- Title: ZTE AXON MINI (B2016 force touch AND B2015)
- Listed: November, 2016
- Last modified: 02/02/2017 2:15 pm
- Version: Marshmallow 6.0.1 version B14
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Member Info
DESCRIPTION
EDIT12: Someone just noted on the XDA website that the ZTE_VIDEO (system app simply called "VIDEO") has a chinese spyware in it. I'll remove it from the ROM when I have time, but for now I'd recommend you to DELETE/UNINSTALL this useless app as there are many better alternatives on playstore (I use MY player- best but slow to load, or ES explorer or Quickpic, they all have player in them)
I have also updated the Intructions below to make it easier for you to understand the notes about the aboot file. many users bricking their phones for missing some important notes below.
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EDIT11: A few different bootanimations available for download (the 7a-international is the one that comes with the ROM)
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EDIT10: B14 ROM available!!!
- I left the setting app unchanged this time. I found a very neat file where you can choose what items of the settings manu to turn on/off. The file is system/etc/P839A01.settings. Feel free to play around, no reboot needed, simply close the setting app, change this file and open the settings app again to see the changes. No risk of bootloop either, I have alrteady turned everything on/off to see what changed.
- Force is still there, but now I have disabled it by default in a attempt to see if it improves battery life. To enable it simply change the build.prop line "ro.build.PTP_Feature=false" to true
- Added a bunch of build.prop tweaks. To restore it to the original, simply delete all lines below the note "#manually added".
- I cannot tell what else changed, the cumulative update to B14 was only 8Mb compared to B13, but as found in the ZTE website, some configuration files have been changed to "improve memory management". So far this rom is very smooth and seem to work better (or no worse) than B13.
- Dolby behaviour changed a bit. It stays on when plugging headphone in, but turns off when pressing "play". It still works though, but you have to press play then turn it on manually.
I have tested and xposed works well too.
B09, B12 and B13 are still available from my Mega account (on the OLD roms link).
…….
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INITIAL NOTE:
Before placing your review, please kindly remember one simple thing:
You would NEVER be able to have a Marshmallow ROM on your ZTE AXON mini B2016, if it wasn't for our work (@Bormental, @Crisvendeta, myself, and some others from XDA).
Another relevant note: ZTE made this rom, not us, so if you are not happy with the rom itself please blame zte and not me, I'm here simply helping/sharing the way we found to keep our phones up-to-date. I doubt ZTE will ever update our devices, but I hope I'm wrong.
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INTRODUCTION:
This ROM is based on the chinese stock from the B2015 phones. It only has English and Chinese language in principle, although the translation for other languages using apps like language enabler isn't too bad.
This M Rom gave new life to our poor axon mini. The stock lollipop ROM was slow and laggy.
It all started after @Bormental (from XDA) made a working custom twrp for this phone, which allowed us to backup and to flash anything. He also figured out that we can flash ANY rom from the B2015 model on the B2016, as long as we replace and use the Modem from the international lollipop for the B2016 phone.
All I did, other than removing some crappy stock apps and the stock recovery (otherwise it would replace twrp), was to replace the modem, the logo screen, the boot animation (all from the international ROM), edited the settings-ZTE app, transferred the "force touch" capability from the last B10 into the B12/13/14 and added the gapps into the system.
I have also added some other google apps (keyboard, dialer, contacts, tts, etc) and es file explorer.
The ROM is cleaner now, more like a proper aosp, but there is still some ZTE stuff around, which are needed to have a fully functional system.
So……moving on to our business…..
IMPORTANT: IF YOU JUST INSTALLED TWRP VIA ADB AND CAN BOOT INTO TWRP RECOVERY, THEN IT MEANS IT IS WORKING FINE…EVEN IF YOU THINK IT IS NOT…. IT DOES WORK OK, AND YOU DID NOT READ THE INSTRUCTION BELOW ABOUT THE ABOOT FILE.
NEVER…..EVER, INSTALL THE STOCK RECOVERY BACK, UNLESS YOU INTENT TO SEND THE PHONE BACK TO ZTE, AND EVEN FOR THAT THERE IS A SPECIAL PROCEDURE TO INSTALL THE STOCK RECOVERY BACK, ASK IF YOU NEED.
