February 2014 – Something Odd!

Root and remove Knox from your S4

tl; dr: Knox still bothering you after installing CF Auto Root? Install SuperSU from the Play Store to disable it!

Knox is a security tool that came in an update for the Galaxy S4 that helps protect your phone from any app doing nasty stuff to it. Unfortunately it makes life difficult for anyone who wants to root their phone to use useful apps like Greenify, Titanium Backup or any of the apps out there that need full control of the phone.

I had rooted my phone a good while ago but when I flashed Android 4.3 on it root functionality was removed. I thought CF Auto Root would fix it but it didn’t. Any time an app tried to gain root privileges a security warning would popup saying,

An application attempted to access system on your device without authorisation. This attempt has been blocked. Changing your security level to normal may solve this problem. Deleting applications obtained from unauthorised sources may improve security.

Oddly enough, Greenify worked still, and I think Adaway worked too. The oddest thing was that they worked without the usual root elevation message displaying. A later firmware update stopped those apps working as well. I think it’s SELinux that displayed that message as Knox was never actually installed.

I gave up in frustration but this evening I tried again. CF Auto Root has been updated, I flashed it and rebooted. Again the security warning showed, and there was no sign of SuperSU. Eventually I found that someone recommended installing SuperSU from the Play Store again and let it detect Knox and remove it. I tried that and, hey presto! It worked!

Now, my phone is rooted, Greenify works, and I’ve backed up a few key apps. I’m waiting on a larger capacity SD card to do a nandroid backup and then I may look at installing a KitKat ROM. I know that KitKat is rolling out but I don’t like what Google/Samsung have done with SD card access and I’m hoping ROMs won’t follow suit. Any recommendations?

Galaxy S2 + Android KitKat = new lease of life

I have an old but capable Samsung Galaxy S2 that has remained unused for several months but when my Nexus 7 tablet was stolen (along with most of my camera equipment, but not my Canon 6D fortunately) a week ago I wanted another device my son could use.

One of the requirements for any such device is that only I install new apps or games. I already have a PIN on purchases but there’s so much spam on the Play Store that I suspect at least some of those Minecraft clones are up to no good. On the Nexus 7 I could use a restricted account and choose what apps or games my son could run but my S2 was running an old version of Cyanogenmod and it looks like CM isn’t supporting it any more.

NeatROM for the S2 to the rescue! It’s a KitKat 4.4.2 based ROM for the Galaxy S2 and it was a fairly painless install. You’ll need to flash a KitKat compatible CWM Recovery first, then the ROM and then Google Apps. All those things are listed on the page above.

NeatROM

It was then I realised and remembered that the multiuser support in Android 4.2+ is for tablets only. Luckily the code is already there but it’s switched off and someone else has already taken care of it with the Modaco toolkit for Xposed. Unfortunately after installing this the first time the phone wouldn’t boot so I had to start from scratch again but the second time it worked fine. I enabled multiuser support in Modaco and the Users menu appeared in Settings!

Unfortunately I needed to login to the Amazon Appstore in the restricted account, but a PIN should stop any accidental purchases.

The S2 is showing it’s age. I suspect the flash memory is starting to wear down. When I tried to install multiple apps at one time the Play store stopped downloading them and I had to stop the download. The original battery is rubbish but a larger replacement lasts a few hours.

It plays a mean game of Angry Birds however, which is all my son cares about now!

C64 Easter Egg in Saints Row 4

C64 screen

I noticed a Commodore 64 screen last night in the game Saints Row 4. The keyboard is definitely not a C64 one, neither is it a C128 but I’ll forgive that oversight.

There are various retro parts of the game, like a 2D side scrolling beat-em-up to rescue one of the characters but this was in a fairly mundane mission where you have to shoot lights, that’s all I’ll say. Watch out for it!