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Install Android Lollipop On At&t Galaxy S4 Active I537, Root & Enable WiFi Tethering

With the Galaxy S4 Active, Samsung started its new line of Active series and introduced a new trend. The Galaxy S4 Active carries some specifications from the original Galaxy but is waterproof and dust resistant. The device comes under the umbrella of At&t in the United States with the model number SGH-I537 . Good new for the At&t Galaxy S4 Active owners is, At&t has started updating this device to the long awaited Android 5.0.1 Lollipop. The update is available through OTA, but if you haven’t got it yet or you are a power user with a rooted device, you may have not updated your device yet and some of you may want to update the device manually. You may also want to root your device right away. In the on-going guide we have brought you the detailed method to update your At&t Galaxy S4 Active SGH I537 to Android 5.0.1 Lollipop I537UCUCOC6 firmware and root it.

The following guide will take you through two different methods. You can install stock Android 5.0.1 Lollipop on your S4 Active without root, and you can also install rooted Android 5.0.1 Lollipop on your Galaxy S4 Active. You will be able to enable WiFi tethering as well on your device running this latest Android 5.0.1 Lollipop. This is completely up to you. Let’s go through the method to install pure stock Lollipop firmware first.

Early Preparations:

This guide is intended for At&t Galaxy S4 Active SGH-I537 owners only.
Your device’s battery should be charged at least over 50% to avoid power issues during the flashing process.
Make sure that you’ve already backed all of your important contacts, call logs, sms messages. Also backup your important media content.
Do not forget to backup EFS of your Galaxy S4 Active. We also recommend backing up Nandroid if you’ve flashed a custom recovery on your device.
Non of these methods will void the warranty of your phone or trip the Knox counter. Follow the instructions carefully, and make sure that you do everything on your own responsibility. In case a mishap occurs, we or the device manufacturers may not be held responsible.

Install Android 5.0.1 Lollipop Stock On Your Galaxy S4 Active I537 [Stock – No Root]

The method to update your device to pure stock Android 5.0.1 Lollipop is pretty easy if you meet the requirements, but if you do not, it may get a little longer. In order to install this stock firmware on your device, you must be running stock Android 4.4.2 KitKat based on (NH3) build. You cannot apply this update if your device is running a newer firmware then the NH3 firmware. If your device is running on an older build number, you can easily update it to NH3 firmware. The method to update to NH3 is also listed below.

If your device is already running the NH3 firmware, you may skip the first 5 steps.
To update to NH3 firmware, we will first flash NE3 firmware on the device and then we will apply NH3 OTA update through stock recovery.

Download SGH-I537UCUCNE3_v4.4.2_ATT_ALL.zip
Flash the NE3 firmware on your At&t Galaxy S4 Active using this guide.
Now download NE3toNH3.zip & unzip it. Find the 2400258.cfg file and rename it to update.zip.
Now copy the update.zip file to your phone’s external SD card.
Now boot your phone into stock recovery. To do so turn off your device completely. Now turn it on by pressing and holding Volume Up + Home + Power Key. Leave the keys as your phone turns on.
Now using the Volume Up & Down keys select the options “apply update from external storage > select the update.zip file > select yes” and wait for the file to be flashed now.
Once done, download this NH3toLollipop.zip and unzip it. You will find the 2400258.cfg file here as well, rename it to update.zip and copy it to your phone’s external SD card. Make sure that you have already flashed the NH3 update.zip file prior to flashing this file.
Now once again boot your device into recovery mode and using the method in step 6, flash this update.zip file as well.
Once done, your device should be running on pure stock Android 5.0.1 Lollipop OC6 firmware.

How To Install Android 5.0.1 Lollipop On Your At&t S4 Active Keeping Root

This method will help you to update your At&t S4 Active to Android 5.0.1 Lollipop pre-rooted firmware. This method will not void the Knox counter and warranty of your phone. You need to have your device rooted prior to use this method. You do need to be on a specific firmware to apply this update, you can use this method on whatever firmware you are running currently on your device.

Root your At&t Galaxy S4 Active using Towelroot – [The method linked here is for Galaxy S5, but the same method will work for your At&t S4 Active].

InstallFlashFire app, you must follow these steps to install FlashFire.
- Join Android-FlashFire community on Google+.
- Now open FlashFire Google Play Store link and hit “Become a beta tester”.
- It will take you to the installation page now, you can install it easily.
- You may install it using the FlashFire APK if you’re having difficulties with the procedure explained above.
Now download the firmware file I537_OC6_Stock_Rooted_ROM.zip.
Copy the downloaded .zip file to your phone’s SD card now.
Now open the FlashFire App that you just installed on your device.
Tap “Agree” to terms and conditions and allow the application for root privileges.
Tap the “+” button twice in the lower right corner of FlashFire in order to bring up the actions menu.
Now tap “Flash OTA or Zip” and select the I537_OC6_Stock_Rooted_ROM.zip file. FlashFire will now scan the file.
In the next screen, leave the Auto-mount option un-checked and press the tick mark on the top-right corner.
Do not touch anything else, follow these instructions to the letter.
Once you’re done with all this, you’re good to go now. Tap the “lightening” button on the lower-left corner now.
That’s all. Sit back and wait for the application to do the job. It will take around 10-15 minutes for your device to reboot and it will be running on rooted Android 5.0 Lollipop.

