471 replies to this topic

[SamuriHL]

******************* BETA RELEASE *****************************

 

BRAVE SOULS ONLY PLEASE!

 

What does that mean?  It means it's been tested a little bit.  It means it may still have bugs.  It means it needs more testing and more work to make this a full released product.  And it also means USE AT YOUR OWN RISK.  I am not responsible for what this does to your device.

 

Ok, I get it....but.....

 

What is it?

 

The House of Google is a new Windows application designed to allow you to EASILY download and flash your Nexus or Pixel device using either a Factory image (if you are unlocked) or a full OTA image (unlocked or locked).  When I say easily, I do mean it.

 

Sounds great....what do I do?

 

o) First you will download the installer at the bottom of this post.

o) Install it...(It should also do an upgrade...I hope)

o) You will have a new House of Google shortcut on your start menu....but first....

o) Connect your device to USB and make sure ADB debugging is enabled and your Windows machine is authorized (ahem, john... )

o) Open the House of Google with the shortcut

 

NOTE: When the application is first opened, it may appear "hung".  Give it a minute, especially first time.  It's downloading a fair bit of data including platform tools.

 

Let's have some fun...

 

o) If it's working right, it will have identified your device and auto-selected it in the dropdown.  If it did not, select your device manually in the dropdown.

o) Next, select whether you want to flash an OTA or a Factory image

o) If it's working right, it should have selected the highest Android version for your device (E.G. 9.0.0).  If it did not, or you wish to install a different version, select your version manually in the dropdown.

o) If it's working right, it should have selected the latest image for your device.  If it did not, or you wish to install a different image, select the image manually in the list.

o) The Download button should now be active.  Click the download to begin the download process.  The progress bar will update to show you how much longer the download will take

o) Once the download is finished, the SHA256 will be checked

o) If the download was successful, the magic button will be enabled

 

CAUTION:  What you do next will impact your device so pay attention to everything you're doing

 

OTA:

o) You will be asked to reboot to recovery.  Press yes if you wish to continue, no to cancel.

o) You will be given a dialog with instructions on how to proceed in recovery.  Follow the directions to put your device in adb sideload mode.

o) Press yes to start flashing the OTA, or no to cancel.

 

NOTE: If your device is stuck in adb sideload mode and you need to cancel, hold the power button until the device reboots.  (I'm not sure if that works on Nexus devices, but, it does for Pixels)

 

o) The progress bar will show you the status of your OTA flash

o) When the OTA flash is finished, press power on the reboot entry of the recovery menu to reboot your device

 

Congrats, you have finished flashing your device and you may now close the House of Google

 

Factory:

o) It will ask you to reboot the device to the bootloader.  Select yes to reboot, no to cancel.

o) It will ask if you want to wipe data.  REPEAT WIPE DATA!  PAY ATTENTION!!!!!  SELECTING YES WILL WIPE YOUR DATA, SELECTING *NO* WILL *KEEP* DATA!

 

WARNING:  Reread what I just said.  You are being asked if you want your data WIPED.  SELECT NO if you want to KEEP YOUR DATA!!!!!!!!!!

CAUTION: Did you REALLY reread it?  Cause if you select YES and you end up wiping your data at this point.....seriously.....

 

o) It will then ask if you are ready to flash.  Say yes to flash, no to cancel.  You know, if you didn't read above and you stupidly selected yes to whack your data when you meant to select NO, here's your chance to bail.  LAST CHANCE

o) The status text will update to show you the progress of your flash

o) When finished, the device will reboot

 

Congrats, you have finished flashing your device and you may now close the House of Google

 

So, read all that again, then proceed to download if you are still game...

 

Download Latest:

House Of Google Installer

[SamuriHL]

Reserved.

[johnlgalt]

I'm starving!

 

After 1 taste, I've had nothing to eat for 4 months!  Nothing, I tell you!

 

 

Seriously, though: just out of stupid curiosity, I'm reading up on Magisk for root on my Taimen, and I see a crazy (though well thought out) method to make use of the A/B partitions to allow one to take OTA updates without actually losing root (although, in the tutorial, the first thing mentioned is that you need to restore the non-rooted boot via the Magisk app, and then can take an OTA that flashes the inactive partition, after which you patch the inactive and reboot.

 

Any plans on supporting Magisk for rooting?

