ROM adventures on Nubia Z9 mini
Remember this one I gave to my Sis last year... Well since last month it started giving problems. What happened was the phone would get stuck in starting apps phase and zombie out. Only way to bring it back from zombie mode is to factory reset from recovery. But after a few days, some things related to Google Play Services would update and the phone would zombie out again. Sister got fed up and gave me the phone to fix.
So I went through a number of hoops to fix this issue and it's still not fixed.
To start with, the phone ran Mokee ROM v6.0 - marshmallow based with open gapps. Now all this is about two years old - things from 2016. And it all worked fine for last two years.
So what I did was reflashed everything and tried to see what's wrong. Worked fine till play services are updated. as soon as play services are updated, phone zombies out.
Ok. Get new version of gApps. Got it but after clean flashing that too, no change. Same issue. So maybe the Rom is gone.
So I download latest version of mokee marshmallow release Rom. Clean flash that with latest gapps. Phone works fine for a while but then craps out after installing gmail etc.
Ok. Can I revert to stock rom? Downloaded a version from Nubia website - turns out its real pain in the ass trying to install it. It needed latest recovery. And after installing that I found out the file I downloaded was corrupted. unfortunately nubia website does not provide checksums or anything. So got to hunt forums for stock rom download.
So after some more search got hold of couple of stock roms. The people on xda did say that these roms are installable with twrp 2.8.7.0. But found out that's not the case. There's a twrp 3 version present. But I'm really fed up of going through the hoops.
So going to try Mokee 5.1.1 with compatible gapps. If it works, then will stick with it.
Some time later......
Pulling hairs.... Did not work! Seemed to work. Gmail worked, GMaps worked, but as soon as I installed whatsapp, it zombied out again with crashes all around! Not even settings would work!
Anyway, so trying a different approach now. Got couple of good zips of official update. The guys say I have to get stock recovery and on of these good images would work fine.
I don't have one click recovery tool here on this laptop and I can't install it since I don't have admin access. So I googled if one can use TWRP to flash stock recovery. Google says yes. So doing that I got to Stock recovery. Now I'm trying the stockest stock firmware that I have downloaded from Nubia official website.
The recovery has accepted this image too. Lets see if it works or not! Fingers crossed!
Some more time later...
Okay! Flashing successful! Lets see if it loads and is stable!
Hmm what's this? Stuck at Be yourself for like 10 mins. Google google. Hmmm, it's okay - phone is optimizing apps. Okay!
Some more time later...
Hmm phone is alive with Nubia UI 4 and Android Lollypop. Feels smoother too! Lollypop is definitely lighter than Marshmallow! By this logic Android Z will need a a supercomputer! Huh, logged in to google, connected WiFi, installed whatsapp - no dreaded app stopped dialogs yet!
Lets update all google apps and see. Looks okay. nd in Accounts section there's a button to remove google account too!! Cool!!! Alright then, my experiment is successful!!!
Cheers!!!So I went through a number of hoops to fix this issue and it's still not fixed.
To start with, the phone ran Mokee ROM v6.0 - marshmallow based with open gapps. Now all this is about two years old - things from 2016. And it all worked fine for last two years.
So what I did was reflashed everything and tried to see what's wrong. Worked fine till play services are updated. as soon as play services are updated, phone zombies out.
Ok. Get new version of gApps. Got it but after clean flashing that too, no change. Same issue. So maybe the Rom is gone.
So I download latest version of mokee marshmallow release Rom. Clean flash that with latest gapps. Phone works fine for a while but then craps out after installing gmail etc.
Ok. Can I revert to stock rom? Downloaded a version from Nubia website - turns out its real pain in the ass trying to install it. It needed latest recovery. And after installing that I found out the file I downloaded was corrupted. unfortunately nubia website does not provide checksums or anything. So got to hunt forums for stock rom download.
So after some more search got hold of couple of stock roms. The people on xda did say that these roms are installable with twrp 2.8.7.0. But found out that's not the case. There's a twrp 3 version present. But I'm really fed up of going through the hoops.
So going to try Mokee 5.1.1 with compatible gapps. If it works, then will stick with it.
Some time later......
Pulling hairs.... Did not work! Seemed to work. Gmail worked, GMaps worked, but as soon as I installed whatsapp, it zombied out again with crashes all around! Not even settings would work!
Anyway, so trying a different approach now. Got couple of good zips of official update. The guys say I have to get stock recovery and on of these good images would work fine.
I don't have one click recovery tool here on this laptop and I can't install it since I don't have admin access. So I googled if one can use TWRP to flash stock recovery. Google says yes. So doing that I got to Stock recovery. Now I'm trying the stockest stock firmware that I have downloaded from Nubia official website.
The recovery has accepted this image too. Lets see if it works or not! Fingers crossed!
Some more time later...
Okay! Flashing successful! Lets see if it loads and is stable!
Hmm what's this? Stuck at Be yourself for like 10 mins. Google google. Hmmm, it's okay - phone is optimizing apps. Okay!
Some more time later...
Hmm phone is alive with Nubia UI 4 and Android Lollypop. Feels smoother too! Lollypop is definitely lighter than Marshmallow! By this logic Android Z will need a a supercomputer! Huh, logged in to google, connected WiFi, installed whatsapp - no dreaded app stopped dialogs yet!
Lets update all google apps and see. Looks okay. nd in Accounts section there's a button to remove google account too!! Cool!!! Alright then, my experiment is successful!!!
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