Verizon VX6900 - Altell ROM

[jesrush]

Originally Posted by soccerman821

i can recieve pic msg, but not send them.. and ill try that next time i use my gps...

Soccer--great news... I got it sorted out. Now I can receive AND send MMS on my verizon vx6900.

Here is what I did (with help from another thread):

1) Installed Arcsoft 4281 cab and soft reset

2) Go into Messaging \ MMS \ Options \ Servers and create a server just like the one in the attached screenshot. Make it default. Delete any others.

3) Regedit:

[HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\Software\Arcsoft\ArcSoft MMS UA\Config\mm1\WspHeader]

-Delete any X-Whatever-MDN values from OTHER carriers. For example if you flashed an altell ROM, you might have an X-Altell-MDN entry here. Because you're not on Altell, delete it.

-Add a string value
Name= X-VzW-MDN
Value= your ten digit phone number

-Change the following value to these:
User-Agent= utstar67kv1
Accept= application/vnd.wap.multipart.related
Accept-Language= en

4) Soft Reset.

[arianhojat]

Hello all!, my first post here,

Just wondering what exact steps to follow to get GPS and Rev A working and fix any ohter issues that may result afterwards (like based on what i read so far, it seems sending some messages out u need ARCsoft software here).

I am pretty noob to messing with cell phones. But if you give me some instructions, ill follow them exactly .

I see alot of peeps are doing the alltel, is this the prefered ROM with least issues? and then do you need to install a cooked up Mobile 6.1 as someone suggested from another board?

[jesrush]

No matter what you do, you have to flash the altell ROM first to upgrade your radio to support GPS, Rev A etc. If you stop there, you'll have a nice, stable, factory-like phone. Nothing fancy, but it works. Instructions for that upgrade are here... be sure you don't screw up step 8:

http://forum.ppcgeeks.com/showthread.php?t=24979

From that point, you can go on and flash most of the custom ROMs that people have cooked up (as long as they aren't carrier specific). These give you all kinds of customizations, tweaks, enhancements, etc. However they also introduce risk (each time you flash your phone is another opportunity to brick it) and sometimes stability issues (OS/application crashes). It's a matter of preference how far you want to go...

[RJonesUSC]

I'm another noob to all of this and have been curious as well as how to get the GPS and RevA working on my XV6900. Thank you for the link.

After you flash the Altell ROM, other than the GPS and RevA differences, is everything else pretty much the same - TouchFLO still there, mobile Office and all that still installed as if it came directly from VZW?

[arianhojat]

the first step, how do you flash the ROM to the carriers orig one.
I dled the xv6900_RUU_signed.nbh, but not sure what prog to use to run it.

I saw some people say (maybe for another phone) put the .nbh on your phones microSD card,
then press a certain combo and stuff with happen. Some just say run some Bleh_RUU.exe. I was hoping i could run this ROMUpdateUtility.exe utility (in the unzipped Vogue_unlocker_MFG_2.31 folder) then pick the .nbh file to install. But it seems to pick some ROM automatically in step3?

[night_of_dreams]

Originally Posted by arianhojat

the first step, how do you flash the ROM to the carriers orig one.
I dled the xv6900_RUU_signed.nbh, but not sure what prog to use to run it.

I saw some people say (maybe for another phone) put the .nbh on your phones microSD card,
then press a certain combo and stuff with happen. Some just say run some Bleh_RUU.exe. I was hoping i could run this ROMUpdateUtility.exe utility (in the unzipped Vogue_unlocker_MFG_2.31 folder) then pick the .nbh file to install. But it seems to pick some ROM automatically in step3?

the short answer to your question: you can't! there is currently no stock verizon rom for the Touch, and so you can't flash your xv6900 back to stock (not entirely with all the spl, radio and rom to stock) The verzion rom you found in the sticky is only a dumb rom, and is only the OS portion. If you upgrade your radio to those 3.xx gps-enabled version, you SHOULD not go back to the orginal 1.xx version as this may brick your phone. But as a general rule, update the spl first to cokeman's 2.31, then flash the radio to a 3.xx version, and you are good to go to install any gps enabled rom.

