Magisk Install - Step by Step [ROOT]

[Hook 3,020]

Do we have a boot image for the 20200306 update yet that can be provided for Magisk to patch?

[cantthinkofaname 0]

I'm on 20200306, is it possible for me to get the boot image from my device and share it here?

And also, another question, if I installed substratum, is there any way for me to back up my system so I can easily restore it if something breaks, and would I still be able to install updates with it installed? I think that both of those things are possible, but I'm a little uncertain since I don't want to ruin my device.

[elvissteinjr 359]

7 hours ago, cantthinkofaname said:

And also, another question, if I installed substratum, is there any way for me to back up my system so I can easily restore it if something breaks

You can always disable Magisk/root by flashing the original boot image from recovery. Substratum can't break the system without the root access and doesn't write to /system to begin with to my knowledge (unless legacy mode, but I don't think that applies to Pie?).

[cantthinkofaname 0]

6 hours ago, elvissteinjr said:

You can always disable Magisk/root by flashing the original boot image from recovery. Substratum can't break the system without the root access and doesn't write to /system to begin with to my knowledge (unless legacy mode, but I don't think that applies to Pie?).

Oreo and newer versions have a newer theming framework built in to the system, which doesn't seem to write to /system. This is why rootless theming worked in Oreo, although Google disabled it in Pie. From other research, it seems that it's much harder to break the system with substratum on newer versions, and recovery seems to be much easier. As for the boot image, I'll try to find that later, when I have time.

[cantthinkofaname 0]

On 3/18/2020 at 9:18 PM, cantthinkofaname said:

I'm on 20200306, is it possible for me to get the boot image from my device and share it here?

Update: From what I've seen so far, it seems that the easiest way to get a good boot image is to find the OTA file after it is downloaded but before it is installed. I'll provide another update if I can find a way to get the boot image extracted properly, but for now, unless someone else has the 20200306 image, we might have to wait a few more days for the next update.

(Alternatively, is it possible to safely downgrade the device and use an older boot image to root? There were some messages that implied it might be possible, but I want conformation from someone who knows what they are doing before I attempt anything)

[david 929]

1 hour ago, cantthinkofaname said:

Update: From what I've seen so far, it seems that the easiest way to get a good boot image is to find the OTA file after it is downloaded but before it is installed. I'll provide another update if I can find a way to get the boot image extracted properly, but for now, unless someone else has the 20200306 image, we might have to wait a few more days for the next update.

That doesn't work for incremental updates.  They only contain the changes, not the full data for each partition.

1 hour ago, cantthinkofaname said:

(Alternatively, is it possible to safely downgrade the device and use an older boot image to root? There were some messages that implied it might be possible, but I want conformation from someone who knows what they are doing before I attempt anything)

Multiple people have gone back to the factory firmware from 2019 and also rooted, so that should be fine as long as you follow these instructions. 

You might be able to save your data by skipping the "fastboot erase userdata" step.  On the other hand, if there is some incompatibility with older apps (system or user) and the format of the data in the userdata, then that could cause odd behaviors.  Wiping the userdata would avoid that theoretical risk.  When you wipe userdata, all your media (photos and videos) and all your settings and other data files for your system and user apps, that is stored on the internal storage, will be lost.  So you'll want to back up whatever you want to keep before doing it.

 

[dreamflasher 120]

@david Thank you, with the link on how to rename the boot.img.gz file I was able to uninstall Magisk. Unfortunately, I still get the "20" error from update. I also tried reboot (I guess Magisk is gone now fully), but still it doesn't want to update 😕

Would be happy to hear if anyone has an idea what to do, thank you.

I am wondering if Lineage OS would be easier? Do we already have a thread comparing Lineage and stock? What's more stable? What get's updates more frequently? Do we get OTA updates for Lineage too that contain the same fixes as for stock, or are there simply different bugs?

[david 929]

2 hours ago, dreamflasher said:

@david Thank you, with the link on how to rename the boot.img.gz file I was able to uninstall Magisk. Unfortunately, I still get the "20" error from update. I also tried reboot (I guess Magisk is gone now fully), but still it doesn't want to update 😕

Would be happy to hear if anyone has an idea what to do, thank you.

I'd recommend trying this from the shell to see what has changed in the last N days. You'll have to install Magisk again.

Quote

su

find /system -type f -mtime -1|xargs ls -ls

 

Change "-1" to "-2" "-3" etc to go back more than 1 day.

Edited March 22, 2020 by david

[dreamflasher 120]

@david Thank you. It was a challenge to install Magisk again, but now it's running again, including root. The latest change is in `/system/build.prop`, how do I find out what the correct info in there is?

Later in time the next change is in /system/bin/safetypatch, same question…

And then /system/etc/hosts

 

Edited March 27, 2020 by dreamflasher

[dreamflasher 120]

@david I uninstalled the safetypatch module in magisk, rebooted, the update still does not work – but on top, the find command doesn't work anymore either. It just lists the files in the current directory. Now only

find /system -mtime -1 -print

works. Which gives /system/priv-app and /system/etc/permissions

Edited March 27, 2020 by dreamflasher

[david 929]

1 hour ago, dreamflasher said:

@david Thank you. It was a challenge to install Magisk again, but now it's running again, including root. The latest change is in `/system/build.prop`, how do I find out what the correct info in there is?

