How I upgraded my HTC One M7 (EE) to Google Play Edition GPE 5.0.1 Lollipop
I’m going to try and summarise the painful process I’ve been through lately. I was sick of the sent UI on my HTC M7, it looks nice but it’s not intuitive enough. I wanted a clean stock build. After some searching I found that it is possible to convert your phone to the GPE edition.
This process is extremely confusing, there’s so much information out there it’s difficult to separate the good stuff from the rubbish. It’s taken me basically a week to trawl through and work it out.
It goes without saying that you should backup everything before you begin. Also there is a chance you could brick your device so take heed: on your head be it!
Here is a basic summary if you’re interested:
Root your device
Great guide here: http://htconeroot.com/htc-one-root/how-to-root-htc-one-windowsmaclinux/
In a nutshell:
Goto Settings > Developer options make sure USB Debugging is ON
Download and upzip HTCOneRoot.zip to a folder
Install the HTC USB drivers (HTCDriver_4.1.0.001.exe) in above zip if you don’t have them installed already
Open a command shell at the unzip folder and run the following commands:
cd Downloads
cd HTCOneRoot
adb backup -apk -all -f backup.ab
I think this backs up your apps
Turn off your HTC One. Then hold down Volume Down and Power buttons together for about 3-5 seconds until you see bootloader menu
Hit the Power button to enter Fastboot mode
Connect micro-USB cable from your HTC One to your computer
Type the following in your command prompt/terminal:
fastboot oem get_identifier_token
Copy the identifier token exactly
Go to HTCDev.com and log-in. If you don’t have an account, register then log-in
Follow the instructions to unlock the bootloader, when successful you will receive an Unlock_code.bin via email, when you have this move on…
Save your Unlock_code.bin to your unzip folder
Go back to your command shell and type:
fastboot flash unlocktoken Unlock_code.bin
Go to your phone and choose “Yes” using Volume Up button then hit the Power button. Your HTC One will reboot in about 5 seconds.
Once rebooted, your HTC One should be completely wiped and you should get Welcome message just like the day you got your phone. Sign in through the setup process then copy the CWM-SuperSU-v1.30.zip file in HTCOneRoot folder to anywhere on your HTC One’s internal storage.
*Note – For Android 4.3 or 4.4, please use the file “UPDATE-SuperSU-v1.65.zip” instead of v1.30.
Power off your phone then re-boot into bootloader menu to fastboot mode
Back to the command shell:
fastboot flash recovery openrecovery-twrp-2.6.3.0-m7.img
fastboot erase cache
Choose “Bootloader” and hit the Power button
Choose “Recovery” and hit the Power button
Once in TWRP recovery, choose “Install”
Choose the SuperSU.zip file you copied earlier
Swipe to flash this file. This will root your HTC One by installing SuperSU superuser app and SU binaries.
Choose “Reboot System” to reboot
That’s it, we are rooted with a TWRP custom recovery
Obtain S-OFF
What is S-OFF? Hey I don’t really know other than it’s a security thing that prevent important stuff being overwritten in your phone. If you boot to bootloader you’ll see the S-ON setting at the top.
To do good stuff you need to turn this to S-OFF. Finding out how to do this was near impossible as it seems that Firewater the most popular tool has been discontinued. After much searching I found rumrunner:
Download rumrunner from here: http://rumrunner.us/downloads-2/
Review the instructions, which are essentially: disable locks, use usb2 and be rooted
Unzip rumrunner into your unzip folder and run soju.exe
Watch the magic happen
There’s load of stuff online. Many have posted bad experiences with rumrunner, I wasn’t convinced it would work and it came as a pleasant surprise when it did. It took about 20 minutes to S-OFF my handset.
Install the Google Play Edition RUU
There’s a great guy out there called GraffixNYC, check out his video here that has everything you need: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=u7Izx7sLQgY
Download the appropriate RUU from here: http://www.graffixnyc.com/m7.php
Ensure your phone CID matches one in the list, if it doesn’t change is using command:
Fastboot oem writecid GOOGL001
You can check the CID by running
Fastboot oem readcid
Now do the following to copy the new RUU to your phone:
1. adb reboot bootloader
2. fastboot oem rebootRUU
3. fastboot flash zip RUU-HTC_One_GE-5.0.1-5.11.1700.3.zip (note your zip may be different)
4. You will get a FAILED message first time – this is normal
5. Redo the same command again
6. The process will run for about 10 minutes until if finishes wait until it finishes
7. fastboot reboot
done.
UPDATE:
Well I can safely say that Android 5 on an M7 is rubbish. The screen doesn’t lock consistently when holding the device to your ear, so you find yourself pressing buttons with your ear! Not amusing.
So I figured I’d flash it back to Android 4.4.2: easier said than done. Although my handset was Unlocked with S-OFF it consistently refused to take any flash command with the following error:
FAILED (remote: not allowed)
Finally I found the following article:
http://forum.xda-developers.com/showthread.php?t=2509195
It took me ages to find this but once I did it turns out the solution was the same as i’d already blogged above haha I should read my own stuff:
- adb reboot bootloader
- Fastboot oem rebootRUU
- Fastboot flash zip nameofzip.zip
- (redo above again, as it needs a second run at it)
- Fastboot reboot-bootloader
Nice information. Thanks. I love lollipop on my HTC anyways.
Thank you very much. I used this guide to get my EE issued HTC One M7 running the Google Play Edition ROM.
I have HBOOT 1.57, so I had to pay for Sunshine (instead of using RumRunner) in order to get S-Off but other than that, I followed your guide to the letter.
Thanks again.