NowTV app says device has been modified

[OS1111]

First post so apologies if I get anything wrong.

The nice people over at Sky / NowTV say the reason the NowTV app has stopped working with the message "Your device has been modified" is Sony's issue. Is this true? NowTV was working fine with 4.4 but following the official Sony update to 5.1 it has stopped working with that message. The device has not been "modified" in any other way. NowTV has been updated twice which apparently fixed the issue on some devices so this issue extends beyond Sony. Has anyone else come across this issue? Is there a way around it?

Is there a way of reporting bugs to Sony?

Thanks,

[OS1111]

When I got the device running Android 4.4 NowTV worked fine, it's just since Sony pushed the update to 5.1.

I'll try the pictures but not sure what I'm looking for. Would turning the Bravia Engine on have any affect on NowTV?

My attempts to boot in to recovery mode have so far failed but I believe the state of the bootloader will show up in the output there. Please could you tell me how to boot in to recovery?

[Uliwooly]

@OS1111

There's no recovery with Xperia devices. 

[OS1111]

Please find images attached, sorry it's taken so long 

[Uliwooly]

@OS1111

I'll check them whenever they are approved by a moderator

[OS1111]

I installed AVG and it detects that the device is in "High Privilege" mode and says the device has been rooted, but then doesn't explain how comes to that conclusion nor does it offer any advice. As I think I mentioned before none of the un-rooters run beacuse they say the device has not been rooted! However going through the re-root by hand instructions offered in various places I've found an "su" executable in /system/xbin. Would that alone be enough to trigger "your device has been rooted"? How do I remove it? Am I going to have to root te device in order to remove this file?!?!

[Uliwooly]

@OS1111

You might want to contact Sony directly

you didn't posted the screenshots I've requeted

you could try this

turn on the bravia engine and brightness 100% 

select a picture > wait 10 seconds > take a screenshot > turn off Bravia Engine > take another screenshot of the same picture > compare them and post them here.

[OS1111]

> You might want to contact Sony directly

How would I do that?

I've come to the conculsion that the offending article is the su binary in /system/xbin but I need to root the device to remove it. Is there a way of rooting the device that doesn't involve splattering su's everywhere along with busybox and a host of other things?! All I want to do is root, although I suspect reroot the device and then unroot it properly. What are the chances that Sony left a rogue su binary lying around? Other people have reported NowTV working on their device with 5.1.1 so probably unlikely.

> turn on the bravia engine and brightness 100% 

I'll try this when I next log in using the tablet as it's easier.

[Uliwooly]

@OS1111

were you able to figure it out?

[OS1111]

Hi uliwooly,

No, no joy yet. I'm still deciding if it's worth rooting and then unrooting the device or if that'll just cause more problems. As NowTV worked prior to Sony pushing the 5.1 update I tend to think that Sony left the su binary behind, but since others report NowTV working just fine under 5.1 I just don't know. I still don't know how to raise this with Sony as they are probbaly best placed to fix this.

I've done a full reset, is that sufficient to remove a rooted system? If not, is there a way of doing a complete wipe / re-format of the device?

I have to think that NowTV's root checking must be pretty crude as every unrooter I've so far tried says the device isn't rooted, nor can I gain elevated privileges on the device. Annoyingly AVG says the device is running with elevated priveleges but then won't say how it reached that conclusion! If it did it would probably point to why NowTV won't play anything.

[OS1111 · Accepted solution]

It was suggested that I use the Mac Xperia Companion and do a repair which I did and it has removed all the offending su and sudaemon type of executables from the device and NowTV is happy again. This rather begs the question how did they get there in the first place?! Also why didn't doing a complete recover on the device itself wipe these files unless the image on the device was already compromised and Xperia Companion installed an uncompromised image.  Anyhow I'm happy now!