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STEP-BYSTEP:
if you have lollipop:
1.1- Root and install twrp;
1.2- IMPORTANT: NOW USE THE RECOVERY TO MAKE A BACKUP, so you make sure you test the recovery too BEFORE wiping your system;
1.3- reboot recovery/wipe/advance/ wipe system, data and cache;
1.4- flash the latest B14.zip (ROM);
1.5- then flash superSU 2.62; than (optionally) flash xposed;
1.6- reboot system (no need to flash aboot6 in this case, the ROM already has it);
1.7- First boot will take a little while to boot, wait up to about 5-7minutes.
If you already are on M rom (B09 or B12 or B13):
2.1- you already have TWRP, so just reboot recovery and flash the aboot5*** file;
2.2- flash B14.zip (ROM); then (optionally) flash superSU 2.62; than (optionally) flash xposed. Follow this exact order if you already have xposed. If you leave to flash xposed later, your system will try to "update 60 apps" in the first boot, then "update 130 apps" after you flash xposed. Flashing all at once avoids this waste of time.
2.3- reboot system. First boot WILL take a while to boot, wait up to about 10 minutes.
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IF YOU DON'T READ THE NOTES BELOW you are taking a BIG RISK TO BRICK YOUR PHONE AND MAY NEED TO SEND IT BACK TO ZTE. But don't fear, Just do it right and you will be OK.
***IMPORTANT NOTE ABOUT THIS ABOOT FILE:
this twrp was developed for the android 5 (L) version. Once your have installed android 6 (M) you must flash this aboot5 and reboot recovery before:
3.1- doing a nandroid backup;
3.2- Flash files larger than ~350Mb (superSU and xposed CAN be flashed without this);
After doing the operation you want to do in the recovery, you MUST flash the aboot6 file BEFORE rebooting the system.
NOTE A- failing to flash aboot5 before recovery operations will cause the screen to turn black.
NOTE B- failing to flash aboot6 after backing up your system/data, will cause a bootloop.
However both failures above are harmless, you won't loose anything, just restart recovery, flash the correct aboot file and you are good to go again.
—-> FAQ: I'd love to brick my phone in such a way even zte will have trouble in bringing it back to life. How do I achieve this?
This easy and is the only way I can think you can manage to brick your phone: (never do it!)
4.1) install twrp,
4.2) then try flashing any M ROM (or simply flash the aboot6 zip)
4.3) To conclude, simply install the stock recovery either from twrp itself or from adb.
4.4) DONE, your phone WILL be a BRICK, and only ZTE may fix it. I think this is exactly what you wanted?
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&&& Notes about google Play store:
5.1) Once the system boots up, go straight to MI-assistant app;
5.2) open it and hit the big green button in the middle. wait until it finishes;
5.3) on the second result row (autostart) you MUST allow play services to autorun;
5.4) Finally you can add your google account.
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WARNINGS:
6.1) DO NOT flash roms for the B2015 directly downloaded from ZTE or you WILL loose the twrp recovery; These original files MUST be modified before flashing so you keep your twrp intact;
6.2) IF YOU HAVE A BOOTLOOP. @Crisvendeta (the founder of the axon mini XDA thread) discovered this useful trick to boot into recovery during a bootloop
(quick EDIT: someone in XDA just discovered the vol+ isn't needed to turn the phone off)
6.2.1) vol+power for 10 seconds – phone will reboot
6.2.2) keep holding vol+power for 10 more seconds – phone will reboot again;
6.2.3) keep holding vol+power…..in about 5 seconds, as soon as the screen turn off, release the buttons. Phone will turn off.
6.2.4) Now you simply vol+power to start in recovery mode, as usual. So please don't panic, as long as you have twrp you are safe.
Enjoy a much better phone!
※Please make a backup of your device before installing or updating ROM
@demenicis, may i ask that when/how do i backup my axon mini's modem data? i didn't see this listed in the steps in the instructions. i once bricked my galaxy S3 long ago after flashing a customised rom because the modem info was overwritten.
@demenicis ah, i think that lost info was baseband??? not sure the diff between baseband and modem…sorry.
