What's the problem with TPT - did anyone have problems?

[Guest Salsaholic]

Hi all,

I keep wondering why there are still so many big red letters warning us about TPT everywhere...

I understand that at the beginning this was something totally new, hardly tested and caution was a good idea.

But did ever anyone have any issue with updating through TPT?

I never saw a note on such thing. So maybe it's time to remove those warnings? Or at least decrease fontsize and remove red colour? :lol:

The process is so much easier, no driver issues, no fastboot, no command line stuff, no chance to forget wiping :) ... this removes a lot of chance of error.

Unless we know of real risks, this might be THE update way to recommend to newcomers.

Any thoughts?

PS: Recovery updates are still important for minor updates w/o wiping, but I would never ever again bother to push a Recovery via fastboot onto a (new) blade...

Edited January 24, 2011 by Salsaholic

[Guest isambard]

Hi all,

I keep wondering why there are still so many big red letters warning us about TPT everywhere...

I understand that at the beginning this was something totally new, hardly tested and caution was a good idea.

But did ever anyone have any issue with updating through TPT?

I never saw a note on such thing. So maybe it's time to remove those warnings? Or at least decrease fontsize and remove red colour? :lol:

The process is so much easier, no driver issues, no fastboot, no command line stuff, no chance to forget wiping :) ... this removes a lot of chance of error.

Unless we know of real risks, this might be THE update way to recommend to newcomers.

Any thoughts?

PS: Recovery updates are still important for minor updates w/o wiping, but I would never ever again bother to push a Recovery via fastboot onto a (new) blade...

i agree. the TPT method has many advantages. the caution is mainly because it is newer and so has less testing.

[Guest Phoenix Silver]

all blade models haven't been tested

nothing prove you ll not brick your phone with a particular model

[Guest aleckxander]

I think it's because probably not many people use it and not a lot of "gurus" looked into it as much as they examinated other flashing ways. (i use the term "guru" the more respectful possible, if it sounds sarcastic or offensive please tell me). Cause of this and the fact that it seems to change in a lower lever your phone partitions all those advices are still needed.

This is my impression, maybe i'm wrong.

Said that i use the TPT as soon as it is possible since worked always flawlessy to me :lol:

[Guest targetbsp]

Have you seen the poll? Something like 2% of people have used it. It's probably perfectly fine but that's hardly conclusive testing compared to the tried and tested Clockwork with 90%. I'm gonna be setting up a second Blade from stock to Froyo and I'm gonna use the clockwork method I know how to do and know works. :lol:

Edited January 24, 2011 by targetbsp

[Guest IronDoc]

I think the point is that it's very hard to brick your phone with clockwork. With TPT, you potentially have the ability to screw up all the partitions. We don't really know how recoverable it is either; I don't think anyone would be willing to brick their phone and test.

[Guest Rotmann]

TPT does some "hardware" changes to the device. No one knows what would happen if a chinese or a japanese SanFran would apply the TPT because they are pretty different from the hardware point of view, this could result in bricking the devices. Also if something goes wrong at the partitioning point this could irreversibly brick your device. The safest and easiest method is Sebastian404's Recovery Manager App, no terminal commands or drivers also.

Edited January 24, 2011 by Rotmann

[Guest isambard]

all blade models haven't been tested

nothing prove you ll not brick your phone with a particular model

i guess it would then make sense to list all the models where successfully tested and change the warning to a request to report success with other models not currently listed. currently, there doesn't seem to be any feedback mechanism. for example, i have the Swiss version of the Blade and it works fine on this.

[Guest Salsaholic]

i guess it would then make sense to list all the models where successfully tested and change the warning to a request to report success with other models not currently listed. currently, there doesn't seem to be any feedback mechanism. for example, i have the Swiss version of the Blade and it works fine on this.

There is such a list in Steven Harper's how-to, and he seems to be maintaining it quite frequently.

Ok, so let's assume you only use TPT on phones tested before, I see the only risk is flashing a corrupted file and this messing up your partitions. And we don't know yet, if this can be recovered. So MD5 Checksums become even more important here :lol:

Did anyone actually brick a phone with TPT or hear of that happening?

[Guest isambard]

There is such a list in Steven Harper's how-to, and he seems to be maintaining it quite frequently.

Ok, so let's assume you only use TPT on phones tested before, I see the only risk is flashing a corrupted file and this messing up your partitions. And we don't know yet, if this can be recovered. So MD5 Checksums become even more important here :lol:

Did anyone actually brick a phone with TPT or hear of that happening?

i did a few TPT experiments and didn't manage to brick my phone (including corrupted files and mis-matched partition information). i can imagine that you could try to deliberately brick your phone if you change the bootloader code and flash the corrupted loader onto the phone so that it can't load new code.

this assumes the core bootloader isn't protected and that there is no further way to directly alter the flash ram after you corrupt. i did experiment with the flashing code and so the bootloader isn't fully protected although there could be some protection mechanism in there which i haven't tried/seen (though i never tried to fully corrupt it or push it to the limit).

the fact is, someone has to be first to try it, whether for the first time or on a new device otherwise we wont make progress with such things.

[Guest tttonyyy]

Half bricked doing TPT wrong, because I wasn't paying attention :lol:

When I did the power off/battery out thing I forgot to unplug the USB, so it had USB power and didn't ever completely power off (why is this needed before TPT anyway?). Then during TPT it stuck on the android picture for a long time with no green text - before I realised my mistake (nothing was happening). Unplugged USB and put battery in to see what was what the state of affairs and it wouldn't boot - I got an android by an exlaimation mark - presumably some form of error related to missing/corrupt flash partitions?

Anyway, went on to do proper TPT after a full power off and it proceeded to reflash fine, after which it was happy to boot.

