Android 4.3 was officially unveiled and released today to the Android Open Source Project. In a surprisingly timely fashion, Google also released both the factory images and OTAs to the Nexus 4, 7, 10, and the Galaxy Nexus.
In this post, I will show you how to easily update your Nexus 4 to Android 4.3 JWR66V without losing data or needing root, whether because you are having trouble flashing the OTA, because one is simply not available to you yet (these notoriously take weeks to propagate to everyone), or because you're running something else and want to return to stock. You can root your Nexus 4 in the last step if you want.
Disclaimer: fayan sales blog isn't responsible for any harm to your device - proceed at your own risk
Prerequisites
In order to complete the steps below, you need to have the Android SDK installed. The SDK contains the latest version of adb and fastboot, which you will need for flashing. You will also need a MicroUSB cable to execute adb sideload, fastboot flash, and other commands. You don't need a USB cable if you're just planning to download the OTA zip directly to your device and flash it from recovery.
Note #1: You will not lose your data in either scenario. The first one is the same as applying the OTA. In the second one, we'll skip wiping data and upgrade just the bootloader, radio, kernel, and system images manually.
Note #2: You will be able to easily gain root in the last step.
Scenario 1
In this scenario, you're running Android 4.2.2 JDQ39 and haven't modified the system files, which basically means you can cleanly apply the OTA update. I flashed the leaked 4.3 earlier, along with its bootloader and radio, then restored back to 4.2.2 and tried to upgrade using this OTA method, but failed. Therefore, I had to use scenario 2. However, most of you will probably be fine with scenario 1.
In order to avoid repeating the steps, download the official JDQ39->JWR66V OTA zip from here and then adb sideload it by following Section A or B in the guide here. If something fails, like it did for me, proceed to Scenario 2.
adb sideload is painless and fast
Scenario 2
Scenario 2 is what I would call plan B. You're here because the OTA failed, you screwed up your phone and it's not booting, or you're running a custom ROM. Don't worry - you won't lose data, even though the default factory image installation method does wipe it.
The idea of this method is:
- Download the full occam factory image, which includes the full system, bootloader, recovery, kernel (boot.img), and radio. It's a clean slate for these components - they'll flash cleanly over anything you have now.
- Instead of using the bundled script called flash-all, you will unpack the tgz (tar/gz) archive, and then the zip contained within as well. This will put all the components into one folder:
- Follow the excellent guide over here and make sure to omit step D10, which overwrites userdata. Here are the commands you will be executing, for reference:
adb reboot bootloader
fastboot flash bootloader bootloader-mako-makoz20i.img
fastboot reboot-bootloader
fastboot flash radio radio-mako-m9615a-cefwmazm-2.0.1700.84.img
fastboot reboot-bootloader
fastboot flash system system.img
fastboot flash boot boot.img
fastboot format cache
fastboot reboot
Bootloader in fastboot mode
Rooting
Rooting a Nexus 4 is very easy but requires an unlocked bootloader and a custom recovery. I recommend using TWRP.
- Flash TWRP from here (fastboot flash recovery FILENAME.img).
- Reboot into recovery (adb reboot recovery or hold Power+VolDn, then select Recovery).
- Flash SuperSU from this post. I've seen people complain that doing so via CWM doesn't work, but flashing through TWRP and selecting Fix Superuser Permissions at the end does the trick. It's certainly done it for me on both the 4.3 leak and the factory flash from scenario 2.
- You should be rooted.
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