Optimization of Blackview BV9900 Pro

The Blackview BV9900 Pro is a very good outdoor smartphone with very good hardware specifications. Unfortunately the software is not running very well. This is a guide, how I got my phone properly working and got rid of most software proplems. Anyhow, I am not responsible, if you will damage your phone! You are continuing at your own risk! You will lose the ability of OTA updates and your warranty may be void! By the way, all your data will be lost when unlocking the bootloader! You should have a backup in place!

If you follow this guide, you should get a well working rooted BV9900 Pro with MicroG (via Nanodroid) and mostly debloated. In this guide I am working with official EEA firmware version BV9900Pro_EEA_S900AA_V1.0_20201105V07. Blackview uploaded this version to MEGA and it can be found here. Remember, do not trust any random links! Check the source and link to non-EEA-version here. Before you flash this firmware, dial *#8615# and check, if your fingerprint shows Goodix or sunwave. If it shows Goodix stop now and do not follow this guide any more, since fingerprint will stop working, if you upgrade to Android 10 and I am not sure, if this guid will work for Android 9!

If you have some improvement suggestions or questions, you can open an issue / pull request or let me know in this thread on xda-developers.

Prerequirements

Make sure you have a working installation of adb and fastboot! If you use Ubuntu, you can easily install it by running

sudo apt -y install adb fastboot

If you are using Windows, maybe you also have to install the MTK drivers.

Install SP-Flash tool

First of all, you should install SP-Flash tool for upgrades and backups and have the right Scatter file by hand (which can be found in the firmware or here). If you want to backup your device, open option.ini and in the [ReadBack] section change ShowByScatter to true:

[ReadBack]
ShowByScatter=true

Preparations for backing up the data partition (not mandatory)

Be aware: If you include the data partition in your backup, the backup will take about 50 minutes and the backuped data partition will be 111 GB. Since the partition is encrypted, it is not possible to truncate the backup. If you do not want to include your data partition in your backups, you can safely skip this section.

The default scatter file will not cover the whole data partition. If you do a dump with default Scatter file, only a few bytes will be saved and the recovered partition won't be readable. The phone will do a factory reset, if the data partition is not readable.

If you want to backup the data partition open the Scatter file, search for line

partition_name: userdata

and proceed further to the next line starting with partition_size:. This should be at line number 745. Usually it is given the value 0xc0000000 there. Change this line to

partition_size: 0x1BD7400000

Search again for next line

partition_name: userdata

and proceed further to the next line starting with partition_size:. This should be at line number 1523. Change it accordingly from

partition_size: 0xc0000000

to

partition_size: 0x1BD7400000

Save the scatter file and you are ready to include the data partition in your backup.

_{Credits for this section goes to f1cscari}

Backup (Recommended but not mandatory)

Switch off your phone and open SP Flash tool. In Download section open the correct scatter file and move to the section "Readback". Leave out partitions without partition name. For each partition with partition name you should give a recognisable filename to the backup file (e.g. partitionname.img) by double-click the partition. In the first window enter the filename. For the second window just press ESC. Do not change any values here! Afterwards mark the checkbox at the beginning of each partition. Again leave out partitions with empty partition name and click the "Read Back" button. Now connect the switched-off phone to PC while holding the Vol-Up button. The readback will take some time.

Update Firmware (Not mandatory, if Android 10 is already installed)

You can now update (and also downgrade) the firmware of your BV9900 Pro with SP Flash tools. I recommend this guide, if you want to flash a new firmware. If you want to install an inofficial or modified firmware, you have to unlock the bootloader first.

Root BV9900 Pro with Magisk and get rid of Google Services by installing Nanodroid with MicroG

If you want to Root your phone, you can follow this guide. There you also have the instructions how to get rid of Google Services and replace them by MicroG.

Debloat

If you want to debloat your phone, continue here.

Common bugs and fixes

There are some bugs users are facing while working with the phone. I collected the bugs and fixes here.

Unfortunately I could not fix all bugs, yet. The still known problems are collected here.