(Update October 2022 phone has been retired )Redmi Note 9 Pro (Joyeuse) Modders Guide.

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Introduction

This post is an attempt to be a modders guide for Redmi Note 9 Pro, similar to my LG V20 guide. This time around, I will place each post in order, by date, in an attempt to keep this article organized as I add to it over time.

Redmi Note 9 Pro
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For those new please read from the bottom up. This is a changelog.

I would highly recommend before continuing to join us on telegram in case you need help. Here is the Joyeuse group.

July/August

Which Model do you have?

images

So lets try to start with the basics their are a few different phones in this family for a complete breakdown check out this post here.

This post is for the Redmi Note 9 Pro (Joyeuse model) as stated in the title. Some mods may work on other phones but please do your own research.I do not take any responsibility if you break your device, whether its Joyeuse or otherwise. Please note that as of right now the Curtana model is more supported by the devs.

Bootloader unlock

Follow this guide until step 3,  as soon as you get the phone so you can unlock the bootloader asap.

fastboot 1 1

Stop when you reach step 3 on XDA and reboot the phone,  and keep it powered on during the following week. When 168 hours have passed, repeat step 3 and this time it should finally unlock. Note that this erases your data, which is always the case when unlocking bootloaders on any Android phone. When complete, come back here to continue the process.

Installing Custom Recovery

Instead of following the rest of the above link which will have you patch Magisk via fastboot, we will install a custom recovery. After that, we will flash Magisk directly from said recovery.

download

Here is the installation guide for Pitch Black Recovery Project for your phone. Since we don’t have any custom recovery currently installed, follow the instructions labeled “From PC”.

After you have successfully installed, you should reboot into PBRP by holding down volume and the power key, at the same time.

Now that you have PBRP installed you can either flash Magisk on the current stock rom, or you can install a new rom (and flash Magisk on it).

Flashing a Custom Rom (Miui EU)

miui 1

Since Miui is quite bloated out of the box, I decided to flash Miui EU. The TLDR is that it’s a debloated,  stock,  Miui based rom with a lot of fixes and tweaks.

I would highly recommend you flash .04, NOT .05,  since .05 has terrible system battery life.

Here is the link. Make sure to wipe and then unmount all partitions before flashing. After that flash Magisk if you want root access.

Root apps and Magisk Modules 8/12/20

Apps

Adaway– Make sure to enable system-less hosts in Magisk.

I am currently using Battery Charge Limit from the play store, to limit my charging to 85 percent. The ACC Magisk module causes the phone to bootloop.I am using Better Battery Stats to monitor drain.

Franco Kernel Manager– mainly to drop minimum CPU-Freq, which for some reason are defaulted to one step higher than the minimum.I also disabled Zram.

Naptime-Still getting better doze times even with MIUI battery saver, but YMMV

Terminal Emulator-my terminal of choice.

Wakeblock– I am using the Magisk module, and followed the list here.

Viper4Android-Make sure to install NLSound first and Busybox(listed below).

magisk

Magisk Modules

Busybox by NDK in Magisk Repo

CloudflareDNS in Magisk Repo

Doze Google Play Services (FROM NAPTIME THE ONES IN MAGISK REPO CRASH ANDROID VM)

NLSOUND- Link

Thats all for now. Feel free to buy me a coffee if this helped you out.

Miatoll 9/28/2020

Been a while since i have done a update, its been very busy, both in my life and in this phones life so lets get to it.

A major new development in this phone is the concept of Miatoll.

Miatoll is an Unified codename for All Redmi Note 9 Snapdragon 720G family + Poco M2 Pro

MI = XIAOMI
ATOLL = SNAPDRAGON 720G

Device in miatoll line:

  • Curtana
  • Joyeuse
  • Excalibur
  • Gram

Due to the Miatoll tree/concept, there has been an explosion of custom ROMs. I have only had a few hrs to play with some of the different ROMs and the ones I tried weren’t fully baked for my use case.

  • Arrow Os- No face unlock or battery limit controls as well as crashing setup app
  • Paranoid Android- couldn’t install properly
  • MSM – was perfect except ANX camera in portrait mode didn’t work.

