How to Update LineageOS and Regain Root Access With Magisk

If your phone doesn’t come with a dual partition system, then you will lose root access every time you install an OTA update. In this article, we will look at how you can install the latest LineageOS OTA update and regain root access again, using LOS Recovery.

Overview

Updating LineageOS is pretty straight forward. We will cover that in the first section of the tutorial. But if your phone doesn’t come with a dual partition system, you will lose root access as part of the OTA update.

For this, you will have to reboot the phone in LOS recovery mode and sideload the Magisk zip file. We will cover that in the second portion of the tutorial.

Updating LineageOS

Under normal circumstances, you will get a notification for an update. You can directly click on the notification to install the update. If you didn’t install from the update notification, you can also access the update from the Settings. Follow these steps:

Go to Settings.

Scroll down on the settings menu and tap on ‘System option’.

In the ‘System option’ menu tap on the ‘Advanced section’ drop down menu. This will reveal the ‘Updater’. Tap on it.

Inside the ‘Updater’ you will see the currently installed version of LineageOS at the top. Below it, you will find all the available updates.

The latest version of LOS 18.1 will be on the top of the list. Tap on ‘Download’. Once download is complete an ‘install’ option will appear. Tap on it.

Once the installation is complete, your phone will restart. This will install the latest over-the-air update for LineageOS 18.1 on your phone.

Regaining Root Access Using LOS Recovery

Unfortunately, as part of installing the latest OTA update, you will also lose root access to your phone. You can check this by opening the Magisk app on your phone. Under the Magisk section in the app, if it shows that it is not installed, this means you have lost root access. We will now look at how you can use the LineageOS Recovery Mode. Follow these steps:

Press and hold the power button to reveal the power settings. Tap on ‘Power’ then ‘Restart’ and ‘Recovery’. This will reboot the phone in recovery mode.

In the LOS Recovery menu, select ‘Apply update’.

In the ‘Apply update’ menu, select ‘Apply from ADB’.

A message will appear at the bottom of the screen telling you to ‘send the package you want to apply’.

Connect your phone to the computer via USB.

Open Command Prompt or Windows PowerShell. Navigate to the directory where you have the Minimal ADB and Fastboot tool.

Now type the following code in the terminal: adb sideload ‘.\Magisk-v23.0 – Copy.zip’ and press enter.

You will most likely get a signature verification error message on your phone. Tap on ‘yes’.

Wait for Magisk to install. Once the installation is complete, you will get a ‘Done’ message at the bottom.

Navigate back to the LOS Recovery main menu and tap on ‘Reboot system now’.

Your phone will reboot, and you will find that Magisk has been installed successfully.

The following video demonstrates the steps described above in detail.

Experiencing difficulties with your Device, check out our “How To” page on how to resolve some of these issue