Samsung Galaxy S III
Upgrading to CM-10.1.3

My last OS upgrade was almost a year ago, the first stable image of CyanogenMod-10.0.0 for d2vzw. Now I have some time to put into I.T. maintenance, and I have upgraded both my Android devices to version 10.1.3. This is the final version for 10.1.x based on Android 4.2, and the developers will now turn to CyanogenMod 10.2 based on Android 4.3 Hyper Jelly Bean. The next major release will be CyanogenMod 11 based on Android 4.4 KitKat.

Please refer to my writeup on upgrading my ASUS Transformer Pad Infinity to CM-10.1.3 for a discussion of the new image, what data I have to wipe (none), and what problems have been noted with this release.

A major goal in this upgrade is to install the current radio software, which according to Verizon tech support is I535 VRBMF1; currently installed is I535 VRLHE. On my recent trip to Europe I discovered that I could not get it into GSM mode. Given the unfortunately short lifetime of cellphones it is unlikely that I will be in non-USA GSM territory before getting a new pocket computer, but even so I want to get to the bottom of this interruption in my plans. See GSM Radio for possibly effective results.

In this forum post, InvisibleK (2014-09-14, updated 2013-05-12) posts a procedure to flash the radio and a link to a collection of flashable image fragments. He recommends flashing the radio, rpm and tz at the same time from an AIO bundle file. He posts a leaked document which says:

• RPM means Resource and Power Management.
• It does: clock control, split-rail power collapse, and voltage scaling; supports several low-power sleep modes.
• In the boot order, RPM runs first, then application system, then radio.
• It's signed.

http://invisiblek.org/sch-i535/aio/I535VRBMF1_firmware.zip is the AIO file I got. 20Mb.

Research detailed in the bloat page suggests that the tz component has nothing to do with timezones; rather it involves cryptography.

Procedure for Upgrade

• Review the procedure for initially installing CyanogenMod.

• Backups. ADB has a new (to me) feature: backups. Command line (one hyphen per option):

  adb backup -f ./selen-bku-20130929.ab -apk -obb -all -system

  See the Transformer upgrade writeup for a discussion of what you get from this backup, and of the -shared option. It took 2.5 minutes, about 5.8Mbyte/sec, and the file size was 214Mb.

• Boot into recovery and flash the radio first. The script announced that it was VRBMF1; subunits were SBL2 SBL3 MODEM RPM TZ; all were checked and flashed successfully. Reboot succeeded, took about 25 secs which is normal for this device.

• Check out phone operation. Clock was cleared to zero (but ClockSync restored it immediately). Cellular signal strength is 109 dBm, normal for this location, time and temperature. Yes it can make a voice phone call (to a landline) and use cellular data. But… Settings - (wireless+net More) - Mobile Networks - Network Mode - gives only the choices of LTE/CDMA/EvDo or CDMA/EvEo auto. This is the same as on VRLHE. Growl. I will finish the upgrade before working further on the radio issue.

• I used the builtin updater to download the new CM-10.1.3 image, but I declined to install it. To find the updater: Settings - About Phone - CyanogenMod Updates - Refresh (if necessary) - click on the row for the version you want.

• I downloaded Google Apps to the internal SD card. Google Apps for Android-4.1 will not work in 4.2. See http://goo.im/gapps/gapps-jb-20130812-signed.zip. 96Mb compressed.

• Check the battery. 50% should be plenty.

• Now I returned to the builtin updater and clicked on the row for CM-10.1.3. It offered to install and I said yes. It rebooted directly into Recovery and installed the requested file. Takes about 1 minute. Then it rebooted automatically. It needed to recompile 124 apps, so the reboot took about 2 minutes, vs. normally 25 seconds.

• You end up in the CyanogenMod setup screen. Set language; create or use existing CyanogenMod account (for what?). (At this point account setup crashed and it restarted with:) permit or decline location reporting; set the date and timezone. The clock was cleared to 0 and the default timezone was Midway Island; ClockSync promptly fixed the clock, and in setup I changed to Pacific time.

• Very quick checkout, avoiding back-version Google Apps, which will croak: UI, Wi-Fi, Jota+, Firefox, Amazon Kindle all seem to be working.

• Boot into Recovery and install Google Apps. So on the boot menu, where is the option to boot into Recovery, which CM-10.0 had? Power it off. Hold down Volume-Up, Home, then Power, until you get the splash screen saying "booting recovery" in blue in the upper left corner. It stays only for a moment.

  Choose the Google Apps zip file from the internal SD card, which in Recovery is /emmc/0. Use arrow keys or swipe on the screen to scroll on the list, assuming you have the touch version of Koush's ClockworkMod Recovery. Installation takes about 1 minute; content is labelled Google Apps for Android 4.2.2. On the reboot out of Recovery it recompiled 78 apps. See the Transformer Pad writeup for a list of what's in the Google Apps package.

Application Checkout

• Clocksync -- OK
• Kitchen Timer -- OK
• Clock -- OK
• Night clock -- OK
• Mythmote -- not tested
• Jog tracker -- OK including GPS
• Amazon Kindle -- OK
• Jota+ -- OK
• Firefox -- OK, except Firefox still can't present a user's X.509 certificate.
• Android Browser -- OK, and it now can present the X.509 certificate, which it could not do in CM-10.0.0.
• Maps -- OK including GPS
• Kingsoft Office -- OK (really tested)
• Phone Tester -- OK (sensors)
• Tricorder -- OK except when showing non-connected WiFi APs it crashes.
• StrongSwan -- OK now; in CM-10.0.0 it could not present the user's X.509 certificate.
• Play Store -- OK
• Dropbear -- OK
• VX ConnectBot -- OK including key agent.
• WiFi Analyzer -- OK, and it does show the connected AP, which is broken on TF700T.
• Xabber -- OK (remember to open notification to give password)
• Skype -- (a) died during login; (b) Authenticated and did a test call.
• GPS Status -- OK (and seems to have more satellites than the TF700T)
• Messaging -- OK
• People -- OK (limited test)
• ES File Explorer -- OK (moderate test)
• Google Search -- OK
• Calendar -- OK
• RealCalc -- OK
• Camera -- OK (limited test)
• Barcode Scanner -- OK
• Gallery -- OK
• Apollo -- OK, and this version no longer shuffles everything.
• HostAP -- OK (this turns the phone into a wireless access point)