Now that the bootloader has finally been unlocked for the Verizon Samsung Galaxy S III, developers can focus on other things now. Namely, ROMs, kernels, mods, and coming up with fixes for bugs. One such bug that’s been plaguing Verizon Galaxy S III users is a wipe bug, which can cause some issues with permissions set improperly.

XDA Recognized Developer PureMotive has written up a guide for those unfortunate enough to run into the bug. As PureMotive explains:

Sometimes when you flash a ROM (TouchWiz or AOSP), there is a risk of the /system and /data partitions not wiping correctly thus leading them to be formatted with R/O permissions rather than R/W. This makes it impossible for the phone to boot up because no data can be written. Not even a typical ODIN flash back to stock or rooted stock will fix this. Using CWM to flash another ROM will yield the same no boot results. Furthermore, the stock recovery will not work and it becomes impossible to perform a factory reset. Sound frustrating? It is.

That about sums up the problem. Thankfully, there is also a solution. Users are instructed to obtain a number of files and then use Odin to get the phone working again. The interesting part comes during the Odin flash. Usually, users are instructed to never tick any Odin boxes except auto-reboot and F. Reset Time. This time, it’s a little different. During the last phase of the flashing process, users will have to tick the Nand Erase All box before flashing the final file. From there, it’s a simple reboot to stock recovery for some factory reset goodness and the phone should be fixed. As PureMotive puts it:

Congratulations, you just saved yourself $600 and a call to Verizon.

For the full instructions and file download links, head over to the original thread.

Got yourself a Galaxy S III on Verizon and getting annoyed by all those presidential alerts and those about severe weather? No one really wants to wake up at 4 in the morning because of a potential flood 50 miles away. Fortunately, you can now disable all of these.

The severe weather alerts can be disabled from the options provided in the stock ROM itself, as pointed out by XDA Forum Member Inous in this forum thread. Just open the stock Messaging app and from its menu, select ‘Emergency Alerts’. Once there, just uncheck all the alerts that you don’t want, and you’re done.

Unfortunately, there is no built-in option to disable the presidential alerts, as they are buried in the settings file for the messaging app. However, you can just disable the stock Messaging app as you would disable any other stock application (Settings -> Applications -> All -> Messaging, and tapping ‘Disable’). However, if you do this, you should consider loading another texting app such as Handcent or Go SMS to replace the missing functionality.

If you would rather stick with your stock messaging app and still disable the presidential alerts, you can do that—as long as your phone is rooted. The method of doing so was shared with us thanks to XDA Forum Member blazera in this thread.

World phones have been growing in popularity. With devices like the Motorola Photon 4G and the HTC Rezound having world phone capabilities, Samsung decided that their latest offering should as well. Thus, the Verizon Samsung Galaxy S III was equipped with dual radios for CDMA and GSM usage. Setting the phone up for world roaming isn’t overly difficult, either.

XDA Forum Member lair12 has written up an in depth tutorial on getting the Verizon Galaxy S III working overseas. It is a little tedious and requires a lot of applications along with a rooted device, but it does not require a lot of technical expertise to get it done. The pre-requisites include:

a1- rooted the phone with stock ROM
a2- use sprint.recovery.image for clockworkmod (others may work as well)
a3- load APN Manager app from Google Play
a4 – load HiAPN Global app from Google Play
a5 – load Ghost Commander app from Google Play
a6 – load Dropbox app from Google Play
a7- load PhoneInfo app from Google Play
a8 – back up APN’s to sd card through HiAPN
a9- edit “apnlist_backup.xml” found at sdcard>HiDroid_Net>HiAPN using Ghost Commander app (select DB text editor to open) and then edit to include your required APN information. Here are two sites to check if you do not know the correct information. What I did is left the US with several options already loaded into the APN file data so I could be ready for several possible providers.

While the steps may seem tedious, it certainly beats having to deal carrying with a traditional dumbphone when traveling oversees? After that, it does get less time consuming. Simply change a couple settings on the phone, and you’re ready to go. To get back to Verizon service, just change the settings back again. Lair12 even adds a short troubleshooting guide in case something goes wrong.

For the full tutorial, go to the original thread.

Despite the best efforts from OEMs, developers at XDA always seem to find a way to hack devices in such a way that the OEMs don’t know about it. Samsung’s method of tracking who flashes what and how many times is the flash counter, which goes up every time something is flashed via Download Mode. For many devices including the Verizon Samsung Galaxy S III, there are ways to reset the counter and make it look as though no flashes have occurred.

Drawing inspiration from a post in AdamOutler’s bootloader unlocking thread, XDA Forum Member enderblue has figured out the ADB commands required to change the flash counter.

So far, this has only been tested on the Verizon Galaxy S III, but could be used on any Galaxy S III with only a few modifications based on the partition set up. The commands required are:

adb shell
su
echo -n ‘\x01′ | dd obs=1 count=1 seek=4193796 of=/dev/block/mmcblk0

The variable x00 being the operative thing to pay attention to. While this can be used to reset the flash counter to zero, users could also have a little bit of fun and make the flash counter whatever they want it to be. Given the number of numbers with symbolic value, it’s not all that bad of an idea. Who wouldn’t want to have their flash counter stuck at 42.

To learn more, head over to the original thread.

The Verizon Samsung Galaxy S III has been disappointing for those expecting unfettered development action. Although there is hope for the bootloader, it’s still discouraging to see the device fall behind its US SGS3 siblings. One piece of good news, though, is that the device is rooted. That means that there are still modifications that can be done such as editing the Earphones Connected feature.

For those who don’t know, the feature activates when headphone are plugged into the Galaxy S III, and provides a short list of headphone-compatible applications (i.e. YouTube, Music Player) in the notification drop down. XDA Forum Member xCaldazar has written up a nifty tutorial on how to modify the feature to show only the apps you want it to or to remove it completely.

There are no recovery-flashable files, which means that the mod must be done manually. This sounds difficult but it really isn’t that bad. Users will need to get SQLite Editor and, of course, be rooted. From there, users will determine which applications they want to include in the Earphones Connected list, open up the launcher.db, copy the package name, then open up the .db file for the Earphones Connected, and paste the package name. Names can also be removed if you don’t want them there. This allows full customization of the Earphones Connected feature. To turn it off entirely, use Titanium Backup—or another similar app—and freeze the contextaware service. Easy as pie.

For the full tutorial, head over to the original thread.