I'm pretty sure the modem files go in the system. I, for example, only back up the data. simply because whenever or if I have a problem with my system, I just re-flash it again on top, and this does not erase or affect any installed apps.
the system I have posted already contains the modem files, and you can also have the modem separately saved in you SD card to be re-flashed if needed, so no need to back it up.
at last, this system will boot if with the wrong modem, but you won't have network, but no bootloop or any other major implication.
cheers
@demenicis thank you for your reply. i'm a bit afraid as i bricked my galaxy S3 long ago because i overwrote its modem file. i don't wanna brick this one again. haha. i'll find a time to try flash the system following your instructions. fingers crossed.
I have flashed this modem file 10 times. it will be fine. trust me, as long as you are already on android 6 (m)
hi demenicis my phone is stuck on android is starting and it says optmizing apps for hours what can i do????
strange……does it say updating apps? press power for 10 secs and reboot to see what happens
if it still does the same then follow the procedure to turn it off. reboot recovery then re-flash the ROM. remember the aboot 5 recovery again then re-flash
guys, and girls, after more than 2 years of good use, my phone started destroying SD cards.
I thought it was a China one so I got a proper £25 Kingston one, class 10 and my pictures are turning all grey.
today I took about 10 pictures, whatsapped them fine. went back to the gallery and every single one was grey, corrupted.
anyone facing the same?
Hi,
Have you format the sd-card on computer?
Found below on XFA-forum for Axon 7 with similar problem:
You need to reformat your SD card in the phone to get it working. First, pull off any needed data from the card to yr PC er wherever you can store it to allow you to re-add it after you format the card using the phone & TWRP.
https://forum.xda-developers.c.....-t3773135/page4
I get much reboots!?
Is it a question or a statement?
My never use to reboot.
The only thing I remember made it unstable, freezing and rebooting was after fiddling with the entropy in cpu auditor app.
hey demenicis, thanks for the wonderful rom, just got a few questions like how can i multitask because the drag and drop way isnt working. the battery life has improved very well and disabling the spy apps have given me almost 2gb ram free all the time. Is there a way to disable that lockscreen dynamic wallpaper? it displays inapproprite pictures at time which im not comfortable with showing in public. Also, i want to root it but since kingoroot is chinese and that usually sends data after rooting, if i flash supersu on non rooted b14 rom, will it get rooted? i do not have much knowledge on rooting. Also, the notifications dont expand on sliding them downwards like they used to on my samsung tab which has same android 6 . The dolby sounds a little bad on my studio headphone even when it is turned on, are you sure it is directing the audio through the AKM dac chip or is it just the inbuilt snapdragon dac? ive heard that in the b2016(no force touch) model there is indeed no AKM dac and it was a scam ? ive heard that the audio is routed to the AKM dac only when dolby is off and it is played through the stock music player and not with poweramp/neutron.can you please confirm? the main reason i bought this phone is because its just 100$ and supposedly has a DAC chip. Thanks again for the stable rom.
i can also confirm that the sd card auto ejection issue that was present in the 5.1 rom has been solved in this and my micro sd card is able to reach 60mbps write speeds now
to solve this , keep the buffer size allocation 1024 kb while formatting on pc and then again format using settings on the phone, im using a sandisk 64gb sd and no issues for two weeks now.
Hi. I'm glad you like the rom. I don use this phone anymore, I moved now to the axon 7 mini. Very Similar but with NFC I use every day on the train!
I never had a problem with Dolby, in fact I found this to be the best aspect of the phone after the screen which is amazing. All my headphones were good on it, even the cheap ones. Heck your headphone isn't broken first
About root, if you are on Android M(6, marshmallow) you did it via TWRP recovery.
Now just flash superSU via TWRP and you are done, easy.
Once rooted, just freeze the lockscreen app to stop it. Freeze it only, don't uninstall anything until you tripole check the phone is ok
Before anything, android backup the system at least. If the phone doesn't boot, just go to recovery, flash about 5, reboot recovery again, restore the system, flash about 6 and reboot. All in the instructions.
Cheers
Hi,
I sucessfully flash custom rom. But my google playstore show error, also google play service sometimes stop working.
How to solve?
please suggest some solution.
Many Thanks
Did you read this from the description:
&&& Notes about google Play store:
5.1) Once the system boots up, go straight to MI-assistant app;
5.2) open it and hit the big green button in the middle. wait until it finishes;
5.3) on the second result row (autostart) you MUST allow play services to autorun;
5.4) Finally you can add your google account.