Even after wiping data and factory reseting, I am unable to boot with vbmeta flashed with the specific flags. I don’t really have the resources to test though because my teracube is my daily driver. I narrowed it down to that because once I flashed vbmeta without flags, my phone was able to boot normally, but my phone was not able to boot when I flashed the magisk zip.
Edit: For a bit of clarification, after flashing vbmeta with the flags, I got a message saying my phone could not be booted because system files were corrupted. This was after a complete reflash.
Please make sure you’re using the latest fastboot binary available on Google’s platform-tools page. This will only happen with older fastboot binaries that do not support said flag. You should see a message like so when you do use the flags:
Rewriting vbmeta struct at offset: 0
If you don’t see this message, you know that your fastboot exec is at fault.
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Hi Everyone! Thanks for this tutorial! Magisk keeps crashing for me. I wasn’t able to push the app-debug.zip to /sdcard/ . I get a message saying " remote couldn’t create file: Required key not available". In order to try to get around this I pushed it to /etc/ instead and installed it from that location using twrp. The install was successful, and Magisk shows up in my app drawer; however it doesn’t load and I get a message that it keeps crashing. I then tried to run adb install app-debug.apk. I got this message: “adb: failed to run abb_exec. Error: closed adb: retrieving the default device installation mode failed: closedPerforming Streamed Install”
To be clear I’m using powershell to issue these commands and I’m using .\adb before each one. I love this phone, but I can’t get photos through MMS because I need to edit my APNs. This is why I’m trying to root. Any suggestions you may have would be super appreciated. Cheers!
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Hey @ifbermeo! Welcome to the community.
That’s interesting, “Required key not available” usually indicates decryption failure. Could you show me the log of TWRP? (Just tap the third navigation button in TWRP, on the right). Also, did you have any password set on lock-screen?
The Magisk crash is easily fixed by installing the APK after flashing Magisk. And even if you do have a crashing app, you’re almost there! Your device is more-or-less rooted at this point. It’s possible that there may be an issue with either your adb binary, or even adb authorization in Android. Regardless, you can also just copy the app-debug.apk to your device’s storage and install it from a file manager.
I will play around and look through to see if there are issues with decryption on my end with different lockscreen password types.
Thanks!
First, I know nothing about rooting and the processes used to do it. The guide in this thread seems very complete, but I would like to know what the steps are doing along the way. Is there a novice readable reference that you can recommend to fill in the blanks?
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I was getting the same error, so I used the vbmeta in the stock firmware since @AgentFabulous said it was the same. Maybe the vbmeta-2e-stock.img has a problem. @AgentFabulous, please confirm.
To get the vbmeta.img from the stock firmware, just download and extract the files from the zip file in step 2 at the begging of the guide. The command would change to fastboot --disable-verity --disable-verification flash vbmeta vbmeta.img
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Hey Agent Fab, thanks so much for posting this guide. It’s refreshing to see a dev team so responsive and willing to help consumers use their devices to the fullest.
I have a problem: I’ve followed this guide a few times and have verifiably rooted my Teracube 2e using TWRP and Magisk. However, my problem (in brief; it would take quite a bit to explain exactly everything I went through) is that after rooting and connecting my phone to my network, the phone cannot reboot, and when I attempt to do so it will either boot loop on the Orange State screen or go to fastboot instead.
I’m using a Windows 10 PC and am following the guide to the letter. No abnormalities occur in the rooting process. My network is Google Fi; I’m aware that they’re not supported but since I connect to the network successfully every time I really don’t think that’s the issue. Any suggestions/more info I can provide?
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Did some more testing, seems like there are a couple of issues with secure keyguard and also some colors. Will look into it as soon as I get back to TWRP work. For now, you can push the file to /cache, or /tmp, or even remove your lockscreen password to decrypt with default_password. I will update the guide accordingly.
While I have tried to explain as best as I could, do feel free to ask anything you don’t understand. I’d be happy to help you understand and learn 
Very strange, both files are identical for me:
However if that works for you, awesome! Perhaps someone with the same issue can fix it that way. I will add it to the guide.
Interesting, I don’t have any weird reboot issues. Could you try the following?:
- Reboot the device
- Let it loop on the boot logo (orange state screen), or better yet, have it reboot to fastboot by itself
- Once you feel the issues have happened as per your description, hold power up to load the boot menu
- Navigate to recovery
- Connect your phone to your PC, in a cmd/powershell/terminal, run:
adb pull /proc/last_kmsg
adb pull /sys/fs/pstore
Note: Booting into Android before pulling the log will replace the kmsg with Android’s messages when you reboot to recovery next, thus removing the required logs.
