Android 7.0 Nougat – Root – PokemonGo

UPDATE 20161008 This blog is outdated, please see the updated version: Reload: Android 7.0 Nougat – Root – Pokemon Go

Since my switch to Android my Nexus 6p is rooted and I have happily fixed the Android (<7) font errors with Japanese fonts in English environment (see this post). The recently released Android 7 Nougat finally fixes this problem, so it was high time to update.

In addition, a recent update to Pokemon Go excluded rooted devices, so I was searching for a solution that allows me to: update to Nougat, keep root, and run PokemonGo (as well as some bank security apps etc).

android-nougat-root-poke

After some playing around here are the steps I took:

WARNING WARNING WARNING The current version Magisk-v7 breaks everything – you will be lost without a SuperSU application, and will not be able to hide root. Do NOT use it. Unfortunately the version v6 was removed from the servers, but I keep the explanation here. Magisk might evolve in the future back to a usable solution, but for now I need more research. If you still have the files mentioned in this blog (Magisk-v6 etc), keep them, you want to use them! WARNING WARNING WARNING

Installation of necessary components

Warning: The following is for Nexus6p device, you need different image files and TWRP recovery for other devices.

Flash Nougat firmware images

Get it from the Google Android Nexus images web site, unpack the zip and the included zip one gets a lot of img files.

unzip angler-nrd90u-factory-7c9b6a2b.zip
cd angler-nrd90u/
unzip image-angler-nrd90u.zip

As I don’t want my user partition to get flashed, I did not use the included flash script, but did it manually:

fastboot flash bootloader bootloader-angler-angler-03.58.img
fastboot reboot-bootloader
sleep 5
fastboot flash radio radio-angler-angler-03.72.img
fastboot reboot-bootloader
sleep 5
fastboot erase system
fastboot flash system system.img
fastboot erase boot
fastboot flash boot boot.img
fastboot erase cache
fastboot flash cache cache.img
fastboot erase vendor
fastboot flash vendor vendor.img
fastboot erase recovery
fastboot flash recovery recovery.img
fastboot reboot

After that boot into the normal system and let it do all the necessary upgrades. Once this is done, let us prepare for systemless root and possible hiding of it.

Get the necessary file

Get Magisk, SuperSU-magisk, as well as the Magisk-Manager.apk from this forum thread (direct links as of 2016/9: Magisk-v6.zip, SuperSU-v2.76-magisk.zip, Magisk-Manager.apk).

Transfer these two files to your device – I am using an external USB stick that can be plugged into the device, or copy it via your computer or via a cloud service.

Also we need to get a custom recovery image, I am using TWRP. I used the version 3.0.2-0 of TWRP I had already available, but that version didn’t manage to decrypt the file system and hangs. One needs to get at least version 3.0.2-2 from the TWRP web site.

Install latest TWRP recorvery

Reboot into boot-loader, then use fastboot to flash twrp:

fastboot erase recovery
fastboot flash recovery twrp-3.0.2-2-angler.img
fastboot reboot-bootloader

After that select Recovery with the up-down buttons and start twrp. You will be asked you pin if you have one set.

Install Magisk-v6.zip

Select “Install” in TWRP, select the Magisk-v6.zip file, and see you device being prepared for systemless root.

Install SuperSU, Magisk version

Again, boot into TWRP and use the install tool to install SuperSU-v2.76-magisk.zip. After reboot you should have a SuperSU binary running.

Install the Magisk Manager

From your device browse to the .apk and install it.

How to run safety net programs

Those programs that check for safety functions (Pokemon Go, Android Pay, several bank apps) need root disabled. Open the Magisk Manager and switch the root switch to the left (off). After this starting the program should bring you past the special check.

15 Responses

  1. nobody says:

    I dislike the fact that I see Pockemon Go, Google, Nexus adverts/hype in Planet Debian. I fail to understand what does this have to do with free software.

    • Hi
      Maybe you want to read what planet Debian is about. To quote from https://wiki.debian.org/PlanetDebian

      Planet Debian aims to aggregate the blog posts of people who are active in Debian and not only to aggregate the blog posts about Debian. The point is to provide a window into the community itself. Posts that are about Debian are a great idea and some people will choose to only syndicate “on topic” posts. But other posts are also welcome! We want to learn about the people, their life, opinions (even political) and doings.

      So if you don’t want to read it, simply skip it, but stop moaning and complaining.

  2. Anonymous says:

    While playing a correctly-restricted app like Pokémon GO is fine with me, I am extremely reluctant (this is an euphemism) to running highly-privileged auto-updating non-free apps on my hardware. Unfortunately, recent versions of Pokémon GO do just that by requiring SafetyNet. So this is over for me.

  3. Brandon says:

    “fastboot reboot-boatloader”

    I think you mean reboot-bootloader 🙂

  4. baljeet says:

    Hi Norbert Preining ,

    Thanks for this update how android 7 nougat root Pokemon Go.

  5. Ehab Reda says:

    Hi,

    Can you please fix the links, thanks.

      • Ehab Reda says:

        Hi Norbet,
        I am stuck on the first command!
        I am on N 7 with latest update of October, not rooted whatsoever.
        I did the following:
        – adb reboot bootloader
        Phone rebooted to bootloader
        -fastboot erase recovery
        waiting for devise
        nothing is happening after that for a long time

        Thanks in advance

    • I reverted the blog. Magisk v7 is completely broken. Please see the warning I have added at the top of the page.

  6. nnwwtt says:

    The CJK Japanese-Chinese issue was still present for me in Android 7.

    It’s actually impossible to fix since the affected characters are represented by the same Unicode symbol (thanks, Unihan!) so any renderer always needs an additional language hint or it’ll fallback to default, which is Chinese outside of Japan given the number of speakers.

    I had to manually switch the lines in fonts.xml since the Kanji Fix app can’t yet deal with its changed layout.

    • Hmm, I don’t see this problem. Did you select Japanese in Settings -> Languages & Input? I have there selected as languages: English, Japanese, German, Italian; and it works without a problem – that is, the Japanese version of the Kanjis with same code points in the hangul unification are shown. If you have selected Chinese *and* Japanese, then probably Chinese will win, though.

  7. John Kennedy says:

    Thanks Norbert for sharing this post. I recently bought my Pixel and will try rooting it with this guide and let you know the results. Hope everything will work good:-)

  1. 2016/10/09

    […] it turned out that a combinations of updates has broken my previous guide on playing Pokemon GO on a rooted Android device. What has happened that the October security […]

Leave a Reply to Ehab Reda Cancel reply

Your email address will not be published.

You may use these HTML tags and attributes: <a href="" title=""> <abbr title=""> <acronym title=""> <b> <blockquote cite=""> <cite> <code> <del datetime=""> <em> <i> <q cite=""> <s> <strike> <strong>