Flashing TWRP to MTK device with SP Flash tool not working

Question

I need to root a custom MTK Android device. This device does not have volume keys at all so unlocking bootloader is impossible.(If anyone knows differently please educate me)



What I did previously that worked was use SP Flash Tool to flash over just the custom recovery. Then I would 'adb reboot recovery' and boom... there's my TWRP and I can easily root. We recently got some software upgrades so I flashed them over (complete ROM), device works great. But now, when I flash over my custom recovery and boot to it I get the native android recovery. It flashes successfully, it's definitely the right recovery.img... how is this possible. Any advice would be MOST appreciated.


— RbK | Sources

Answer

When you boot directly into TWRP after flashing TWRP patches the stock system recovery-from-boot.p file by renaming (modifying) it:



rename"/system/recovery-from-boot.p", "/system/recovery-from-boot.bak"h



This prevents the system from replacing twrp with stock recovery.



Simplifying the process there are a couple of files involved. First, the install-recovery.sh is called by the init.rc at boot. If there is an update to recovery or an issue then the install-recovery.sh calls for the recovery-from-boot.p (the patch) to patch the recovery and boot.img.


— Bo Lawson | Sources

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