Thursday 5 September 2013

Nokia 808: remove tethering/JoikuSpot restrictions for USA

This is a short tutorial about how to enable JoikuSpot/Wi-Fi-tethering on the Nokia 808 PureView, in countries where it is usually blocked (e.g. USA).
I am getting asked about this modification a lot, which is why I decided to write a tutorial about it.

If you are running "The One Reloaded" custom firmware on your 808, you do not have to apply this, my Mod is already integrated in there!

This tutorial is for users of different custom firmwares or (hacked) original firmwares only.

There are different ways to apply this Mod on your phone...
Two of them require you to flash via Phoenix, which will reset your phone.
The third way allows you to keep all your data and simply add the Mod to your phone manually.

via custom firmware

Installing my custom firmware "The One Reloaded" on your 808, is the way I recommend ;)
My custom firmware comes with lots of modifications besides unlocking tethering, for a full list, take a look at the changelog.

By the time of writing this tutorial, v4.2.0 is the latest version. You can find the full release notes here.
A tutorial about how to flash your phone, is available here.

via flashing (OFW's & different CFW's)

This method also requires you to flash your phone.
You can use those instructions to modify and flash Nokia's original firmware or any other custom firmware.

This is what you need for this method:
Additional step for original firmwares
If you intend to modify a original firmware by Nokia, you will have to unlock the CORE first.
In all (working) custom firmwares, this is already done and you can skip this step!
  • simply open your CORE file in NokiaCooker and click "Unlock ROFS" in the top menu bar
  • change all values in the pop up window to "2C" and confirm by clicking "Ok"
  • save the changes by clicking "Save Firmware" and close the file
Unlocked CORE

Steps for all firmwares
This is how you implement the mod into your ROFS2.
  • open your ROFS2 in NokiaCooker
  • navigate to ROFS2\private\10202be9\
    • drag my modded "101f8e44.txt" into this folder, it will overwrite the original file automatically
  • save and close your ROFS2
Tethering Modification

Now that you are done modifying your firmware, all you need to do is flash it to your phone.

applying the Mod manually (without flashing)

For this method, your phone needs to be hacked.
This tutorial could be useful in case you need assistance to hack your phone:
Symbian-Developers.net: how to hack your Symbian device

If your phone is hacked and you have "RomPatcher" and a 3rd party file browser (e.g. Xplore) installed, proceed with those steps:
  • first of all you need the modification itself, download it from here
    • extract and copy the file somewhere to your phone
  • open ROMPatcher+ and activate the “open4all” patch
  • use the 3rd party file browser to copy the mod to this location:
    • C:\private\10202be9\101f8e44.txt
  •  check “C:\private\10202be9\persists\” and search for a file called “101f8e44.cre”
    • if the file exists, delete it! if there is no such file, proceed with the next step...
  • restart your phone and enjoy JoikuSpot!

Support

Those instructions were successfully tested by users coming from the USA.
If you can not get JoikuSpot running, feel free to ask for help in the comment section below!

If you are a Symbian modder yourself, you are allowed to use this modification in your own custom firmware.
(please remember to provide proper credits if you do!)

Feedback of successful attempts or suggestions about how to improve my tutorial are welcome too of course ;)

10 comments:

  1. simple and it works. Thanks for the help...

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  2. You solved and perfected my mobile experience! THANK YOU!!!!

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  3. great to hear!
    thanks for your feedback ;)

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  4. This works fine for a bit for me, but after about 5 or so minutes it stops. I go and check the files behind the scenes and it recreated the one file I deleted and modify the patch.
    Any ideas on how to deal with that issue.
    thanks for all you do.

    ReplyDelete
  5. Hi Herb,
    The cre file gets recreated, that is normal... when it gets recreated, it will be based on my modified txt, so no worries there.


    Can you tell me how exactly it stops?
    Can you restart JoikuSpot after it stopped?
    How much data/traffic are you using in those 5min?

    What network are you on?

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  6. Sorry for the delay. I hadn't realize you had responded.
    When it stopped working, I was unable to search the web.
    So I then shut down Joikuspot and relaunch it and the error
    I got before I applied your fix came back again. I'll lauch Joikuspot,
    it then asks me which access point I wish to use. After I select it
    an error come up as saying "unable to start Joikuspot.
    I'm using AT&T network. Able to launch the program but I get that
    error each time I attempt to connect to that access point.

    ReplyDelete
  7. Hi Herb,
    "unable to start JoikuSpot" is an error that can also mean your internet connection is already in use on your phone...


    do you have any apps installed that always run in background?
    e.g. WhatsApp, Battery Monitor, etc.?

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  8. After I applied this mod, the voice search in Maps doesn't work anymore. I get a message that my current language is not supported. Any advice on how to reverse this mod?

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  9. I REALLY wanted this to work for me :) I used the "Applying the Mod manually (without flashing)" method and I copied 101f8e44.txt into the C:\private\10202be9\ directory and I deleted 101f8e44.cre from C:\private\10202be9\persists\ and restarted the phone and started up JoikuSpot but I still get the same message "Unable to start JoikuSpot" I can use JoikuSpot with no problem on my E7 but on my 808 it just won't work. I don't have any active connections and there are no programs running in the background. I'm on AT&T in case you're curious. Thanks!

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