Mi Mix 2
Complete newbies guide: Upgrading Mi Mix 2 from China ROM to xiaomi.eu ROM
Having never flashed a ROM before, I found that a lot of the documentation is fragmentary, hard to understand and a lot of it assumes that you understand certain concepts - which I didn't. So as I went along to (finally) succesfully install this awesome ROM from stock China ROM, I documented it all in a hopefully easier to understand manner, with all the steps you need. It might look like a lot, but it's not that bad really. Hopefully this will get more people using this ROM!
Unlocking the phone
- Register your mi account on www.xiaomi.com
- at account.xiaomi.com set up your recovery phone number under security. Under personal info, set your name (to a nickname). You should receive an account verification code per text message / sms. You don't need to have the sim in your mi phone, but can have it in your old phone.
- In Mi App store search for Google. Install the result
- Set up google account and open Google Play Store
- Install VPN Turbo (red icon with rabbit)
- Start up VPN Turbo, select China and put the slider on Green. Wait a bit for connection.
- Set up developer mode on the phone: settings -> My device -> all specs -> click 5 or 6 times on MIUI version
- settings -> additional settings (under system and device) -> developer options -> enable OEM unlocking and then Mi Unlock status: Add account and device (NB without a VPN connection to China, this will give you a 1008 error.
- visit http://unlock.update.miui.com and fill in (this is where you need the name and number from the account you set up with xiaomi.com). You should receive a verification code per text message / sms. You don't need to have the sim in your mi phone, but can have it in your old phone. This code is valid for 5 minutes!
- Wait for text message / sms from xioami granting you permission. visit http://en.miui.com/unlock and click on the unlock now button. You can now download the unlock tool.
Step 1. Download the Mi Unlock app to PC, rightclick on miusbdriver and run as administrator. Install the drivers. start up the miflash_unlock utility after unzipping and sign in with your Mi Account; Step 2. Shut down your phone manually, and hold Volume down key and Power button to enter Fastboot mode; Whilst the fastboot logo is shown Step 3. Connect your phone to PC using USB cable and click "Unlock" on the PC. Then unlock anyway all the warnings. If the unlocker fails with an error "mi unlock couldn't unlock after X hours of trying to unlock the device" WAIT for the amount of hours (you need to wait 72 hours after receiving the unlock text message / sms from Xiaomi). If you don't wait and keep trying to unlock you will have to wait much much longer due to spamming!
Installing the xiaomi.eu ROM
- Go to https://xiaomi.eu/community/forums/miui-weekly-rom-releases.103/ and open the highest thread. In the download weekly links, you can search for "mix2" and download the rom. Notice in the table that the Mi Mix 2 is codenamed chiron. Scroll down to "ROMs for devices with locked bootloader:" I found the instructions to be somewhat confusing, so here is a rewrite.
- Download the chiron file from TWRP Recovery Zip links. Unzip it into the unzipped Mi Unlock app. It will contain a file twrp.img.
- Open a command prompt and cd to the directory of your unzipped Mi Unlock app (eg. cd c:\users\username\Desktop\Xiaomi\)
- type the following into the command line:
fastboot flash recovery twrp.img
Reboot the phone into fastboot mode whilst connected to the USB port. It will say something like:
< waiting for device > target reported max download size of 536870912 bytes sending 'recovery' (26892 KB)... OKAY [ 0.595s] writing 'recovery'... OKAY [ 0.113s] finished. total time: 0.709s
Now type the following into the command prompt:
fastboot boot twrp.img
It will say something like the following:
downloading 'boot.img'... OKAY [ 0.594s] booting... OKAY [ 0.015s] finished. total time: 0.609s
On the phone you will receive a menu. The first thing to do is select Wipe and format the data partition. After doing this, reboot the phone (unsure whether to install the twrp things or not. I did anyway). You need to do this due to the partition being encrypted and wiping it gets rid of the encryption.
- Now in the command prompt rerun the last command (fastboot boot twrp.img) and reboot the phone to fastboot mode. You get the twrp menu. Copy the downloaded ROM zip file somewhere on the phone. Select Install on the phone and then choose the ROM zip file you downloaded. It could be you get 2 red errors during installation but this isn't something to worry about. After installation, reboot the phone.
- For some reason after doing this I only got the Mi Logo and the Android text with the buttons underneath for a while. I fixed this by going into fastboot mode and running the commandline (fastboot boot twrp.img) and then wiping the data partition again and rebooting. It then went into the miui 9 opening screen.
Some stuff to think about doing afterwards
I found the launcher was dreadful at organising the icons - none of the shaking stuff in MIUI 8 works, there is no app drawer, you can't search. If you're looking for a useful, lightweight, no fuss launcher, I recommend evie launcher. I haven't found a homescreen replacement yet, where you can do better than 19 characters of owner information and put widgets (eg the weather, local time and home time, etc) on. If Whatsapp notification sounds don't play (didn't on mine), then set to another sound and they will. No, Whatsapp has no way of turning the camera upside down when you are video calling.