Again I didn’t have much time to mess around with any of these, so take everything I have said with a massive grain of salt. I think for many users a lot of Miatoll ROMs would be fine for their use cases. Especially if you have a bit more time to put into each rom. Please let me know your thoughts in the comments.

Currently have updated to Miui EU 11.0.7 and the newest PBRP Miatoll Recovery. Currently no major bugs in Miui EU.

MSM Extended (Android 10) 10/19/20

So a lot has changed. I have been on MSM Extended for a while now, I just haven’t had time to update this post.

So why MSM? As mentioned previously it had face unlock, battery charge limit, and volume rocker skip. But after Daily driving this for a while I have fallen in love with it. Tons of customization but not bloated like RR.( On a side note there are 4 RR builds for this phone and I have no idea how you are supposed to decide which one you are to use).

The ROM is also rock-solid stable, with a great dev working on it for Miatoll. Battery life is better than MIUI for me with 10ish hrs of sot. Safetynet passes out of the box.So I would highly recommend it after you do the next two fixes.

The two issues that I ran into were slight lag when going to the recent’s menu which is fixed with the linked GPU driver below. And ANX camera front-facing mode, which is fixed with ANX camera pro or Gcam also both linked below. There is also a fully updated list of what mods I’m using currently.

ANX Camera Pro -Search for Portrait mode.

Enable Adreno Idler in Kernel Manager.

Gcam-Here – config here

Nik Gapps

GPU Drivers

NL SOUND 2.0

New PBRP

No longer using battery charge limit as its built into the rom.

No longer using naptime,rom is optimized.

No longer using Wakeblock, ditto.

Zram is enabled and left at stock.

GLHF

Android 11 10/28/2020

Currently, If your going to go to Android 11 I would recommend Arrow OS for pure AOSP and Nusantara for customization (The build of MSM currenly publicly available has broken audio.) I would recommend the gapps build of Arrow since Nikgapps currently has issues on A11. Nusantara is Gapps only.

Now for mod updates.

Very Important GPU Drivers – If you use the gpu drivers listed above (490) it will break the play store. The latest you can use without breaking the play store (on A11) is 464, which you can get here. Use Aida64 under the display menu to check if drivers updated properly(stock drivers are 415).

Magisk 21-Toggle Magisk hide to pass Safety-net

To get Viper4android working on A11 . Install NL-SOUND linked above, and from the Magisk repo install, audio compatibility and modification modules.
Install Viper apk listed above but don’t install drivers. First reboot then install drivers which will reboot again. Once that’s done you need to go into the Viper settings and toggle compatibility mode.

Updated Gcam config for A11 to prevent crashing here

GLHF

A11 MSM and Legion 11/19/2020

Been a bit since I last updated. First off MSM is stable now and ready for daily use. Another OS which in my experience is very similar is Legion OS which can be found here. Both Sonal (MSM/Arrow) and Raj (Legion) have been working out the kinks in A11 ROMs (together).

Orange Fox Recovery is now recommended as it doesn’t seem to have as many mounting issues as PBRP.

GPU Drivers 490 seems to work but you have to download an updated version of play services and play store from Apk-mirror first. Then install Magisk Gpu drivers module and reboot. Then install play services and play store update. Reboot and check if your Play Store is working.

New Years Update-Daily Driving and Sonal’s Trees.

Happy New Year people!

So my current recommendations, stick to ROMs based on Sonal Singh’s trees, most ROMs will say in the description if they do.

My current three choices are the same as before. Arrow for pure AOSP. Legion which is my current daily driver for the past few months for in between. And MSM for the most customization.

In terms of Kernels I have been sticking with Agni and setting my small cores to 1612, and big cores to 2112 MHZ respectively. Agni updates can be found here. Please note on the latest Agni I have disabled the audio Magisk module since I am using NLSOUND.

For the camera, I am currently using TRCamera Xmas edition.Make sure to use the XML for it. You can find everything camera related and constant updates here.

If your looking for a stable daily driver this is the way to go IMO.

That’s all for now.

( 02/07/21) A11 Sticking to Legion, Kernel recommendation changes, and another recommended rom.

