Prevent Nougat update for S7 / S7E

[beowulf381]

Okay. Upon further checking, I can see that Shield does disable about 9 or so packages by default. But I can't get that "software update" banner in settings to go away permanently. I can live with it if there's no known way to preclude it by disabling a package. But if there is, please let me know which package to disable. I kind of expect that if it were that easy to do it would be auto-disabled when Shield activates.

Thanks

Try to restart your phone to see if it disappears.

[beatglitch]

Try to restart your phone to see if it disappears.

Nope. It's still there. And it requires anywhere from 1 to 8 taps of the X to go away. I'm guessing it's a matter of your developer figuring out which package produces it. But again, I can live with it for now. It may have to do with the fact that the system still shows there's 1 update available for download. I never allowed that update to download but when I look at the settings list it shows a "1" within an orange circle next to the System Update item and then again at the "download updates manually" item after tapping on it. So I have no idea if there's a way to zero out that "1" somehow. But I bet the banner at the top of settings would go away if that were possible. At least it's no longer forcing the download/schedule download screen to periodically appear over my home screen. That was the main problem.

Another thing that I need to ask is how to enable the search function in Shield's Package Manager? It says "search disabled" above the package list and I want to be able to easily locate the packages I had disabled with PDP. I made a list of their friendly names, but not their file names. With Shield, the Package Manager list is ordered alphabetically by the file names. So that means I have to search for each friendly name by scrolling through the list (if I can't get search to work). Is there a solution for this?

[beowulf381]

This version of shield had to be developed very quickly to protect Note 7 users from the kill updates. So the search function wasn't working correctly with all of the varuious Note 7 models and was deactivated. For this to work and hopefully the notification to disappear you may wait for Shield X (v3) to be finished, it is in beta test phase now.

I'm sure the notification will disappear if you would factory reset your phone and immediately after this re-install Shield V1 or you may go to recovery mode and wipe the cache. But as this will bring some effort, you'd better wait for the new one.

[beatglitch]

This version of shield had to be developed very quickly to protect Note 7 users from the kill updates. So the search function wasn't working correctly with all of the varuious Note 7 models and was deactivated. For this to work and hopefully the notification to disappear you may wait for Shield X (v3) to be finished, it is in beta test phase now.

I'm sure the notification will disappear if you would factory reset your phone and immediately after this re-install Shield V1 or you may go to recovery mode and wipe the cache. But as this will bring some effort, you'd better wait for the new one.

I see. Well, I'd prefer not to do a factory reset because I'd then have to set up a lot of things again. Also, I question which version of marshmallow I would be stuck with ... because if it pulled updates from the server, I'd think they would be for Nougat now. However, I can go into recovery mode and wipe the cache .. I've done that before and it's easy to do. Or can I just reinstall PDP and run it along with Shield? If I can do that, it will give me a way to easily find and disable all of the packages that are hard to locate in Shield's package disabler. Please let me know if that will work until v3 is out of the beta stage.

Thanks

[beowulf381]

It's not recommended to use PDP (or any other disabler) and the shield together, as they can influence each other.
You can try, but maybe you get some unwanted effects.

But you can try ADB drivers and debloater, if you have some time to check out. Debloater will show common name of the packages and the filename together, and search / filter works.
https://forum.xda-developers.com/androi ... t-t2998294

Not sure if you can write to your device with this method (cause of an android security patch), but read and list works for sure.

[RRiVEN]

If the software has already been downloaded to your phone, there is not much you can do besides a factory reset to remove the banner. The phone knows it is there, but it can't do anything

[beatglitch]

It's not recommended to use PDP (or any other disabler) and the shield together, as they can influence each other.
You can try, but maybe you get some unwanted effects.

But you can try ADB drivers and debloater, if you have some time to check out. Debloater will show common name of the packages and the filename together, and search / filter works.
https://forum.xda-developers.com/androi ... t-t2998294

Not sure if you can write to your device with this method (cause of an android security patch), but read and list works for sure.

Ah, it's okay. In addition to the 9 packages that Shield disables by default, I went through the list and was able to locate and disable each of the 29 other packages I'd disabled with PDP. So all is good... it just took some time. Thanks for the info.

If the software has already been downloaded to your phone, there is not much you can do besides a factory reset to remove the banner. The phone knows it is there, but it can't do anything

I can live with the "software update" banner and the small "1" graphic next to the menu item on the settings screen. I'm not really clear, though, since you seem to be suggesting that the Nougat update has already been downloaded by my phones. They have always been set for my approval before downloading updates and the "Download" and "Schedule Download" buttons are still always presented on their update nag screens. So unless the Android software is lying to me about my being able to control whether the downloads happen or not, the Nougat installation image should NOT be on either of my phones. But if your suspicion is correct and Sprint secretly force-fed the images to them, then I'm guessing it means even with version 3 of Shield the settings nag banner and the small "1" in the orange circle will always be there. If I'm not mistaken, a factory reset would put an old version of marshmallow on my phone anyway. If I opted to update the version via the OTA method I'd think it would try and give me Nougat. I'd have to sideload a newer release of marshmallow and then install Shield to get around that likelihood, I'm guessing. Not sure I want to go through the trouble. Thanks.

