recover all my other stuff prior to the wipe?

Sorry I am not up on all this phone stuff

I started new thread, so if you want to start replying under that..
 
I clicked wipe after backup complete happened per the backup that was suggested. How would I recover all my other stuff prior to the wipe?

Sorry I am not up on all this phone stuff

I started new thread, so if you want to start replying under that..


I just received the OTA update. I am starting new thread per request from others that were following another thread.

OK. You might want to change the title of this post, otherwise it will get flooded with reports from people getting the update.

Maybe something like "Accidentally Wiped after Nandroid?"

(Also, one of the mods will come along and move the thread to the "All things Root" sub-forum; that's OK, 'cuz that's where it belongs)

OK, whew! Your stuff is safe, because you did the Nandroid backup first; you were probably just following directions. (The typical thing that happens is that a ROM is flashed after rooting, and the wipe is prep work for that).

So you can get the practice, let's have you go ahead and do a Nandroid "restore", and you will see that you will get everything back, just as it was.

Charge your phone well, boot into recovery, and do a Nand restore (there will be only one backup to choose from).

eu1
 
I'm on XTR ROM 5.0 am I going to have a problem if I install this update?

Not to worry. xtrROM is specifically designed not to look for or let you download the OTA system updates. My guess is that at some point, after somebody captures the OTA, Zach.xtr will incorporate the changes into a new version of xtrROM and xtrSENSE.

Wait, I saw a thread on xda that somebody reported the OTA showing up in xtrROM. I am sure that Zach.xtr did not want that to happen. My guess is that he will be working on a fix.

What you could do is Nandroid backup what you have and then see what happens if you run the update. Otherwise I think it pops up every half hour until you run it, though I think I read somewhere that if you ignore it long enough it eventually stops bugging you.

Not sure; it was reported on the thread in xda-developers so perhaps just wait to see what Zach.xtr says.
 
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