• After 15+ years, we've made a big change: Android Forums is now Early Bird Club. Learn more here.

Root [Virgin Mobile] TWRP / MG5 / Vaevictus Kernel Weirdness

C

Coping

Lurker
I apologize for the long post. I had a weird experience with the Victory this weekend. I don't really expect anyone to fix it for me. I'm starting this thread in case others have similar experiences and they are not bringing it up on the forum.

I received my used Victory around 8.20.2013. It had stock Rom and Recovery. I performed a factory reset then I let the OTA update bring me to the MG5 baseband.

I carefully followed The Britton's Newbie Guide to rooting (Thank you).
I carefully followed JerryScript's guide to installing Victorius 0.3.1 (Thank you).

I enjoyed rooted deoxed 4g lte Victorious goodness for 2 or 3 weeks. Sweeter than any Intercept, OV or Triumph I've rooted before.

Last Saturday I tried a voice google search on my Victory connected to my home wi-fi and I got a quick error message and a reboot. My phone sat on the Samsung booting logo for 20 to 30 minutes before I pulled the battery.

No problem. I had a recent nandroid Victorious backup. Entered TWRP and restored. Phone still stuck on Samsung logo. I tried restore a few more times giving it 20 to 30 minutes to come to life. I started out wiping nothing (the restore should do that), then I wiped Cache/Dalvich Cache. Then I wiped the Caches / System / Internal / Data. Nothing worked to restore my Victorious nandroid.

I also had a nandroid of my stock room updated to MG5 before rooting. That restored like normal. It rooted like normal. But it never accept flashing the Victorius Rom or Vaevictus Kernel.

Now I had a challenge on my hands. Eventually I reflashed TWRP 2.4.3.0, wiped everything but my sd card and installed a new sd card with only g60's Stock Rom in my TWRP folder. Each time I got the same result: I could update to MG5 with JerryScript's update zip and root the stock rom. Every time I tried to flash to Victorious or Vaevictus my phone froze on the Samsung boot logo. I even let it sit there for over one hour on one attempt.

Here is my question (finally): If I wiped everything but my sd card, restored g60's stock Rom from my new sd card and then checked Settings / About Device immediately after the first boot and before any updates started downloading, the phone still showed the MG5 baseband. I assumed it should show MC1 because g60's stock room is built on MC1.

Which causes me to wonder about the effectiveness of the TWRP wipes on the Victory......and I'm worried about similar errors when we try to upgrade beyond Android 4.1.2.

Or maybe I'm not seeing something I should be seeing. I did get Victorius installed when I first got the phone, though.

Honestly I'm hoping my problem was unique and this thread dies a quick death.
 
Badebands arent affected by restores from twrp either. Build version goes back to mc1 with g60s backup. So no props update is definitely a must after using his stock backup. Also victorious is set to max cpu clock (1.8) right from start, some phones have trouble booting. Jerry's no props.zip update also doesnt include super user or busybox. I always reflash superuser.zip (koush's) and get busybox installer from play store after flashing no props.zip update. If you get victorious working, it has them in it. If not and you stay stock after update you might want to install those two. (Superuser and busybox)
 
Thats what surprised me. I expected the baseband to read MC1 immediately after restoring g60's backup and before any updates....instead it reads MG5.

TWRP prompts me to restore root after flashing g60's backup, but that superuser appears to be ChainFire's. Jerry is recommending Koush's superuser. Whats the best solution - let TWRP make the repair with Chainfire or should I flash Koush and busybox after flashing g60's backup (before its first boot)? I've tried both ways and both work. Titanium Pro loads with root access and the phone passes Root Checker either way.

Thanks.
 
I think the root thing comes down to preference. I like Koush's open source SU better, but I think it mostly comes down to which you prefer.
 
I had the same issue. Baseband ended in PAMG5 but if you restored G60's Stock backup, the build will end in MC1. I added some steps that got my phone running the update and then flashed Victorious.

Here are some tips that helped me thanks to Jerry holding my hand through the process:

1. Clear Delvik BEFORE restoring G60's stock Backup.
2. Restore G60's backup, but when asked to fix root (in TWRP), click do not install.
3. Flash Koush's Superuser. Download this before you start and place it in the root of your SD card.
4. Start your phone.
5. Boot back into TWRP and flash no-props.
6. Clear Delvik and restart your phone. Then do all 4 updates in System>System Update.
7. Rebuild scripts using Link2SD if using it. Restart.
 
buzzcon said:
I had the same issue. Baseband ended in PAMG5 but if you restored G60's Stock backup, the build will end in MC1. I added some steps that got my phone running the update and then flashed Victorious.

Here are some tips that helped me thanks to Jerry holding my hand through the process:

1. Clear Delvik BEFORE restoring G60's stock Backup.
2. Restore G60's backup, but when asked to fix root (in TWRP), click do not install.
3. Flash Koush's Superuser. Download this before you start and place it in the root of your SD card.
4. Start your phone.
5. Boot back into TWRP and flash no-props.
6. Clear Delvik and restart your phone. Then do all 4 updates in System>System Update.
7. Rebuild scripts using Link2SD if using it. Restart.
Click to expand...

Thanks for step-by-step, Buzzcon. I tried it exactly as you described but the situation remains the same. I'm starting to think my phone can't handle the Vaevictus kernel which causes it to lock up on first boot.

I'll continue to experiment. If I come up with a solution I'll post it to this thread. Suggestions are always welcome.

My rooted stock Victory is still nice, but the battery life isn't as good as Jerry's Victorious.
 
Chiral said:
Try flashing just the kernel, that'll narrow it down.
Click to expand...


I had the same thought. I've tried just flashing the kernel during several attempts....no luck. I even tried tried flashing the stock kernel on top of g60's backup before any upgrades, but it didn't help.
 
I didn't read the entire thread so this may seem a bit presumptuous, but it's not.
CHiral is right. There is no baseband wipe. that would be fatal.
All the other partitions, system, cache, data, sdcard are the same so TWRP works the same across all carriers/devices.
If you need I can make a zip to flash the MG1? baseband over the MG5.
do ##scrtn# to reset imei data, which can help radio issue for some reason. If it asks for MSL just call virgin and they'll give it to you.

This device needs nothing fancy from su binary so either SuperSU or SuperUser will work. TWRP can find anything. I'm not sure the exact check to trigger the "fix superuser" prompt, but it's generally safe to do or not. I've passed it and retained root, and I've used it and lost root...
 
one thing though...one version of the vaevic kernel did cause lock on boot (i had this dumb idea to remove some lines from boot code to stop perf being default gov 24/7 but failed). Its should be fixed in latest though? huh idk as i dont own the device. Just flash comps img and update and everything should be fine.
 
Ok, same. Is anyone else here willing to help got the MC1 and MG5 modems? Even if coping has another problem, I'd like them.
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Back
Top Bottom