I now recommend Fluid OS as well. It sits between Arrow and Legion in terms of customization. Definitely has a different UI feel than stock Arrow, Legion, or MSM. Another rock-solid Rom based on Sonals trees with a great dev @Ramiskyy on telegram. Here is the telegram support group.He has fixed a whole bunch of issues in the trees while staying on the dl, so thanks dude.

In other news to pass SafetyNet, you need to hide Magisk then, you have to use Kdragon’s new SafetyNet fix here. And you may have to flash Magisk Hide Props from here, and use the Pixel Five’s fingerprint.

ANX Camera is on the way. Almost ready thanks @Sonal.

Agni is no longer recommended on the latest versions of my 4 chosen ROMs due to inline encryption issues. As well as perf+ just having way better battery for my needs. YMMV.

Daily Driving

I have been sticking with Legion OS, I’m on some test builds but recommend the latest Gapps 3.4 as I was having issues with Legion 3.5 vanilla build. Later betas have been fine and I can’t wait to link to them once raj makes them public. For the current second either stick with 3.4 or use Fluid, MSM, etc.

Screenshot 20210207 114759 3

The kernel I’m using and recommend currently is from Fluid OS, it will have the info that’s shown in the right image. There is no zip available so extract the boot image from the latest Fluid , flash to boot in recovery then flash Magisk and boot. If you need the boot image dm me on telegram @Notapizzza, or email me here.

NlSound 2.3 is available here, make sure to skip mic fixes as well as mixer files for various devices. I have moved to Poweramp EQ instead of Viper.

Almost forgot, here is the latest Orange Fox if you aren’t already on it.

Hit me up if you need anything.
Peace.

Legion OS 3.6

The official release is here, I have been using vanilla with Nik Gapps for a while not been rock solid. Here is gapps and vanilla. I’m using the Fluid kernel and Nik apps Canary Core with Nik apps Gboard addon.

3/14/2021 Magisk and kernel updates. MSM No longer recommended. Get rid of ANX/Miui Cam.

First off I will get the most pressing issue in my opinion. Kudos to Sonal for getting ANX/Miui Cam working on A11 roms. With that said It doesn’t work well or at all in third-party apps like any Telegram client that I have tried. I urge rom devs at this point to make separate builds with an alternative system camera to prevent these issues.

For Arrow, Fluid and Legion are recommended. MSM has been dropped due to source side support being dropped. I am still looking for a replacement of a super customizable rom. Currently testing a build of CR Droid that’s not using ANX. Superior and Colt OS are also on the table and in testing.

I now highly recommend Positron kernel as well. Pretty decent battery and incredible performance.Here is the download link.

Magisk 22 needs a clean install. Uninstall Magisk manager . Download the apk from here. Rename the APK to a zip file and flash in recovery.

Latest Orangefox recovery now stable, can be found here.

Comments and questions are appreciated. Toodles.

3/19/2021 Floko and POSP

Floko is now the recommended MSM alternative. Its basically CR Droid, but on our device its a more experienced dev building it. You can get it here and see it here. POSP is also recommended, seems similar in customization to Fluid and Legion. You can get it here, and see it here Please note neither POSP or Floko have face unlock.

4/18/2021 Etherious kernel, NlSound and Magisk.

Telegram KEAlUXkAHi

I have been DD arrow os and loving it.

Massive Etherious kernel update its now the recommended kernel across the board. Lower minimum clocks for slightly better battery life. Download here.

NLSound is no longer recommended due to having to many issues. And quite frankly for arrow at least its not needed.

Here is a dummy build prop magisk module that you can add your own Build Prop edits to.

I have been using this to change my volume steps in arrow so they stick after OTA updates. Just edit the system.prop file.

For volume steps ” ro.config.vc_call_vol_steps=14
ro.config.media_vol_steps=45 ” All credits to Dereference of positron kernel.

Use the latest Magisk Manager Apk here if you are having safety-net issues.

7/12/2021 Arrow, Fork Los, Not much changing until A12

Been a few months, I have been crazy busy. Was running Arrow OS for a good few months straight. Smooth fast stable.

Been messing around with Fork from Sairam60. Also been super smooth and stable. These roms have definitely been the smoothest in my experience. Vanilla Gapps

Stock kernel for both are fine.

Nik Gapps for Vanilla Versions

Magisk Modules

Bye for now.

