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Help (VZW) Nexus 4.0.4 Update - wont install

Right now I'm thinking of going with the stock 4.0.4 - going to custom roms would mean I'd have to play with / research each rom and see if it did anything interesting for me.

As I recall unlocking then locking the boot loader on the next is pretty easy, right? IS there any particular reason to re-lock the bootloader? Does leaving it unlocked stop OTA updates from installing properly?

So the process to do this is to first backup the 'sdcard,' unlock the boot loader, restore the stock recovery and lastly install 4.0.4?


Yep, unlocking/relocking is easy. No, there's no reason to relock bootloader if you're going to root and run custom roms. I only mentioned that idea if you were wanting to get to 4.0.4 "under the radar" and be all stock and locked again afterward. You have the option though to stay unlocked if you're cool with that. The added benefit to that is if you decide to run custom roms later, you don't have to unlock again to do it which means you don't have to go through the BS of backing up the sd card again. Having a custom recovery is what stops OTA's from loading in the future. Also, many roms have code that won't allow OTA's period. But if you just fastboot load the stock 4.0.4 img files, you will end up with true stock including recovery so you WOULD still be prompted for future OTA's even if the bootloader is unlocked still. So that would leave you in a situation where you could just do the very same thing once the next batch of code is released from Google OR you could try to intall via OTA next time around but you have the added option of using the fastboot flash method again if the OTA fails to load like is happening now.

Yeah, you definitely want to back up the sd card because it'll be completely wiped when you run the unlock command.

You can find all the steps you need in the root forum sticky. The most difficult thing of the whole process will be getting the sdk/fastboot set up as it requires additionaly drivers to what you probably have now. Once that's funcional though, it's just a matter of downloading the stock files from Google and flashing them to your phone using known commands. The command set listed in that thread will need to be altered though because it references the stock 4.0.2 filenames.
 
Finally got the update to work, no more red triangle! :D

Using the links from XDA ([REF] [HOW-TO] [GSM & CDMA] Official Google OTA update URLs - xda-developers) I got the factory system.img file, extracted it and copied over all the files in the bin folder. The one giving me the error was the "gzip", but another member on XDA mentioned also having to replace "ip" and "ping", which I also ended up having to do. They're files that were re-written by Busybox.

After replacing them, the update worked (using clockwork recovery, didn't have to flash back to stock). The red triangle nightmare is finally over, and getting the update to work will probably be the highlight of my day - not saying that as a bad thing either, it was just a big hassle to finally get this to work.
 
So I need to start with step #1 - backup of the device. What is the proper way to backup and be able to recover my settings / program crap (if possible) after I unlock the bootloader (leaving it unlocked) and then manually install the update?

I believe I have the tools needed to unlock the bootloader installed and ready as I followed this article when it came out (12/05/2011) in preparation:
How to: Unlock the Galaxy Nexus Bootloader – Droid Life
as well as this one I believe for one of the components:
Howto: Install the Android SDK - CyanogenMod Wiki

I would have unlocked it as soon as I got the phone but Verizon waited until the 15th and the next day or two after I was headed out of town for a short vacation and never got the chance to unlock then promptly forgot once I returned.

So once I'm done backing up I've got the unlock thing ready to go. Then I need to find the IMM76K image to install - this appears to be the correct image:

mysid IMM76K from ICL53F: http://android.clients.google.com/pa...F.12f767e7.zip OR http://android.clients.google.com/pa...ncremental.zip (both files are identical)

Referenced here:
[REF] [HOW-TO] [GSM & CDMA] Official Google OTA update URLs - xda-developers

So I've got the ability to unlock and presumably the correct image and the instructions provided seem pretty straightforward.
 
So I was searching around for backup info and found that without root it sounds like a 'good' backup is hard or impossible to come by. So I went to start the process by unlocking the bootloader. Much to my surprise when I tried to do that - it was already unlocked. How would Samsung / Verizon release a device into the wild with the bootloader already unlocked? <Shrug> it saved me any labor in re-setup so I'm happy.

I then used the corresponding instructions in the previously mentioned link and it's up and running 4.0.4 now.

Thanks to everyone who helped; much appreciated.

jeff442,

Reboot your phone into the boot options and look CLOSELY (Look more closely than *I* ever did! - it says locked / unlocked at the very bottom in very small text) to see if your bootloader is locked or not; if you're lucky like I apparently was yours may not be locked. If it is then you'll have to go through the extra trouble of re-setting everything up. But basically the process is to install the developer tools (properly,) download a couple of files and rename them (so you don't have to type out mile long names) run a couple of commands from a dos prompt and you'll have your update installing.
 
I figured it out....

When I got my GNexus phone, I rooted it and made Clockwork my default recovery.

So last night I looked in the cache folder and found the OTA update and moved it to the sd card folder and renamed it to update.zip and used clockwork to apply it. However, it failed and gave me an error about not finding a file: VZWBackupAssistant.apk

So I used root explorer to rename the file (I didn't delete it, I simply renamed it) back to VZWBackupAssistant.apk and everything worked fine.

What file did you rename to VZWBackupAssistant.apk? I followed you all the way up to where you moved the update file to the SDCARD folder and renamed it to update.zip. I did the same thing but that's where I got stuck. Can you elaborate a little on this VZWBackupAssistant.apk you're referring to?
 
That's the Verizon backup assistant that he renamed to disable it and had to rename back to what it was before, to get the install to work. if you didn't mess with backup assistant, your problem would be something different.

Do you get an error message that might indicate what's breaking your install?
 
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