Whew. :)

[Guest Phoenix Silver]

only solution is to have a card reader in pc and make a correct /image

don't know if the phone will wake up even if the partitions are broken

but i presume the answer is yes

[Guest gameSTICKER]

Looks like I'm the first victim of TPT, check my post HERE and please help if somebody can...

[Guest Salsaholic]

Looks like I'm the first victim of TPT, check my post HERE and please help if somebody can...

Yeah, saw that in the JJ thread... how sad. I'm keeping fingers crossed that you can solve this. Other than your own idea to go back to stock and check if your radio is really fried, I don't have any ideas...

[Guest curl66]

applied it on both swiss blade models, the old orange one and the new black shiny without orange logo on.

works fine.

i extract it directly via USB connection to the SDcard on the phone.

[Guest gameSTICKER]

Looks like I'm the first victim of TPT, check my post HERE and please help if somebody can...

The issue is resolved. To anyone having a second thought about TPT, I'd say TPT is the simplest and best way to flash :lol:

[Guest wbaw]

The problem is that it appears to flash all the phone's memory & nobody really knows exactly what's in the first few partitions, it's probably some important stuff like the radio firmware, boot loader & possibly even the part that controls the flash program itself. Also, it doesn't check the integrity of the files, it'll basically flash anything to your phone. So if there is a corrupted file unluckily corrupted in just the wrong place, or a problem with the flash process there is a (small) chance of bricking your phone. There is no chance of a totally unrecoverable problem from flashing with clockwork.

[Guest isambard]

The problem is that it appears to flash all the phone's memory & nobody really knows exactly what's in the first few partitions, it's probably some important stuff like the radio firmware, boot loader & possibly even the part that controls the flash program itself. Also, it doesn't check the integrity of the files, it'll basically flash anything to your phone. So if there is a corrupted file unluckily corrupted in just the wrong place, or a problem with the flash process there is a (small) chance of bricking your phone. There is no chance of a totally unrecoverable problem from flashing with clockwork.

first few partitions are the radio side of the phone. you can avoid flashing it by removing the files from the image directory and it will skip flashing those parts.

[Guest oh!dougal]

first few partitions are the radio side of the phone. you can avoid flashing it by removing the files from the image directory and it will skip flashing those parts.

It would be splendid to have your adventures in this area documented for the general good.

This 'recovery' is intended for fixing screwed-up phones.

As long as the hardware is OK (including the power and volume switches) then this is a really simple way to load a complex set of custom firmware -- or to return to stock.

And - especially if you can load the sdcard /image folder with a computer card reader - you can bring a phone back from very close to death's door.

But it MUST be emphasised that the MD5 must be checked.

If people don't know how to do that, then they should be kept away from this method.

The Japanese 003z and the Chinese V880 (and X880?) are well-known have a slightly different hardware setup.

Obviously this is NOT recommended for them.

Those apart, its great for delivery of 'production' rom packages.

If your model of the Blade is known to run 'standard Blade mods' (like standard Clockwork and all the custom roms here so far) then it should be safe, if used sensibly.

But I'd still suggest that any NEW 'BLADE' versions/offerings be checked for compatibility with 'traditional' mods before loading a TPT.

But once someone has confirmed that that version is a 'standard Blade' and not an 003z/V880 (or something entirely new), then TPT is a great way to go for 'production'.

And IMHO, the only people that need to be steered away are those who don't know how to (or can't be bothered to) check MD5's, the owners of Japanese- and Chinese-market phones, and anyone with a new (not previously seen) version.

During development, the alpha and beta stages, using update zips as patches is a much more economical use of bandwidth ...

[Guest Phoenix Silver]

It would be splendid to have your adventures in this area documented for the general good.

This 'recovery' is intended for fixing screwed-up phones.

As long as the hardware is OK (including the power and volume switches) then this is a really simple way to load a complex set of custom firmware -- or to return to stock.

And - especially if you can load the sdcard /image folder with a computer card reader - you can bring a phone back from very close to death's door.

But it MUST be emphasised that the MD5 must be checked.

If people don't know how to do that, then they should be kept away from this method.

The Japanese 003z and the Chinese V880 (and X880?) are well-known have a slightly different hardware setup.

Obviously this is NOT recommended for them.

Those apart, its great for delivery of 'production' rom packages.

If your model of the Blade is known to run 'standard Blade mods' (like standard Clockwork and all the custom roms here so far) then it should be safe, if used sensibly.

But I'd still suggest that any NEW 'BLADE' versions/offerings be checked for compatibility with 'traditional' mods before loading a TPT.

But once someone has confirmed that that version is a 'standard Blade' and not an 003z/V880 (or something entirely new), then TPT is a great way to go for 'production'.

And IMHO, the only people that need to be steered away are those who don't know how to (or can't be bothered to) check MD5's, the owners of Japanese- and Chinese-market phones, and anyone with a new (not previously seen) version.

During development, the alpha and beta stages, using update zips as patches is a much more economical use of bandwidth ...

i think all is said

a very good all around post dougal

[Guest wbaw]

first few partitions are the radio side of the phone. you can avoid flashing it by removing the files from the image directory and it will skip flashing those parts.

So, which files can be safely removed?

[Guest isambard]

So, which files can be safely removed?

all the .img files the amss image can also be removed. these were the biggest ones to save space. the rest were pretty small.

[Guest wbaw]

all the .img files the amss image can also be removed. these were the biggest ones to save space. the rest were pretty small.

Did you try removing any of the other .mbn files? It'd be good to find out what the minimum is.

[edit] It looks like oemsbl.mbn is the flash program, it contains the 'Update from T-Flash card!' text.

Edited January 27, 2011 by wbaw