[Fatwoman]

if you factory reset your phone it will not set you back to later version of marshmallow. it would only erase your data with a blank slate. the marshmallow version is dictated by the firmware. you cannot roll back the firmware with a factory reset, only by flashing odin if the bootloader permits. if you do choose to factory reset your phone, please back up your data.

[juliesdroidsync]

Like you, @beatglitch, I used to loathe factory resets. It does take some time. However, they can also be very beneficial, and give you an opportunity to re-evaluate all the apps you have on your phone - do you really need them, etc. I do one every 6 months or so, just because...

I would also like to point out that for *me*, I used to waste more time and effort trying to figure out how NOT to do a factory reset than the time and effort it would have taken me to just DO the factory reset...

[beatglitch]

if you factory reset your phone it will not set you back to later version of marshmallow. it would only erase your data with a blank slate. the marshmallow version is dictated by the firmware. you cannot roll back the firmware with a factory reset, only by flashing odin if the bootloader permits. if you do choose to factory reset your phone, please back up your data.

That's great, if it's truly what happens. But I have actually done a couple of factory resets and I remember my phones almost immediately pulling in firmware updates. So if you're correct -and I'm assuming you are- I'm a bit puzzled by the fact. I do have odin on my laptop and have successfully flashed G930P firmware to a G930U that I had (trying to get the Sprint Zone app and the NextRadio app to work on it). So I know it can be done that way. But I also know that there's always the risk of bricking my device.

Like you, @beatglitch, I used to loathe factory resets. It does take some time. However, they can also be very beneficial, and give you an opportunity to re-evaluate all the apps you have on your phone - do you really need them, etc. I do one every 6 months or so, just because...

I would also like to point out that for *me*, I used to waste more time and effort trying to figure out how NOT to do a factory reset than the time and effort it would have taken me to just DO the factory reset...

I suppose it depends on how many apps one has installed on their device, how much time one has available, and whether or not one is OCD about having to go through all the apps to set all their preferences again. If I were massively OCD I'd probably have made a master list of all my settings, including all notification sounds and all behavior preferences for each app, so I could just go down the list and restore them after the reset and the subsequent app re-installation. But I suppose I'm not quite that OCD ... or maybe I'm just too lazy

[beatglitch]

Okay, so I installed Shield v1 on my S7 nearly 3 weeks ago. It works fine as far as what I need it to do. But I waited until today to try and install Shield v1 on my other phone, an S7 edge. I followed the exact same preparation and install process that I used for my S7, but there's clearly a problem on the edge. I was not prompted for activation on the edge and there is nothing visible in Shield's package list. As mentioned, I followed the same preparation and install steps that you gave me here (i.e., re-enable all packages in PDP then uninstall PDP and install Shield). For some reason, though, Shield only works on my S7. Is there perhaps a limit of one device per license or something? Please let me know.

[beatglitch]

Okay. Upon further checking, I can see that Shield does disable about 9 or so packages by default. But I can't get that "software update" banner in settings to go away permanently. I can live with it if there's no known way to preclude it by disabling a package. But if there is, please let me know which package to disable. I kind of expect that if it were that easy to do it would be auto-disabled when Shield activates.

Thanks

Never mind! I stopped Shield then cleared its cache and data and it works now. Thanks.

[Raisin]

Guys, what about S Package Disabler posted in this forums? Can I see fotagent and his com.wssyncmldm package name?

Sent from my GT-I9300 using Tapatalk

[novares]

Okay. Upon further checking, I can see that Shield does disable about 9 or so packages by default. But I can't get that "software update" banner in settings to go away permanently. I can live with it if there's no known way to preclude it by disabling a package. But if there is, please let me know which package to disable. I kind of expect that if it were that easy to do it would be auto-disabled when Shield activates.

Thanks

It should go away. Open your disabler through the Shield (you should be using ShieldX now) -- and disable Samsung Push Service.

Report back and let us know if this removes the notification message.

[beatglitch]

I still have the S7. A year ago or so I experimented with PDP again because I decided to upgrade to Android 7.0 and came across claims that PDP would in fact still work to disable software updates on Samsung phones. So I tried PDP again on my S7 edge (my second phone) after upgrading its OS to v7.0 and it worked. I thus decided to do the same on my non-edge S7. I first re-enabled all of the items I'd disabled on it through Shield v0.5.8 and then uninstalled Shield. I then installed PDP. This time, PDP in fact disabled the packages I wanted to disable seemingly without issue. It even disabled the software update services. Thereafter there were no nags and I was able to preserve the OS version and re-enable software updates at will... or so I thought.

Well, as it turned out, while PDP allowed me to disable packages of choice on Android 7.0, it doesn't allow me to re-enable them (except on my S7 edge). I thus cannot upgrade the S7's OS software. Each time I uncheck a tick box in PDP to re-enable a disabled app or service, the tick reappears in the box after restarting or refreshing PDP. But again, that's only on my non-edge S7 (running PDP+ v12.8). My S7 edge is still running PDP v9.8 and it works fine. I tried uninstalling v12.8 on my non-edge S7 and then installing v9.8, but that version won't install on that device for some reason.

I've uninstalled PDP on the non-edge S7 and tried installing Shield v0.5.8 but my login effort fails each time. It renders a code dump that says something about being deprecated. Is it possible that a newer version of Shield will allow me to log in to your system and that doing so will offer me some control to re-enable the disabled packages so I can then upgrade the phone's OS?

Thanks