Samsung - Galaxy S7 - herolte - Documentation Suggestions

[Manoj]

Please add your suggestions to improve the documentation for the Samsung - Galaxy S7 - herolte here …

[Anonyme]

Clarifications to Instructions for Installing /e/ on Samsung Galaxy S7

I’ve just finished installing /e/ on a family member’s Samsung Galaxy S7. I think the official instructions could do with a little clarification. Namely, It’s not obvious how to exit Download mode after you’ve finished flashing TWRP. I had to follow the instructions on this page, which is linked in this forum post: I unplug the USB cable, I hold Volume Down and Power , then at the exact moment when the screen turns black, I boot in Recovery Mode (same way as for Download but with Volume UP i…

[deepee]

Here are some proposed changes.

1. Under Installing a Custom Recovery, step 7, add “To exit download mode, hold Volume Down and Power, and as soon as the screen goes blank, hold Volume Up + Home + Power…”
2. Under Installing /e/ from Custom Recovery, after step 5 insert “Return to the main menu and tap Reboot, then System. When the screen goes blank, hold Volume Up + Home + Power to boot into recovery again.”
3. Then the next step becomes, “tap Wipe then Advanced Wipe.”
4. Before the sideload step, insert a step saying “Reboot as in step 6: return to the main menu and tap Reboot, then System. When the screen goes blank, hold Volume Up + Home + Power to boot into recovery again.”

[keverets]

The Version upgrade document: https://doc.e.foundation/devices/herolte/upgrade has some potential improvements:

1. Though the doc is titled “Manually upgrade herolte to oreo”, the Caution says:

Before following these instructions please ensure that the device is on the latest Android firmware.
For example to upgrade to /e/ Q the Android firmware should be Android 10 and for /e/ Pie it should be Android 9

This seems to indicate that the device needs to be updated to Oreo via other instructions first, which is not the case.

2. Step 5 says:

If you already have TWRP recovery installed on your device
skip steps 6 and 7
Go directly into TWRP recovery (step 9)
To do that reboot your device and press volume-up during startup.

For this device, home + volume-up need to be held to enter TWRP.

[aibd]

Reading from [1]
Preparing for installation using Heimdall

From the point of view of a new user with Windows, introducing Heimdall in this light is unhelpful, “preferred” gives no indication why it is preferred when Windows Odin will do the job.

Introducing “Fastboot mode” is unhelpful as a search for Fastboot mode is not very likely to provide an easy to understand explanation for the Samsung user.

As e/ supports several Samsung devices a Samsung HowTo Before-you-start might be helpful.

[1] https://doc.e.foundation/devices/herolte/install

[tunedomi]

Hi ! Just installed /e/ on my second hand S7, success
I confim all your proposed changes, which were usefull for me.
Thanks deepee and have a nice day …

[xormar]

It seems that if the S7 is encrypted, the data partition needs to be reformatted for the upgrade to work.

I was able to run through the steps of “Manually upgrading your herolte to Q”, but at the end - after rebooting and decrypting the phone - could no longer log into it.

A factory reset was required (together with reinstalling all apps etc.) to get the phone back to working conditions.

It was suggested in this thread that reformatting the data partition might even be a requirement for the upgrade.

If it is (for all or only for encrypted devices) this should be mentioned in the upgrade guide.

[xormar]

I also think that the guide should mention the fact that the procedure will replace the currently installed recovery (e.g. TWRP) with e-recovery, and so any backups taken via TWRP will be useless after the upgrade.

[fscara]

Hi,
I’ve just installed /e/ 1.8.1-q-20230204257075-stable on a Samsung S7/SM-G930F.
I followed your clear guide but I succeded only after having used twrp-3.5.0_9-0-herolte.img

The first couple of times I tried to use twrp-3.7.0_9-0-herolte.img and Heimdall (linux-master-012220) always failed with the messages:

Uploading RECOVERY
100%

ERROR: Failed to confirm end of file transfer sequence!
ERROR: RECOVERY upload failed!

Ending session…
ERROR: Failed to send end session packet!
Releasing device interface…

I fear that there is a limit on the size of the recovery image that can be uploaded.
After having successfully tested the upload of recovery-e-1.8.1-q-20230204257075-stable-herolte.img (43.2Mb) I selected twrp-3.5.0_9-0 (43.6Mb). It worked.

Maybe a caveat in the “Installing a custom recovery using Heimdall” section can help others.

[freechelmi]

I can confirm this

Download twrp-3.7.0_9-0-herolte.img

Is just too big , eOS recovery works perfect , lost several hours to figure this out

[rete]

So do I understand correctly, that I can use either recovery-e OR TWRP?
Do you know of any instructions to use the recovery-e instead of TWRP?
Do I assume correctly, that the e recovery is the file recovery-e-1.12.3-q-20230614299635-stable-herolte.img here?