[arianhojat]

Yeh i skipped that first step as my phone was already at .36 when i bought it.
So am i good to say that you only update to this 'dummy rom' if you have done previous hacking stuff with your phone aka, if you used Vogue_unlocker.exe and your phone has the SPL of 0.40.coke.

Ill let you all know what happens. Should know by tomorrow if this works.

btw if someone were to update to the dummy rom, they would do it by putting the .nbh file into the RUU folder and running ROMUpdateUtility.exe correct? (which auto. finds a rom in that folder)

[night_of_dreams]

Originally Posted by arianhojat

Yeh i skipped that first step as my phone was already at .36 when i bought it.
So am i good to say that you only update to this 'dummy rom' if you have done previous hacking stuff with your phone aka, if you used Vogue_unlocker.exe and your phone has the SPL of 0.40.coke.

Ill let you all know what happens. Should know by tomorrow if this works.

btw if someone were to update to the dummy rom, they would do it by putting the .nbh file into the RUU folder and running ROMUpdateUtility.exe correct? (which auto. finds a rom in that folder)

not quite sure what you mean by a dummy rom... a dump rom is rom that is "copied" from the device itself and then reconstructed on a pc. Do not confuse these dump rom as the stock rom released by carriers like Sprint or Verizon. From what I understand, you wanted to update your Verizon XV6900 to the new sprint radio 3.37.15 which is contained in the sprint leaked rom. You will need to run that exe file and will update your spl, radio, and the os rom. After all is done, reset at the 3seconds window and not let the sprint customizer run. At this point, your phone's radio is updated to the 3.37.15 radio, and you can go ahead and install other roms or use the kitchen.

This is the only way to update the radio. You can extract the .exe file for the radio part, but I don't know the direction to do that but it's more risky as there's no too many people has update their radio that way.

But either way, prepared not to be able to go back to stock Verizon any time soon until Verizon releases a stock gps-enable rom. As the 2.31 spl, and 3.xx radio are not 100% erased even if you downgrade back to the 0.40 spl and 1.xx radio, and doing so may cause a brick.

Also, the Verizon rom you found now in the sticky is only a dump version, and will not do anything to the spl and radio at all.

Good luck.

[arianhojat]

Whoops tried to use your own language, didnt realize u said 'dumped rom'.

Use the kitchen? whats that refer to? i might have seen it referenced to 'bake' your own roms.

currently surfing the internet on Ghettofreeryder's rom. but phone wont authenticate. tried online, via #228 and #8899.
i got a few text messages for a sec. not sure whats up.

Did you guys call tech support to do it manually or do it via the automated methods?

[arianhojat]

OK got it working had to do it manually with verizon tech support.
Heres my steps... cause i think it would be a nice helping hand for someone else.

I followed http://forum.ppcgeeks.com/showthread.php?t=24979

Heres some sidenotes in my experience to the steps above, so that i maybe someone else could see what worked for me.
1. So i didnt need to do the first step (i think since brand new, hasnt been unlocked obviously by me before hehe, so dont need to revert to that stock ROM)
2. put my left hand thumb on power button, pointer on camera and right hand pushing stylus in. It is at .36 spl, move onto step 3

5. run that file, i actually unzipped it manually with winrar first and was trying to figure out what to run. if just let the self extracting .exe do its thing, itll self extract a temp dir and run the program automatically.
8. when crashed at 11% just wait, itll get back on track.
9. after do that step of "setting the date and time it will say 'Tap the screen to continue'". Right after this, that popup will come up, i was thinking it would do a 3 2 1, or after hitting ok u have 3 seconds. it does not. so just be ready to do it (i did it 1 second after when just started customizing and still worked luckily). i guess he was clear but i emphasize it even more for u .

11.
so i clicked on IE, (might ask to connect to #777), internet works. Phone calls do not, I guess can reauthenticate here. but i wanted to install ghettofreeryder ROM next. So wasnt sure if needed to reauthicate twice then. so i saved reauth till that step. Here in step 11 is kinda confusing as it says, if u r not happy with alltell, goto step 11 (but we are at step 11 hehe), i think he means 12.