[SamuriHL]

None whatsoever, no.  I've been busy in the video world the past few days but all my testing there is finally done so I can get back to this.  The HoG should be in alpha in the next few days, but, no, I have no plans for root support.  That world has gotten insanely crazy lately IMO.  I will, however, need someone in the next few days with an unlocked phone who doesn't mind potentially soft bricking it to test some stuff.

[johnlgalt]

My Shamu can be unlocked easily, as it has no actual running install, I wiped and installed the stock ROM, so it is waiting to be set up.  I was looking earlier today at possibly playing around with BlissROM on it.  Thought about DU, but the MD5 for the latest RC of v13 isn't matching, so I decided to wait until I got official word why the hashes aren't matching.

 

My Taimen is also locked - but I have locked it in the past.  I think, if what I am reading is correct, that in order to root it with Magisk I need to unlock it - so I might be doing that anyway.....

[SamuriHL]

Yea you'll need to unlock it for root for sure.  The whale will be fine for testing what I need tested.  I can test part of it with my Pixel but it's not unlocked and not going to be because I use Pay pretty much everywhere now.  I'm hoping to get to it tomorrow but we'll see.  It's going to take a fair bit of coding to get it to where I want.  It will definitely only be in alpha for now cause it's going to need a frackton of UI work which I'm not really great at anymore.  (Hence why I'm working on this cause I need to brush up on all my programming skills).  When you see what this thing will do you're going to be super thrilled.  LOL

[johnlgalt]

Liking the pics already.  I'll take a look at unlocking the Taimen tonight, it's almost dinner time for me now.

 

I've just finished unlocking Shamu, so it's ready to go.

[SamuriHL]

Yea right now all it does is allow you to select an image from google's website.  It then downloads it and validates the sha256.  Next step is going to be awesome.

[johnlgalt]

Taimen is unlocked, already played with Bliss ROM for about 30 minutes, and now I'm Flashing stock back to both partitions (after wiping both) and then will root again.

 

Ready to play.

[SamuriHL]

Alright I'll see what I can do tomorrow to get something ready for some kind of testing.  It'll be BRUTALLY rough and there will be EXPLICIT instructions on how to test things.  Be prepared to manually flash the thing if I soft brick it.  LOL

[SamuriHL]

I'm working on this today.  There's quite a bit of work that has to be done to get it ready for testing.  My goal is to have something ready to test before Monday....new image day.    I can reuse some of the logic in the House of Nexus so that'll help but it's still going to be some brutal code. And for alpha testing everything is going to have to be setup flawlessly.  I'm not writing an installer for this thing until I get closer to a release.  And it has a couple dependencies.  It's a C# program so it's ONLY going to be Windows.  When you see what I have in mind I think you're going to really love this one.

[johnlgalt]

No worries.  From dealing with me, you know that 1) I read carefully, and 2) I find answers if something goes wonky on my phone.

 

Plus, I'm still a crackflasher at heart.  And since I have the Shamu to play with I can test safely without bricking my daily driver until I am well versed with how things work, then move to the Taimen for more in-depth testing (since Shamu doesn't do A/B partitioning).

[SamuriHL]

I'll see what i can whip up.  It'll be a bit rough at first but you'll see where i'm going with this.  It'll probably be a couple hours so maybe we can do some testing tonight.

[SamuriHL]

There'll be something to test in a bit.  I had to completely rewrite the UI to get it to do what I wanted.  It's still going to be a rough first version and I only want ONE person testing it cause I can't test it here and I DO NOT know what it's going to do.

[SamuriHL]

Happy testing.  I do not want ANYONE else testing this right now.  It has had _ZERO_ testing so far. It very well could brick a device. johnlgalt can recover if that happens.

[johnlgalt]

Just got back to the forums.

 

Time to play.

 

 

[EDIT 1]

 

1. Read Instructions.  Twice.
2. Downloaded file
3. Extracted to Secondary SSD (D:\)
4. Added platform_tools path to system PATH var.
5. Live Booted TWRP to make image of BlissROM on Shamu
6. Copied BlissROM Shamu backup to PC.
7. Rebooted Shamu to bootloader
8. Time to see if this works as should.  Commencing .EXE execution and going from there.

[SamuriHL]

This should be interesting LOL

[johnlgalt]

OK, rebooted computer so the system path var is updated, and created a directory called IMAGES inside the HoG folder.  Let's see if it likes that.

[SamuriHL]

It should.  It will create a NEXUS folder wherever the image is stored and it will nuke said NEXUS dir if it finds it and recreates it.  Hence my caution about where you put it.  lol

[johnlgalt]

DL speeds ~150 - 200 Mbps - not bad.