[nonhocapito]

Hello, I am stuck. Please help!

I had previously successfully rooted my armor 9 following Hovatek instructions.

Phone got bricked after installing the wrong magisk module.

Decided to install an updated firmware from Ulefone (20210519).

Used the SP tool from Ulefone, all went well.

Then I moved on to root it, using the actual SP flash tool 5.2, but red state happened.

Here's what I did:

1. extracted vbmeta.img and boot.img from new firmware
   
2. patched boot.img with magisk 24.2 (ticked 'patch vbmeta' also, although not sure what that means)
   
3. flashed the old vbmeta.img from hovatek I had used with the previous rooting (figured it's just an empty file)
   
4. rebooted - red state - stuck in a loop
   
5. reinstalled vbmeta from firmware, all works okay
   
6. try flashing only patched boot.img
   
7. rebooted - red state - stuck in a loop!!
   
8. repeat step 5, try flashing both vbmeta and boot.img at the same time
   
9. rebooted - red state - stuck in a loop...
   

So, what is it? The new firmware cannot be rooted this way?
Am I doing anything wrong?

Forget about it. Like an idiot I had forgotten to unlock the bootloader.

I did, and it works now.

Question: for the purpose of rooting, is it irrelevant whether the user unlocks the bootloader via fastboot and unlocking via Developer Options?

[hovatek]

Forget about it. Like an idiot I had forgotten to unlock the bootloader.

I did, and it works now.

Question: for the purpose of rooting, is it irrelevant whether the user unlocks the bootloader via fastboot and unlocking via Developer Options?

OEM Unlocking in Developer options (normally) doesn't unlock bootloader; it only permits you to unlock via fastboot