How To Root Latest OTA 4.4.4 Verizon Galaxy S5

[DroidModderX]

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The latest and greatest firmware for the Verizon Galaxy S5 is now rolling out! If you have not received the update yet you can head here to grab the update.zip. Normally I would suggest steering clear of the updates for anyone who is wishing to keep their device rooted, but Open1your1eyes0 has already confirmed a working root method for the new update.

1. Make sure you are on stock unrooted NE9 build (if not flash this NE9 firmware in ODIN)
2. Take the NHA (Android 4.4.4) OTA and confirm all is working
3. Flash the NCG kernel in ODIN: http://www.androidfilehost.com/?fid=23578570567722142
4. Root using Towelroot: https://towelroot.com/
5. Install/Open SuperSU and let it update the binary normally
6. Flash the NHA kernel (I provided earlier) in ODIN: https://www.androidfilehost.com/?fid=23622183712469066
7. Reboot and you should be all set

via XDA

 

[bigmatt503]

What is the chance of a video of how to do this? I did the work a round for the ne9 kernel and DID manage to get root back.... Is it pretty much the same thing?

Sent from my rooted Verizon galaxy s5

 

[cr6]

You might try following the xda link at the bottom of the original post. That will usually answer all your questions. Or simply search YouTube. someone may have a video already.
If you already got root back though you're not going to notice much difference from before.
tap'n on my S5

 

[bigmatt503]

You might try following the xda link at the bottom of the original post. That will usually answer all your questions. Or simply search YouTube. someone may have a video already.
If you already got root back though you're not going to notice much difference from before.
tap'n on my S5

Gonna do it after work tomorrow.. Thanks

Sent from my Nexus 7 using Tapatalk

 

[DroidModderX]

Gonna do it after work tomorrow.. Thanks

Sent from my Nexus 7 using Tapatalk

it is pretty much the same. I am going to try and get a video together this afternoon

 

[btp]

3. Flash the NCG kernel in ODIN: http://www.androidfilehost.com/?fid=23578570567722142​

I note that the heading on the linked page says it's for the S4. But it also says G900V in the filename, and G900V is S5. Before I brick my brand new S5 (just bought it today to replace an S3 with a dead USB/power connector), I just want to make sure the typo is in the file header on androidfilehost, and not the link posted here. Can anyone confirm this?

 

[DroidModderX]

I note that the heading on the linked page says it's for the S4. But it also says G900V in the filename, and G900V is S5. Before I brick my brand new S5 (just bought it today to replace an S3 with a dead USB/power connector), I just want to make sure the typo is in the file header on androidfilehost, and not the link posted here. Can anyone confirm this?

I have tested this and it works on the S5

 

[btp]

I have tested this and it works on the S5

So you did. Thanks for the info, the work, and the video. I'll report back on my results shortly.

EDIT:

OK. I did get this to work, but it was not quite as easy as advertised. The update of the kernel went reasonably well, but my phone immediately started complaining about various things -- kept getting "Unfortunately, HealthService has stopped" messages, as well as another service that had stopped that I can't recall. These messages popped up several times, making the phone fairly unusable until they stopped.

The next problem was that I was unable to download Towelroot on the phone. I don't know if this was due to some security software on the phone (Knox or something else), or some kind of "for your own good" feature in Chrome, or what, but what I observed when trying to download with Chrome is that the download seems to fail, whereupon another chrome tab is opened to try again. This repeats, over and over again, until there are more than 100 tabs open in about a minute and a half. The only way to stop it seems to be to restart the phone.

The way I solved this was to get the towelroot apk onto the phone by other means. I could have moved it over via USB debug mode or copied it from a network file share with an appropriate utility, or stuck it on a MicroSD card, or any number of other things, but what I did was to simply download it on my desktop and then to email it to myself. I then opened the email on the phone and saved to the download directory/folder. Once that was done, then I loaded the NCG kernel, waited for the "unfortunately"s to stop, and then installed and ran Towelroot. Then got SuperSU from the app store and installed and ran it and it did its thing, though it did report that it had to turn off Knox. But it managed to do so, and the phone at that point did seem to be rooted. Once I flashed the NHA Kernel again, the instabilities seemed to go away, and the phone is indeed rooted now.

So, in the end, I did get it to work, though it was touch & go for a bit there. But all's well that ends well, and this ended great. Thanks for the help.

 

[cr6]

Glad you got it figured out. Just wondering though, when originally trying to download Towelroot, did you go into system settings, security and turn on "unknown sources"? It won't download otherwise.

tap'n on my S5

 

[btp]

Glad you got it figured out. Just wondering though, when originally trying to download Towelroot, did you go into system settings, security and turn on "unknown sources"? It won't download otherwise.

Indeed I did, because I knew I would need that before it allowed me to install it. Didn't help with the download, though.

My previous phone was an S3, and I froze the OTA update process so it wouldn't try to put Kitkat on it at some point. So I don't have a lot of experience with the Android version of the Chrome browser, or with any of the new "security" features that come with newer phones... but I have the sense that something on the phone was blocking the download. Not enough experience with the phone to tell you what, though. Is this a "thing" with S5s or with Kitkat in general? Where a page tries to download a file and for some reason it keeps opening new browser windows/tabs every second or so but never finishes downloading the file in question? I've never seen that behavior before. Definitely wasn't related to the unknown sources option, though - that was already enabled.

 

[cr6]

Yeah, that's strange for sure....especially going to the Towelroot page. Try Dolphin browser...I much prefer it over chrome.

tap'n on my S5

 

[bigmatt503]

I'm on the fence about this update for a couple of reasons.. #1 reason is I have all my xposed modules are working great and uninstalling would suck. #2 is I have yet to find a huge difference in 4.4.4 (i have it on my nexus 7 2013)... I'm torn... I love my phone the way it is.... Do I really need the latest and greatest?

Sent from my rooted Verizon galaxy s5

 

[crazychris]

So I had several issues with this upgrade as well.
I was running 4.4.2 on verizon with the S5 and I had several different issues.
I have broken out the instructions provided by DroidModderX to explain what I did.
If you're looking to have this update allow Verizon's new VoLTE HD calling, it takes quite some time for things to settle in. You have to open the verizon visual voicemail app and ensure that you click through it and enable everything. It will finally show up as an option. It may just take some time at rest to load everything.
I still get errors with S Health. I'll have to do some digging to see how to fix it. I've tried resetting and clearing cache and data on it.
UPDATE: http://forum.xda-developers.com/showpost.php?p=53434373&postcount=1205 outlines the fix for S Health.

• Make sure you are on stock unrooted NE9 build.
  I was not on this build. So I had to download it manually and install it. You install it with ODIN by selecting 'AP' format and adding it manually.

• Take the NHA (Android 4.4.4) OTA and confirm all is working
  This did not work for me. The OTA check failed and said it was up-to-date. I manually updated the phone with the OTA zip file (google it) and entered recovery mode to manually install it. After it rebooted, I got several pop up errors (similar to previous report above).

• Flash the NCG kernel in ODIN
  Using the AP selection in ODIN, this part worked fine. I just had a lot of error pop-up's again.

• Root using Towelroot
  Just be sure you're using the latest version (v3). I had an error that said 'phone not supported'.

• Install/Open SuperSU and let it update the binary normally
  You will get errors when disabling KNOX but it will also say 'successful'.

• Flash the NHA kernel
  At this point, the flash restored any errors I was getting before.

• Reboot and you should be all set

 

[cr6]

Welcome to the forum Chris. Thanks for the input!

tap'n on my S5

 

[Cassie Mayville]

so will I be able to root my S5 if I installed the newest update?