How To Enable WiFi Tethering On Your At&t Galaxy S4 I537 Running Lollipop

Download I537_OC6_TetherAddOn.zip and copy it to your phone’s SD card.
Open FlashFire and Tap the “+” button on the lower right corner.
Select the “Flash OTA or Zip” option and select the TetherAddOn.zip file. FlashFire will scan the file.
Do not touch any other options in FlashFire and tap the lightening button now.
Wait for a while till FlashFire flashes the file and reboots your device.
You can now enable WiFi hotspot on your At&t Galaxy S4 Active. That’s all.

That’s all with this guide. If you face any kind of issues following any of the methods listed above, make sure that you reach us out through the comment box below. We will try our best to help you out. Thank you.

Credits: Rooted Firmware: muniz_ri | Stock firmware: Devo7v

This post was last modified on May 10, 2015 8:48 pm

Usama M

Usama is a software engineer by profession and at TechBeasts.com he uses his expertise to solve everyday consumer tech problems with his main areas of interest being Android, iOS and Windows.

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View Comments

Nic Pap says:

May 23, 2015 at 1:13 am

does not look like is possible to root it after having installed lollipop ota. Am I correct?
- um009 says:
  
  May 24, 2015 at 10:12 am
  
  @nicpap:disqus Right.
T. T. says:

June 27, 2015 at 6:54 pm

I flashed my Galaxy S4 Active (i537) from Lollipop 5.0 to Kitkat 4.4.2 using Odin because Lollipop was doing weird things such as randomly opening apps, and sucking up battery life at odd times (like right after I just closed out several apps, powered off screen and went to sleep with 3/4 battery life only to wake up to a dead phone) anyway, figured getting root control would be the answer. So I tried to follow these steps but as luck would have it there are NO QUICK FIXES.

1) After going back to 4.4.2 I rooted my phone with Towelroot, which I absolutely don't trust (I have my reasons).

2) I scrounged around the internet and found a link to Flash Fire and installed it as the link in this site takes you nowhere. I wasn't expecting much and believe me I wasn't disappointed. Probably a good reason you can't get Flash Fire at Google Play or connect with the "beta testing group".

3) Installed the OC6 Stock Rooted Rom to my SD card - things were looking up.

Here's what happens, click on Flash Fire and you think it's about to work then nothing, your back to whatever screen you were looking at before initiating Flash Fire. It might be an awesome program in the future (NOT) but my guess is that it has been scraped. I downloaded an awesome app called FLASHIFY from Google Play which seemingly does exactly what Flash Fire was claimed to do. Isolated the zip file on my SD card and proceeded to "flash" my hopes and dreams to my S4 only to be sorely disappointed as my phone entered the dreaded boot loop! I was able to get into recovery mode and reboot into 4.4.2 Kitkat. I've since re-flashed Kitkat with Odin to eliminate any trace of Towelroot and have used adb to gain superuser access. Gonna sit on Kitkat for a while until I or someone else figures out a better way to tackle this problem.
lnder says:

October 20, 2019 at 12:57 pm

https://play.google.com/apps/testing/eu.chainfire.flash is the correct link for flashfire
Sasha-Gaye Gray says:

August 6, 2015 at 8:56 pm

this always fail for me
Dave Lefebvre says:

October 25, 2015 at 4:22 am

Would you please explain to me how you rename a .cfg file to .zip...... I have never been able to do that using the conventional renaming feature. What is your secret please!
Jëssë W Álcëñdør says:

June 19, 2016 at 11:20 pm

when you download this folder >> SGH-I537UCUCNE3_v4.4.2_ATT_ALL.zip >>what file exactly do you use when in recovery mode?
- um009 says:
  
  June 29, 2016 at 9:12 pm
  
  @jsswlcdr:disqus you use this entire file as 1 zip file in recovery mode. Best of luck.
josh says:

November 9, 2016 at 6:23 pm

thanks so much saved my phone after hours of searching
Sus. Police Department (SPD) says:

December 10, 2016 at 4:00 pm

what do i do with the files in step 1. .i need to update to 4.2 kit kat
before goin 5.0 where do i put those files or do with them?
- um009 says:
  
  December 14, 2016 at 8:11 pm
  
  @JohnDoe11209:disqus The guide explains everything. Please read it carefully and follow the method.
  - Sus. Police Department (SPD) says:
    
    December 15, 2016 at 10:20 pm
    
    if so, badly written..
    - ci2 says:
      
      September 19, 2017 at 10:06 pm
      
      yeah, step 1 doesn't make sense. I didn't want to make any assumptions and brick my phone so I used Odin to do the NE3 update. Other than that, the rest worked as described.
tinktink89 says:

October 20, 2019 at 6:03 pm

i cant get towel root to work says phone not supported
Active root does the same thing
any idea as to why this is happening?
i have a samsung galaxy s4 active SGH-I537 at&t