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I just received a "Software update" and in the details it says important [sarcasm] stuff like:

Size: 91.45 MB
Improved stability.
[WARNING: The devices will be restarted during the installation process.]
Caution: ... blah blah about you can't use your phone during install.

but it doesn't state which version I'm updating to.

Phone details

Phone: Samsung Galaxy S4
Model: GT-I9505
Android: 4.4.2
Build: KOT49H
Baseband: I9505XXUGNG8
Carrier: unknown

It's secondhand phone, I think German/Austrian because it keeps installing some weird apps with german names on every OS update. I bought it in the UK and currently using it in Hungary.

News / 5.0

When I search for new news articles about S4 and OTA today, I find Android 5.0 Lollipop OTA finally arrives for Galaxy S4 Google Play Edition, there are a few problems with this:

  • I don't think I have Google Play Edition, because I have TouchWiz
  • I don't believe S4 would get 5.0 sooner than my Nexus 7 (1st edition)
  • I cannot believe an 5.0 update would be 90MB...

I'm really looking for some authoritative info on whether it's 4.4.3 or 4.4.4, because I want to avoid 4.4.3. Even the build number of the update would help a lot. By authoritative info I mean that it's possible to find out next time it happens without asking again. Maybe a global list of baseband/build numbers?

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  • 1
    I admit it's annoying that I couldn't even get any info regarding the update on search engine. Searching for size 91.45 MB improved stability samsung galaxy returned nothing :(
    – Andrew T. ♦
    Dec 13, 2014 at 16:40
  • Your updates typically come from the cell carrier. Have you checked their web site?
    – rrirower
    Dec 14, 2014 at 0:05
  • @rrirower the question has a body for a reason, please read the "Phone details" section! Note: I also have an S3 bought from CarphoneWarehouse without SIM, what is the cell carrier there?!
    – TWiStErRob
    Dec 14, 2014 at 0:28

1 Answer 1

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I tried a few methods I could think of:

  • Wireshark the WiFi packets -> nothing
  • adb logcat to see if anything extra info is logged -> nothing
    I found out thought, that most of what we see on the "Update" screen is hard-coded and only the "Improved stability..." part is dynamic.
  • adb pull /cache/fota/update.zip or adb pull /data/fota/update.zip -> requires root

After almost giving up I found http://sammobile.com. The sad thing is that it only works for Samsung phones, which I have luckily. The fact that my phone's origin is German or Austrian and the date the update showed up helped me narrow it down to 12-11-2014 Firmware Updates:

Germany (DBT)                   GT-I9505    GALAXY S4 LTE   4.4.2   I9505XXUGNK4
Germany (Black Edition)(DBT)    GT-I9505    GALAXY S4 LTE   4.4.2   I9505XXUGNG8

and since I already have I9505XXUGNG8, it must be the first one, which is weird because I would swear the color is black like this

Then I checked the carrier's listing: http://www.sammobile.com/firmwares/database/GT-I9505/DBT/ which seems to correspond with the timings of my past received the updates. So I checked my CSC (*#1234#) and found that indeed this is my current version so the update is still 4.4.2.

Edit

I did the update and after checking About device it was indeed updated to I9505XXUGNK4.

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  • This doesn't really answer the question in general, only for Samsungs. I'll leave the question open in case anyone has a better way of telling.
    – TWiStErRob
    Dec 17, 2014 at 16:50

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