Rooting Nexus S

[usamaahmad]

Danger-Rat

I am immensely grateful for you following this thread. I wish I could stay up longer and gain from your experience and knowledge but I've got clinic tomorrow morning (I'm a resident physician) and I myself have a cold so I need to get my rest. I'm afraid I'll have to shut down my computer and head to bed.

I appreciate your time very very much, thanks for all your help. I guess I'm going to try and root my phone again tomorrow. Or find a way to verify that I have actually rooted, maybe that's the issue. Though the zip file ran successfully on the custom recovery.

[danger-rat]

To check if you're rooted just download a terminal emulator from the market and type in "su"...

Go get some sleep...
I've subscribed to this thread, so I'll get email updates (not sure how much use I am, but I'm here anyway)...

[usamaahmad]

So I came home and went straight to sleep. This is all made worse because I started fasting today. At any rate..

I realized while at the hospital today that I am definitely rooted because I found the "Superuser" icon in my list of apps and when I run Terminal I can get superuser access.

For whatever reason though, I can't edit the database file that I need to so that I can enable 3G video. I chalk this up largely to my complete and utter inexperience when working with commands like adb, etc.

I decided to spend a little more money and I purchased two apps: SQLite Editor and Root Explorer (File Manager).

With Root Explorer installed and given super user access, I was able to navigate to the proper location, and then when I clicked "edit" I was able to do so with SQLite Editor (as Android let's you launch apps from one to another). I navigated to the following address (using Root Explorer)

/data/data/com.google.android.gsf/databases/gservices.db

and I inserted the values as laid out at this link, and then I rebooted my phone for good measure. I'm going to actually reproduce that code here just so that there is a second copy of it on this forum. I don't have the permission (I didn't try and contact codebutler) but I want to vehemently say that this is not my code and I owe codebutler for posting it in the first place, and explaining where.

$ adb pull /data/data/com.google.android.gsf/databases/gservices.db
$ sqlite3 gservices.db
insert into overrides (name, value) VALUES ('gtalk_vc_wifi_only', 'false');
(control-d to exit sqlite)
$ adb push gservices.db /data/data/com.google.android.gsf/databases/gservices.db

I can now video chat on Google Talk over 3G without problems. It cost me about $7 more than what an experienced Android enthusiast would have paid but I guess that's the price one pays for lack of ability? Well hopefully these apps will come in handy in the near future.

I totally owe this thread and especially you danger-rat for without you I would not have been able to root the phone in the first place. So thank you very much, I hope those instructions stay up forever.

I did re-lock my bootloader which was nice because I am only trying this phone out for a couple of weeks. I'm not yet sure I want to keep it over my Nexus One. I like the video chat (my wife does, especially, nice to have when I'm stuck at the hospital) but I miss the notification trackball and other than speed and space, I don't feel like I gained much else (I don't like this camera that much better). I should probably wait for the Ice Cream Sandwich Nexus device.. but it's good to know that I can unlock and root the phone, and do what I need to.

I'm going to hold off on rooting my Nexus One though, that phone is great the way it is (except the tight internal storage space).

[Dude Random21]

Well I'm glad you got everything worked out

Although for your nexus one just so you know if you root you can fix the low internal storage space by using an ext partition on you SD card. So if ever you do chose to root then there is plenty of documentation all over this forum to help you do it, and not to mention people like danger who are going to be first in line to give you a hand

[Snickolaz]

Glad to hear you got your phone rooted and working the way you want it! I had been looking for a way to get gtalk to work over 3G and now I got that going now too! I tried it from the code, but it didn't work for me, and then I found these instructions that did work for me:

Without adb:

1. Download SQLight editor from the market
2. If you don't have a good file manager also get Root Explorer from the market.
3. After both are installed - use Root Explorer to browse to /data/data/com.google.android.gsf/databases/gservices.db and click on it
4. Now click on "main"
5. Scroll down to gtalk_vc_wifi_only - highlight and hold
6. Press "Edit Record" and change the "value" to false instead of true


I was going to "overrides" and adding the value instead of going to "main" and editing the value that was there. After that did a quick reboot and it works like a champ now! Here's where I found those instructions at.

Google Talk Video Chat on 3G or 4G Mod [Archive] - xda-developers

[c4shammu]

thanks very much .................

[usamaahmad]

Originally Posted by Snickolaz

Glad to hear you got your phone rooted and working the way you want it! I had been looking for a way to get gtalk to work over 3G and now I got that going now too! I tried it from the code, but it didn't work for me, and then I found these instructions that did work for me:

Without adb:

1. Download SQLight editor from the market
2. If you don't have a good file manager also get Root Explorer from the market.
3. After both are installed - use Root Explorer to browse to /data/data/com.google.android.gsf/databases/gservices.db and click on it
4. Now click on "main"
5. Scroll down to gtalk_vc_wifi_only - highlight and hold
6. Press "Edit Record" and change the "value" to false instead of true


I was going to "overrides" and adding the value instead of going to "main" and editing the value that was there. After that did a quick reboot and it works like a champ now! Here's where I found those instructions at.

Google Talk Video Chat on 3G or 4G Mod [Archive] - xda-developers

Actually that's pretty much what I did!

I have a new problem now, for which I should create a new thread perhaps. Now that my Nexus S is rooted, I was driving to work today and my phone told me it had downloaded and was ready to install Android 2.3.6.

When I tried to install the update, it failed. I guess the Clockwork Recovery didn't recognize the file, or maybe it recognized that it was an official update and caused a fail to install to prevent its own override?

Should I wait for the update.zip to hit the web and install it manually? Will that still work?

[Snickolaz]

Android 2.3.6 begins rolling out to Samsung Nexus S, fixes voice search concerns - Engadget

I just saw this, I haven't gotten the notification myself. But would like to know what to do also when the time comes. Thanks!