H96 MAX X2 Amlogic S905X2 Android 8.1 4/32GB Dual Band WiFi Fast LAN BT

[romcrazy]

I will divide this write up. For magisk, read only last 3 reply.

We have a SAR (System as root) device with A only partition. Starting with pie, the location of ramdisk has changed from boot image to recovery image. So standard magisk which patched boot image was useless for us. I tried to patch recovery image but there was a catch. We needed to boot from recovery mode to get root. And that was impossible for tv boxes. For phones its doable with key presses. Not for us. SO my search continued.

[romcrazy]

I found some tutorials for One plus phone and samsung. Even magisk creator himself has given a way to root SAR devices but its useless without being able to boot into a pseudo recovery mode. Browsing 4pda, I landed on an ALVATECH rom for GT KING which was ported to our box by sergej (4pda developer). I had seen and tried this port earlier but it was not my flavor. This time I was surfing aimlessly so I decided to check out the rom's actual freaktab page. And there I found the solution, given by ALVATECH himself. I have tested it extensively. But read the specifics carefully.

[romcrazy]

1. This method will give you magisk root. Proper root which you can update too. But first you have to be ready for multiple flashes. Because most of our roms come pre rooted so we unroot them before doing this.
2. You will get full root, but it wont be out of the box. This means, whenever I power up the box normally, its not rooted. Magisk doesnt work and stuff connected to magisk doesnt work. Then I open terminal, type reboot recovery and hit enter. And my box reboots into OS (not recovery) with full root. You can do this by hard pressing reset button everytime if your bootable recovery is in sdcard. But then, you will reach twrp where you will go into reboot menu and hit recovery to boot up the OS with magisk.
3. This means, if power goes and comes back, you box will boot up unrooted, then you will reboot it into recovery (it will boot up into system mode, dont worry) and you will have root.

[romcrazy]

I dont care if you have read the above messages (you should have, booting is improper). Lets proceed.

[romcrazy]

On the given link, read carefully. And proceed at your own risk.

Whatever root you have pre installed, unroot it. Use the Unroot SU zip if you want. I try first with Unroot SU zip, and if that fails, I flash regular magisk zip. Of course magisk gets installed to boot image and doesnt give us root, its not detected in magisk manager BUT IT UNROOTS AND REMOVES SUPERSU.

After this is done, you should check for root with root checker app.

Next step depends on which rom you choose.

[romcrazy]

For GT KING PORT and for our STOCK PIE ROM.
Open the magisk recovery patch link (step 2, in section A of that link which I gave 2 post back), open the BEELINK folder in mega and download the zip. (GT KING. You can try GT mini also. That's upto you, There is no danger). Flash it from bootable twrp in sd card. It will fix some permissions. And it will install a magisk patched recovery with magisk in recovery mode. After flashing, go back, open reboot menu while still in twrp, hit recovery button. Voila, you boot into android with magisk root. Install magisk manager if you havent already, and update magisk to latest version. Install modules, edxposed, use fake wifi reworked, whatever you want. AND SAY THANKS TO SERGEJ AND ALVATECH.
READ my FINAL POST before finishing up.

[romcrazy]

FOR N5 MAX port (https://4pda.ru/forum/index.php?show...ost&p=87173464)
{My personal FAVORITE, stable and has bars, its so pretty}
Open that same link, and use the probox2 zip. Everything else is same as previous post.

You can flash GT king zip also, it will give you magisk root, but the colors will distort horribly. Its not permanent, infact I always do trials with both zips. You can download all 3 zips and check for yourself. You can always boot into the bootable sd card twrp so all three zips can be tried in case of mistake.

Those zips contain magisk patched recoveries. I tried to patch our own 3.2.3.1 twrp with magisk and replaced into those zips, it did get flashed but ALVATECH has modified his recoveries in a way, where on reboot recovery, the box boots into android with magisk instead. SO PLEASE DO SAY THANKS TO HIM and SEGEJ. LET THEM KNOW WE BENEFITTED FROM THEM.

Post if you have doubts. GOOD LUCK

[romcrazy]

EDIT:

I also tried this on ATV roms. Minixfreak OS and vietnamese ATV. WORKS

[soldiaz]

OK, when I understand right, you only have root in TWRP recovery?

[romcrazy]

OK, when I understand right, you only have root in TWRP recovery?

Those zips install a twrp recovery which is patched with magisk. When you use the reboot recovery option, ideally you should boot back into twrp. but with alvatech's zip, you boot into android system with magisk. So you have root within android environment. I gave screenshots, you think those screenshots came from twrp recovery environment? The way I understand it, there is a boot through recovery option which we cant use in tv boxes because of absence of key press methods. Look at the link below from official magisk creator. Read the 5th and 6th column named, "Magisk in recovery" and "Samsung (System-as-Root) to understand.

[soldiaz]

Ok understand....so Alvatechs zip is TWRP recovery with Magisk?

Then I could just unzip and flash the zipped img as recovery, right?

Meaning I could unpack any custom image with AML tools, replace the recovery.img with (for example) Mini_Magisk.img and repack.

After this I can enter TWRP recovery and from there choose reboots system to have system with Magisk?

Minixfreak OS is based on Beelink firmware:

https://forum.freaktab.com/forum/tv-...os-2020-update

So I could pick Alvatech's and repack?

[romcrazy]

Ok understand....so Alvatechs zip is TWRP recovery with Magisk?

Then I could just unzip and flash the zipped img as recovery, right?

Meaning I could unpack any custom image with AML tools, replace the recovery.img with (for example) Mini_Magisk.img and repack.

After this I can enter TWRP recovery and from there choose reboots system to have system with Magisk?

Minixfreak OS is based on Beelink firmware:

https://forum.freaktab.com/forum/tv-...os-2020-update

So I could pick Alvatech's and repack?

You can unzip and flash sure. Whether that will work or not I dont know, I didnt try because flashing the zip also fixes some permissions which I figured must be important. I did patch twrp 3.2.3.1 with magisk manager myself and replaced it in zip after changing name, then flash the zip. twrp did get flashed but because alvatech has modified his img specifically so i couldnt boot into system by using recovery button with my own img. You can do your own trials.

Shouldnt you be first trying out the zip to get your magisk? Couldnt the experimentation wait till you have your magisk success?

[soldiaz]

Shouldnt you be first trying out the zip to get your magisk?

Ah ok, Alvatech's zip just contains patched MAGISK? and NOT "Magisk recovery"?

[romcrazy]

Ah ok, Alvatech's zip just contains patched MAGISK? and NOT "Magisk recovery"?

Magisk patched recovery. It contains a recovery img which is patched with magisk.
If you know magisk, you would know it patches boot img when its installed normally. but we can patch any img. We can patch even the recovery img. Alvatech took twrp 3.3.1 and patched it in magisk, he modified it in a way that reboot recovery option boots to system instead of twrp.

[soldiaz]

Alright, then I understood right.

So basicly Alvatech's patched img is (MAGISK patched) TWRP recovery img, right?

So then I could take this image and use it es recover img and repack...