(As the name suggests, its the last kmsg/kernel-message log)
If you do boot into Android before you can get into recovery, do the following:
adb shell
su
cp /proc/last_kmsg /sdcard/
cp -r /sys/fs/pstore /sdcard/pstore
exit
adb pull /sdcard/last_kmsg
adb pull /sdcard/pstore
Explanation for anyone curious: You may read more about last_kmsg and pstore here and here. These are kernel logs and are not usually accessible to you, the user. However, with Magisk and TWRP, it’s possible to access these files.
This process will pull the last kernel messages to your current working directory. You can either DM this to me, or email us at devs@myteracube.com. Do remember to mention this thread/link your reply in the message.
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Is there a way to root the 2e without flashing the system and resetting it?
Hello! I finished rooting, thank you for the guide! Just wanted to provide a few more data points. I also had the problem of the “vbmeta-2e-stock.img” not working properly, it was resolved by following @Ylvinzk instructions to use the strictly stock firmware.
Also, another datapoint, I have found lately that Windows 10 seems to not play nice with a lot of Android drivers. I had to manually update the “Android Bootloader Interface” and/or “Android Fastboot Interface” drivers every time I attempted to use fastboot, etc. Not sure why.
Anyhow, thank you very much for your help, it seems to be working great so far!
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Hi there,
now there are 4 Teracube 2e in my family and i am asking myself, how about OTA-updates after rooting the phone?
Is it planned to support that, with the regular android-updates?
Cheers
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Excellent guide - I was able to root my device successfully without too much trouble. A few things I ran into:
First, I downloaded the latest Android platform tools from Google. However, I kept getting weird errors trying to use adb… it turns out that even though I was running the latest binary, I also had my distribution’s older version installed and there seemed to be some conflict there (some environment variable set wrong, or something). I completely removed the distribution-provided packages and that solved that problem.
Second, as others have noted, the vbmeta-2e-stock.img provided didn’t work and I had to extract it from the stock firmware package.
Third, after flashing Magisk, I rebooted and tried to run the app, but I got an “error parsing package” even after pushing the APK. However, I waited around 10 minutes and the app started working… I guess even after adb install finishes, it takes a while for the installation to actually complete.
Maybe this stuff is obvious to Android wizards, but hopefully it helps someone…
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When I boot into twrp I can’t see my sdcard (external) or usb type-c stick. Can you confirm this? Can anyone tell me if it’s realistic to fix this?
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I’m sorry i don’t have an answer to that, but isn’t it possible to just copy whatever you want to flash to the internal memory once you’re in TWRP? This has always worked for me.
Struggling with the last step (getting Magisk to launch). I’ve gone through the entire process twice and receiving the same results. I can see the Magisk app on the home screen, click on it and receive the message “Upgrade to full Magisk to finish the setup. Download and install?” I select OK but then after a couple of seconds get an error of “There was a problem parsing the package.”
Like others (@Ylvinzk, etc.), I didn’t have any success with the vbmeta-2e-stock file so used the vbmeta file from the stock firmware, but otherwise directions were followed exactly. I’ve gone through the Troubleshooting steps to no avail. Even waited 10+ minutes like @Thomas noted in his feedback.
Any help would be so appreciated! This is my first go at rooting a device and am really looking forward to learning and experimenting.
Update: Magisk manager has been merged into Magisk. Download it from github.
Hello
I would suggest you to download and install magisk manager from github.
And then follow the instructions.
Hi there it seems that after this step and before I root my device, I get the message
Carrier Services keeps stopping
fastboot --disable-verity --disable-verification flash vbmeta vbmeta-2e-stock.img
fastboot reboot
I’ve reverted to the stock vbmeta and recovery.img from the Teracube_2e_06_2020.zip but that doesn’t seems to have fixed the issue.
TWRP recovery also seems to behave weirdly with a pattern password enabled for the default android user:
- with a pattern password present, TWRP asks to decrypt
User [0]however the password for the Android user does not seem to work. - Disabling the pattern from the Android security settings allows me to bypass the issue
This has all happened after a bootloader unlock, factory reset, and before rooting the phone right after TWRP is flashed to recovery.
EDIT:
factory reset reset with 4 digit pin also seems to have the TWRP password issue.
EDIT2:
It seems that encryption was persisting after factory reset.
fastboot format userdata finally fixed the encrypted user 0 issue.
I had been using fastboot erase userdata previously.
EDIT3:
Still getting a flashing yellow and blue “decrypt data” prompt in TWRP that does not allow me to enter the correct password, grasping at straws here.
It seems magisk and magisk manager have been merged in the latest release (v22). Wasn’t that working? Reason I ask is that downloading magisk from non-github sources is not recommended.
Not an option too - internal memory encrypted 