Root status: Not available

The AT&T Galaxy S5 finally received the Android 5.1.1 OTA update yesterday, with firmware build G900AUCU2AOA2. Alongside 5.1.1, the OTA also included Android For Work, some security updates and a fix for Ultra Power Saving mode for devices using On Device Encryption. The update came in pretty huge at 609-999MB in size.

This is definitely one of those updates you’d so dearly want to install on your device. But hold on if you care about root access on your AT&T S5.

Samsung’s Android 5.1.1 update cannot be rooted with previously known rooting methods like Ping Pong Root, which was the only option to root AT&T Galaxy S5 so far since it’s bootloader locked and can’t be flashed with a custom kernel.

Also, if you install the 5.1.1 OTA on your AT&T S5, you won’t ever be able to downgrade back to Android 5.0 build (OF2). This is because the 5.1.1 OTA will upgrade the bootloader of your device which cannot be downgraded.

So, if your AT&T S5 is rooted and you’d like to keep it that way, then we strongly advise you to NOT install the 5.1.1 OTA update. If you install 5.1.1 update, then chances are you’d never get root again on your device.

We’re faithful that the holy folks over at xda would come up with a better way to update AT&T S5 to 5.1.1 while keeping root. This could be done with a pre-rooted 5.1.1 ROM that rooted users could install via custom recovery or Flashfire. But we don’t know the complete technicality of it, so let’s just hope xda folks are able to achieve it (if possible).

TL;DR

Do NOT install Android 5.1.1 OTA update on your AT&T Galaxy S5 if you want root. If you do, you may never have root again on your device.

We’ll update this post the moment we have info on AT&T S5 5.1.1 Root either via a pre-rooted ROM or a magical new root exploit.

You may want to bookmark this page for updates.

Happy Androiding!