12.
So i used Vista700 rom, i dled that. i also dled RUU, which looks like its only needed for gpstest download since the link is bunched up next to it?, but needed it to install the ROM too.

unzip RUU folder, drop the vista700 file 79MB RUU_signed.nbh file into that dir. run ROMUpdateUtility.exe, click next till get to the 3rd step, hit Update button, it will find that vista700 file (u will see on your screeen the name of the ROM, 1.12.latti, versus gpstest which would be 1.12.JD). after u confirmed this hit the next button which will install it. After done installing, and everything loads up, let it customize. i think i was afraid at first cause after calibrating the screen alignment, i had to click things a way more to the right than usual, but it was just cause my screen alignment was off, and had to redo calibration in the settings. i dont think IE worked automatically the first time when i clicked it like before. Clicked on Windows Live on desktop home screen and it connected data connection. i think just clicking stright up on IE worked now also. Maybe was just a blip for me.

Google Maps
Went to Settings -> Phone -> Services ->Location Settings. and switched from e911 to On. i think this allows u to always use GPS, versus just when 911 operators want to find u.
Went to Programs, ran Google Maps which is preinstalled, clicked Menu -> Use GPS. Locked quickly now.

Also just in case installed GPSViewer and let it run which autoset itself to comm 4. Mif Google Maps ever goesnt get a lock by itself easily, I'll use that first to try.

I tried now to get the phone itself working hehe. Phone calls to Activate/authenticate didnt work, aka calls to *228, #8899, and verizonwireless.com 'activate phone' feature didnt work. After *228, it dled something and reset phone. i think i couldnt turn it back on after the update *228 gave me. So i did a soft reset and was able to get it loading again. This happened a couple times (i would do the *228 step and couldnt get back in, so soft-reset it), so it may happen to u.
Anyway phone calls still didnt work; I got a text message to come through my friend sent me 10m later but that was a blip, stopped accepting/sending texts, still couldnt accept/send phone calls.
i think instead of doing *228 yourself, you should just call (800) 922-0204 to talk to tech support. Gave them my order #, and phone number and account password (if u have one for verizon), and they told me to call *228, and instead press 2 instead of 1 like you usually do. It will install and restart your phone(or shut it down, i forget, so turn back on if does that). they then told me to call #832, and then wait till says you are authenticated i think? Anyway u might not be able to do these steps without calling them first. they called me to confirm it worked. and it did.

Reset the Settings->System->Regional Settings to English (US). and also edited HH_0409_WeatherCities.xml to add my city, so Weather shows up instead of Canadian cities ghetto put in there (copy the file via File Explorer to My Documents, ActiveSync, Edit it on your computer). Can also use this which is easy: http://www.derkie.com/files/HH_0409_WeatherCities.rar, EDIT: i dont think i got this to work yet. hehe. any ideas?

I can recieve and send texts, and pics (EDIT: not sure i can send pics actually. ill follow up on that, if i have ghettos rom which MMS thing should i install? the 4821 cab (dl link i saw posted elsewhere to verizonguy.com's file doesnt work) or the rapidshare link posted here earlier for WWE_Composer?). and phone calls, and get google maps working, without any extra settings/stuff (didnt need to install that Arc thing or do MMS settings). I might see how workable the GPS is later this week and see if i need better software like GPSViewer to lock a location. but it seemed quick to me.
Should i upgrade to Titan 3.35.04, what is included on the vista700 ROM, stock alltell radio or the Titan one cooked into that ROM?

btw anyone think it would be nice to have a big Dial/Call button on the Phone, instead of pressing small Talk button to initiate a call.
phew, hopefully this thing is stable as it has been past few hours. If GPS didnt work, i would be pissed my expensive phone couldnt do GPS and switch to Att and get an iphone . Why does the Vx6900 manual say how you can turn GPS on in the location settings, its still disabled right?