I did not make any attempts at moving operations with the vehicle while the HMU was removed, so I'm not too sure about that. Since my unit is not actually fully bricked (it's stuck in a boot loop of sorts), I am still able to operate the vehicle like normal even in its current state. However, it does make it very inconvenient to not have access to, e.g., settings to reset the TPMS light, etc. Also, the rear backup camera channel is still operational when shifting to Reverse, only just without the camera view type option overlay/buttons.
Not yet! As ridiculous as it sounds, it seems the only way to trigger the system wipe (i.e., bring up the anti-theft prompt) is by having a bad/dead battery. So far, I haven't found a way to intentionally trigger it. I'm pretty sure there's gotta be other ways to try, like booting into recovery menu, but haven't had a chance to look into it yet. Since it's boot looping, pretty sure ADB won't work at this point.
No, I was making modifications to the kernel and system UI data files directly. I've been running the latest version of HH with no issues, but this procedure should be useful for many different situations; for this particular scenario, when one needs to factory reset without user space access to the frontend system settings.
I wiped the cache first, then wiped data/factory reset, then reboot. The cache wipe might not be necessary, but don't mess with anything else unless you know what you're doing, or you may perma-brick your unit!
Yes, it was back to factory configuration but I went to the trouble of reapplying all my customizations. I do clearly recall there is a import/export option in one of the diagnostics screens, but it doesn't indicate what exactly is backed up or restored. I would think ADB backup/restore should be a viable option, but have not personally tried it out yet.
HH did not cause this issue, but did provide the solve for it in either case. For what it's worth, I was running the most current test version.
As far as I'm aware, HH should not be required to boot into recovery, you should only need to have the USB drive formatted to the correct partition type and have the `recovery.sh` file placed in the root directory of the thumb drive. I can't say for certain only because I technically did have HH activated and also root access on the head unit at the time I performed the steps I had listed above. Note that it did take me several attempts and reboots before I was able to successfully boot into the recovery menu despite already performing the correct steps. You may want to try 2-3 times, and if still no luck then switch over to an alternate USB port and repeat.