*** DISCLAIMER ***
I work on projects that may brick your device. Don't sue me, hate me or try and kill my dog if that happens. I will feel bad the community will feel bad and hopefully we'll find a way to get you going again. But, the very nature of my projects involves a certain amount of risk taken by YOU. And by using the projects that I work on, you've accepted that fact.
THERE IS AN UNKNOWN ISSUE WHERE IF YOU HAVE ENCRYPTION ENABLED AND INSTALL SS IT BOOTLOOPS. IF YOU FIT THIS DESCRIPTION PLEASE STAY AWAY FROM SAFESTRAP FOR NOW.
TESTERS: PLEASE BACKUP ANY IMPORTANT FILES FROM THE INTERNAL STORAGE. SHOULD YOU NEED TO ODIN BACK TO STOCK USING THE ROOTED ODIN FILE, I THINK PART OF THAT PROCESS WIPES THE INTERNAL STORAGE.
CURRENT PROJECT STATUS:
STABLE
WHAT IS SAFESTRAP?
Safestrap is a Bootstrap / Recovery for locked bootloader phones. The goal is to avoid touching your primary system (I'll call this "stock" system) and only flash or make large changes to another place on your phone that Safestrap treats as a "2nd system" (in this case, it's a series of virtual ROM slots located on the internal emmc area: "/sdcard"). Once installed, you will see a "Splashscreen" giving you the option to hit "menu" to enter recovery. The recovery portion of Safestrap is now based on TWRP 2.6.3.x (a touch based recovery) and you can perform .zip installs, backups and restores here. The additional features I've added to TWRP are mostly located under the "Boot Options" menu:
- Here you can create virtual ROM-slots (2 on the N3 due to partition size and internal space) for flashing ROMs. These ROM-slots allow for different sizes of /system, /data and /cache partitions. The defaults *SHOULD* be good enough for flashing the stock-bad ROMs.
NOTE: The bigger you make these partition the less room you will have to make other ROM-slots.
- You can activate a new ROM-slot by choosing the slot you wish to make active and then selecting the "Activate" button. Once active, you will see the "rom-slot#" up in the top of the screen shown in green. If you make the "stock" ROM active, then you can see it in the top shown in red.
- Once a ROM-slot is active, all actions you would normally perform using TWRP are directed to that ROM-slot. For example, "Install" to flash a .zip, backup and restore.
- For more information you can read up here:
http://blog.hash-of-codes.com/how-to-safestrap/
HOW DO I INSTALL SAFESTRAP?
- Requirement: Root
- Requirement: Allow APK install from Unknown Sources
- Download the Safestrap APK
- Find the APK using a Filemanager tool and open it on your device, then click "Install".
- (If updating from an existing Safestrap you might be warned that this will over-write the existing installation. Click the "Yes" equivalent to this message.)
- Once installed, open up the Safestrap application as you would any other app.
- Agree to the disclaimer that you won't try to sue me and hunt me down with a rifle if you manage to break your phone..
- Then use the "Install Recovery" button. You should see the current version down in the lower left corner of the window. And the "Status:" should say "Installed" when you're done.
- From there you can reboot and you *should* see a new splash screen during the boot up. While this is showing you can enter Safestrap Recovery using the [ menu ] button.
- That's it for the installation! Read below for a brief overview of Safestrap Recovery v3.x
INSTALL VIDEO by DMX:
HOW DO I ENTER RECOVERY?
During each reboot a splashscreen will be displayed showing whether the device is running a rom-slot or on the "Stock ROM".
Press the button shown on the screen to either enter "RECOVERY" or "CONTINUE" booting (or the hard button underneath each option).
HOW DO I UPGRADE SAFESTRAP?
- Push the APK up to your sdcard.
- Boot back into the "stock" rom-slot.
- Open an "explorer" of some sort (even TW "My Files" will work)
- Browse to where you pushed the APK
- Click on it and install like normal
- Once installed, open the APK
- Use the "Install Recovery" button
- All set, now you can reboot and re-activate whatever rom-slot you were using
DOWNLOADS:
CONFIRM THAT YOU ARE USING AN VERIZON WIRELESS SAMSUNG GALAXY NOTE 3
LATEST FILE:
Safestrap-HLTEVZW-3.65.apk
Mirror 1 (Goo.im)
http://goo.im/devs/Hashcode/note3/hltevzw/safestrap
As of version 3.6x, Safestrap Recovery is now based on TWRP 2.6.3.x. For more on TWRP you can visit their website: http://www.teamw.in/
WARNING: Safestrap is heavily modified to be "Safe" for your device. Do not download TWRP from their website and expect it to work the same way. Also TWRP does not support Safestrap, tho some issues that may come up will be TWRP dependant, please try and contact myself or look on the forums for your device for answers before hunting down TWRP people. They won't be able to help w/ Safestrap specific questions.
CURRENT TESTS:
TEST #1: Hijack stability to enter recovery on every boot. RESULT:
PASS
TEST #2: Reboot to recovery functionality RESULT:
PASS
TEST #3: Recovery removal leaves device in clean state RESULT:
PASS
TEST #4: ADB access from recovery RESULT:
PASS
TEST #5: ROM-slot creation RESULT:
PASS
TEST #6: Backup stock ROM RESULT:
PASS
TEST #7: Restore stock ROM backup to stock slot:
PASS
TEST #8: Initial 2nd-init ROM installation on rom-slot RESULT:
PASS
TEST #9: Custom ROM flash on rom-slot:
PASS
For the purposes of direct user testing I've established a channel on freenode.net IRC: #safestrap
I'm in the channel mostly all the time, but may not be active for discussion.
Special Thanks To
DeesTroy & TeamWin for all their hard work making TWRP such a fantastic recovery