[aibd]

1. Recovery-e and TWRP are both “Custom recoveries”. Recovery-e is “simplified” and does all you require during a standard install. See Post #10 and other helpful posts on this page !
2. The install instructions seem written for a “Custom recovery” – regarding wording, treat recovery-e and TWRP as interchangeable as far as the instructions go.
3. The file recovery-e-1.12.3-q-20230614299635-stable-herolte.img is the (latest) recovery-e. Good luck.

[rete]

Thank you so much! With the explanations in this thread it worked like charm and I’m super happy with my first e/os/ experience so far

[kmod]

Hi,

Firstly thanks to you all for the e OS. This is my first time trying to install a custom rom of any kind, and now it’s installed I’m very impressed. Can’t wait to use it day to day.

Summary: Tried and failed installing e using easy installer. Used the manual install instructions to use heimdall to install twrp, then used twrp to install e, then used heimdall to replace the twrp recovery image with the e recovery image. So far the phone seems to be working fine.

Environment:
Phone: Samsung Galaxy S7 SM-G930F with Android 6
PC: Old Pentium laptop with Linux Mint 20.1
Heimdall v1.4.2
twrp-3.7.0_9-1-herolte
e-1.17-q-20231109350746-stable-herolte
recovery-e-1.17-q-20231109350746-stable-herolte

Suggestions:

1. The easy installer hung for me with a checksum mismatch. I left it for a long time and it neither failed properly nor recovered…

2023-12-05 15:30:09,201 DEBUG [Thread-4] e.e.i.t.DownloadTask [null:-1] downloadFile(https://images.ecloud.global/stable/herolte/recovery-e-latest-q-herolte.img, /home/user1/snap/easy-installer/common/sources/herolte/tmp.recovery-e-latest-q-herolte.img)
2023-12-05 15:30:09,335 DEBUG [Thread-4] e.e.i.t.DownloadTask [null:-1] response code: 200, OK
2023-12-05 15:30:09,340 DEBUG [Thread-4] e.e.i.t.DownloadTask [null:-1] remote fileSize = 4.5320208E7
2023-12-05 15:30:09,341 DEBUG [Thread-4] e.e.i.t.DownloadTask [null:-1] full file size = 4.5320208E7
2023-12-05 15:30:18,159 DEBUG [Thread-5] e.e.i.t.DownloadTask [null:-1] timeoutThread is over!
2023-12-05 15:30:39,232 DEBUG [Thread-4] e.e.i.t.DownloadTask [null:-1] Downloaded succeed. Rename temp file to right fileName
2023-12-05 15:30:39,360 DEBUG [Thread-6] e.e.i.t.DownloadTask [null:-1] timeoutThread is over!
2023-12-05 15:30:39,804 DEBUG [Thread-4] e.e.i.t.DownloadTask [null:-1] validChecksum(/home/user1/snap/easy-installer/common/sources/herolte/recovery-e-latest-q-herolte.img.sha256sum)
2023-12-05 15:30:39,807 DEBUG [Thread-4] e.e.i.t.DownloadTask [null:-1] ChecksumLine = 9cba98949c727bcd4d8911e13b609b876decfcc022a1f9e793c1a85948fb42e0 recovery-e-latest-q-herolte.img
2023-12-05 15:30:39,809 DEBUG [Thread-4] e.e.i.t.DownloadTask [null:-1] createFileChecksum()
2023-12-05 15:30:40,520 DEBUG [Thread-4] e.e.i.t.DownloadTask [null:-1] compare checksum: 7d1c2ecef78bcf7a0750eae558d2ebecd985a1d3780306f8ae03748bb1d1f599 vs 9cba98949c727bcd4d8911e13b609b876decfcc022a1f9e793c1a85948fb42e0
2023-12-05 15:30:40,557 DEBUG [JavaFX Application Thread] e.e.i.c.s.DownloadSrcController [null:-1] DownloadService.succeeded()

I found some forum posts with similar failures, but didn’t find this one exactly. I think it would be useful if the easy installer either failed with a message, or recovered somehow.

2. After the above easy installer failure, I downloaded the recovery and e image files and checked the checksums manually. All ok. The only problem I encountered with manual install was at Installing A Custom Recovery using Heimdall step 7 - I struggled rebooting from download into recovery. The power button alone failed to power the device off, even holding it down for a minute or more. Vol Up + Home + Power had no effect either. By luck, I found that Vol Down + Home + Power powered the device off. I was then able to press Vol Up + Home + Power to boot into recovery and complete the install. I see others have had the same problem. I think this should be covered in the manual install instructions.

Again, than you all.