8/20/21 Beware of Reborn kernels and Aosp Extended.

Life has been very busy I apologize for the lack of updates.

A lot of drama went down in the Miatoll community due to reborn kernel hardware bricking fast charge. So if you see reborn kernel or any roms made by its creators @ScaryMen1325 and @Loptr4 stay far away.

I have been daily driving AOSP Extended for the past month. Its as solid and Smooth as Arrow as well as having similar battery life, with more features. Download it here,. My usual Vanilla and NikGapps Core setup.

That’s all for now.

9/23/21 aOSP eXTENDED coNT…. AND MY EXACT SETUP.

So I have still been daily driving AOSP Extended. Just updated to 8.6 yesterday and everything is as smooth and battery friendly as usual.

People have been asking what my exact setup is so I will walk you through my flashing process and the settings im using via screenshots.

Flashing Method.

  1. Format data in recovery
  2. Delete addon folder if applicable.
  3. Flash Latest Vanilla version which you can download here
  4. Flash Gapps Trash Remover from here.
  5. Flash Nik Gapps Core from here.
  6. Boot into Rom.
  7. Reboot into recovery
  8. Flash Magisk from here.
  9. Flash GMS Doze from here.

Now for my settings.

In kernel manager set Min cores online to 2 instead of 4.

Display settings : Turn tap to wake, wake on plug, and pocket detection off.

Restrict play services, play services for AR and play store from running in background.(Only possible if flashed gms doze.

Restrict other apps that drain lots of battery from background as needed.

In developer settings disable mobile data always active.

That’s it everything else you can play around withought any battery impact.

The latest aggressive idle and standby I’m still testing.

That’s all for now. Post your battery times in the comments.

8/26/21 Lightning + update and actual android 12 brightness slider for AEX.

Kernel update here

Real android 12 brightness slider here.

11/01/21 A long overdue Update

I apologize for the delay to updating this guide. Life has been extremely hectic.

I was using Flos after Aex for a month or so. Its great highly reccomend it if you want you need a stable daily driver above all else. Download it here, and follow the above Flashing Method if you wish . I would reccomend you use the latest Lightning kernel as well which you can download here.

11/02/21 A12 is here

As mentioned in the above post I apologize for the long hiatus.

I have been using A12 for quite a while now and can reccomend my setup as a daily driver. It is missing many custom rom features its mostly just stock.Stick to A11 If you need more customazation for now.

My current Setup is
  • Arrow OS A12 Beta which you can download here
  • Lightning kernel here
  • Nik Gapps Core A12 here.

Magisk Modules
  • Extrapixel – For more A12 Features
  • Interfont Font Pack -fonts from ProtonAOSP
  • Volume Steps -inceases volume steps
  • NL-Sound -Use typical install options.

Download them here.

As for kernel tweaks.
  • Min Cores Online – 1
  • CPU input boost freq set to 1324 on core 0 and 40 ms duration
  • Internal IO Sched CFQ 128 SD card CFQ 512
Media Keys Control Playback.

Since I need Volume Rockers to skip tracks I am using this app which works on A12.Here are the settings so you can copy them.

Battery life is on par with A11. Performance is better.
This rom has full Monet Theming Support.

Bye for now.

11/25/21 More a12 thoughts .Wave os a11 as my daily driver. as well as the plan for next few months on the guide.

Arrow has been updated to now have Volume buttons control playback. It can be found here.

After some more use of A12 roms including Arrow, Cafex, and Ancient it seems battery life is somewhat worse overall than the final A11 Roms.So just keep that in mind.

Unfortunately life has gotten much busier so I am taking a break from rom testing for the next few months.

What I have reverted back to is Wave Os which can be downloaded here.

I was originally going to make los my daily driver but it was giving me issues with audio when using my Equalizer of choice Poweramp Eq.

Fork Los didnt have that problem but the latest build nfc is broken. So went back to good old Wave Os which is super stable as well as having the features I need.

Using Nik Gapps Core as always.

Using the latest Lightning+ Kernel which has been renamed DFC+. You can download that here.

I’m using the Volume steps magisk module as well as the interfont fontpack module.Both linked above.

