How to jailbreak the Canadian TCL Flip Go Running Android

tcl-flip-go-canada-jailbreak.md

Flip Go Canada Modding Guide

This guide shows how to mod and root your TCL Flip Go phone and jailbreak it.

Motivation

The current state of flip-phones is sad. I remember when they were open platforms back in the days of Nokia phones. That all changed with the popularity of touch screens. This motivated me to get the current Android feature phones and open them.

Setup

Download

The following versions are tested and working:

1. https://github.com/bkerler/mtkclient/releases/tag/2.0.1.freeze
2. Android Debug Tools (Fastboot) Version 35.0.2-12147458
3. Script from https://github.com/neutronscott/flip2/blob/main/create-boot

Backup

It's extremely important to backup, since if anything goes wrong, good luck fixing it. If you don't backup, you're screwing yourself. Use this guide to backup (don't include the --skip-userdata flag, backup everything!):

https://xdaforums.com/t/backup-full-firmware-rom-of-any-mediatek-device-using-mtk-client-oppo-reno6-5g-mt6877.4406069/

Once you have all the backed up files, you should zip them and store them somewhere safe. Keep boot.bin for later.

Notes

While backing up keep in mind:

1. No difference between brom mode and the default in terms of result.
2. The phone needs to be turned off before plugging it in to back it up.

Jailbreak

![Notice] You can skip step 2 if you want to risk using a random image (pulled from the OEM update servers. There's no guarantee it's the right one).

We need to setup the jailbroken boot.img.

1. Download the create-boot.sh script from neutrons website and at line 28 insert a read command to pause execution.

Modify the script, insert on line 28 a read statement:

mkdir -p ~/flip2/ota && cd $_
magiskboot unpack ../boot.img

Change to:

mkdir -p ~/flip2/ota && cd $_
read -p "Paused execution... Insert payload."
magiskboot unpack ../boot.img

2. When it's at the read command replace the boot img in ~/flip2/boot.img with the boot.bin mentioned earlier.
3. Then press enter and it will continue with the one we set (rather with one that may be incompatible).
4. The neutron.img it creates should be able to be flashed and it should work. It automatically installs magisk as well.
5. Boot into flashboot: mtkclient payload --metamode FASTBOOT
6. Flash: fastboot flash boot boot.img
7. The key step is make sure after using fastboot to flash you do fastboot reboot recovery and delete the cache partition.

Installing Apps

App installation is enabled after flashing neutron.img. In order to install an APK, download it from the browser, go back to the main menu, and click on the notification. Accept all permissions and you should be able to install from there.

Useful Apps

• https://f-droid.org/en/packages/ademar.textlauncher/ - Exposes the full list of apps for convenience. You won't need to use the secret app launcher code. It will ask you to set the default launcher once you install this and try to go back to the main menu. Keep Launcher3 as the main one because this is not a good default launcher. Instead go to Settings>Phone>Key Shortcuts and set this as the up shortcut.
• https://f-droid.org/en/packages/axp.tool.apkextractor/ - Allows you to extract apps (for modding purposes).
• https://f-droid.org/en/packages/io.github.yoshi1123.adbio/ - Allows you to enable/disable ADB since the dial code method was patched and disabled.