Do you remember modifying that file?

Maybe you can compare the date it was changed with modified files in the /data partition to see which apps were modified around the same time to try to figure out which app did it (if you didn't manually do it).

1 hour ago, dreamflasher said:

Later in time the next change is in /system/bin/safetypatch, same question…

I believe that is a systemless change, meaning that Magisk allows the SafetyPatcher to modify a virtual version of that file.  Once you uninstall Magisk, that change, in theory, shouldn't be there and won't cause problems.

1 hour ago, dreamflasher said:

And then /system/etc/hosts

Ad-Aware seems to be a common app that people install that modifies the hosts file.  If you have that installed or anything similar to it, I would recommend uninstalling it and rebooting before trying the update.

[david 929]

49 minutes ago, dreamflasher said:

@david I uninstalled the safetypatch module in magisk, rebooted, the update still does not work – but on top, the find command doesn't work anymore either. It just lists the files in the current directory. Now only

You have to run "su" first to elevate your privileges so that you can search through directories that you otherwise wouldn't.  When you uninstall Magisk, you no longer have the ability to run "su".  You can only run that and the find command after you have re-installed Magisk and have root.

[dreamflasher 120]

9 hours ago, dreamflasher said:

@david Thank you. It was a challenge to install Magisk again, but now it's running again, including root.

 

8 hours ago, david said:

You have to run "su" first to elevate your privileges so that you can search through directories that you otherwise wouldn't.  When you uninstall Magisk, you no longer have the ability to run "su".  You can only run that and the find command after you have re-installed Magisk and have root.

In the post before I wrote that I managed to install magisk including root again. Key finding here was that the latest beta does not work, but the latest stable does.

Yet, occasionally, find and xargs stop working. When xargs stops working the following command sometimes still works:

find /system -type f -mtime -1 -print

With su and this command I was able to find out that also F-Droid apparently installed in /system, despite me having installed the systemless module. So I uninstalled all modules in magisk, and now it looks like nothing has been modified since I installed the system. (side note: I did not have ad-aware installed)

Then I followed the OTA update procedure (temporarily deactivating Magisk), but I still get the "20" error. So still no OTA for me 😕

Edited March 28, 2020 by dreamflasher

[dreamflasher 120]

I believe I need to declare defeat. I tried now hundreds of combinations, every time rebooting, it simply doesn't work.

Is there any way to backup all my data that actually works? I don't want to give google my data, but with helium and titanium there are always some things missing. Can't I make a disk image of the user partition and restore that?

How should magisk look like after Uninstall->Restore Images? For me nothing changes in the UI (despite a message saying that it was succesful in restoring the image). It still shows magisk installed, and there is still an uninstall button.

Edited March 28, 2020 by dreamflasher

[Craig 1,435]

On an unrelated matter, I noticed I wasn't passing safetynet, turned out there's a new version of magisk.  I tried direct install (under lineage) and worked fine, reports passing again.

[david 929]

12 hours ago, dreamflasher said:

I believe I need to declare defeat. I tried now hundreds of combinations, every time rebooting, it simply doesn't work

At least you tried.

12 hours ago, dreamflasher said:

Is there any way to backup all my data that actually works? I don't want to give google my data, but with helium and titanium there are always some things missing. Can't I make a disk image of the user partition and restore that?

Best guess is that Titanium will work for the app data, but might not work for reinstalling some of the app apks.  You will most likely be able to install the apps that fail from the play store and restore the Titanium data backup over the top of them, though.  Swift Backup is another possibility.  It can handle the new types of APKs better.  It has confusing options and UI though.  AppWererabbit is another option for the app data.

For any apps that are designed to work with it, the built in Google cloud backup works well and is your best option to get *most* (not all) your system settings back.

As for any raw files that are somewhat external to apps (photos, videos, pdf files, etc), you can use wifi to copy the data off /data or can copy it to an SD card.  This topic provides more information:

https://community.fxtec.com/topic/2613-file-transfers-wireless-and-wired

12 hours ago, dreamflasher said:

How should magisk look like after Uninstall->Restore Images? For me nothing changes in the UI (despite a message saying that it was succesful in restoring the image). It still shows magisk installed, and there is still an uninstall button.

My recollection is that the UI doesn't match the state.

[spam71 55]

Hello. Does anyone have newer booi.img files from updates later than 2020.03.04? Or is it possible to install magisk using older boot.img files?

Thanks in advance.

[Hook 3,020]

28 minutes ago, spam71 said:

Hello. Does anyone have newer booi.img files from updates later than 2020.03.04? Or is it possible to install magisk using older boot.img files?

Thanks in advance.

They have posted the fastboot factory restore files for 20200825 in the factory restore thread.  The boot.img file is in the zip.