Feel free to reach out to me via a comment,the contact page, or telegram I will still be available for questions just cant do as much rom testing as usual.

Bye for the next little bit.

12/08/21 Kernel UPdate.

Nothing else has changed. Updated to the latest DFC Kernel which can be found here.

12/31/21 Happy new years

Still on Wave OS.

Changed to BitGapps (clean flash rom) so you can now restrict play services battery and get significantly better deep sleep. Get it from here.

Updated to Latest DFC Kernel here.

03/02/22 Another Attempt at A12 Failed

I tried many A12 Roms over the past two weeks. I found Arcana 4.0 To be the best but unfortunately, 4.1 broke everything. As of now I still find no advantage to A12 except resizable Youtube in PIP mode, and major battery drain issues.

I am back on WaveOs Using Hydrogen kernel but with everything else the same as before.

04/20/22 A few changes app-wise

Camera has been changed to Gcam LMC 8.4 Using Procolor By Arafath config. Both can be found here.

No Storage Restrict, Octavi_OS Dialer, and Wakeblock Magisk Module.

Everything else remains the same Wave+BITGapps+ Hydro Kernel

07/20/22 LOs 19.1

It’s been a while. I have been planning my wedding so I needed to find a stable smooth ROM.(that’s also why there has been very slow updates on the site in general. Both Arrow A11 and Wave OS started having issues where it wouldn’t keep my default launcher that I use. So I decided to give android 12 another shot. I ended up going with Los 19.1 by Dereference and have been on it for some time. The rest of my settings/Magisk Modules have stayed the same. That’s all for now.

10/15/22 So long. MOVING to the Galaxy A52s.

Due to hardware issues such as the touchescreen dying, speaker and microphone quality degrading, I have moved to the A52s. It’s been a great ride. But for now it’s no longer my daily driver.

44 Comments

Leave a Reply to N0B1t4 Cancel reply

  • Can you comment on any other potential phones you were considering. I’ve been using my cherished v20 nearly since its original launch, and having trouble coming to terms with replacing it. I’ll may follow your lead with the note 9, but just wondered if I should be looking at any others.

    • And if you need a phone with a quad dac you will probably have to go with LG.I’m personally using for home listening one of my v20s and use my Note 9 as my phone on the go. The Note 9 pro is fine for IEMs but my over ear headphones definitely prefer the LG Dac.

  • Yes you can definitely install a different custom rom after you unlock your bootloader.Follow until here
    “Now that you have PBRP installed you can either flash Magisk on the current stock rom, or you can install a new rom (and flash Magisk on it).”
    and then continue with the thread here https://forum.xda-developers.com/redmi-note-9-pro/development/rom-resurrection-remix-q-v8-5-7-t4147181.

    Let me know I would love to hear your experience.

    In terms of XDA I don’t think I can post it due to self-promotion but I would be very grateful if you or someone else is willing to.

    GLHF

  • ¡Hi! Your guide was very useful. I looked into custom roms like EvoX or Lineage but both of them still aren’t that stable (and I’m also fairly new on modifying my phone system).
    Can you explain what NLSound and Viper do?
    I installed Battery Charge Limit but it doesn’t limit anything.

    • Nl sound removes all the dsp Xiaomi applies and boosts the sound quality of the qclm DAC.Viper4android is a eq app. Do you have root? All of these require Magisk.

      • Ohhh thank you, I installed them and I like all you can do with Viper.
        I have root! But for some reason the charge limit doesn’t work

          • I was looking for advice to remove the hardware bases ctsProfile failure and ended flashing MSM! I flashed Xtended-Tribute-To-MartinCoulon-miatoll-20200917.zip and apparently it fixes the issues hoy mentioned and includes Adreno Idler. I’m loving it so far but even if it forces BASIC evalType some apps are able to find out if you hace root

  • I’m really thankful for all info you provided in here,
    I used it to Unlock the bootloader, install PBRP, Magisk.
    I was glad when I saw your newest update to the blog, so I checked MSM Extended. Are you using Xtended-XQ-v12.5-miatoll-OFFICIAL-20200824.zip ?
    And for PBRP; I tried to find an XDApost or source to get new updates. But what I found is BETA builds not (as yours UNOFFICIAL) would you please add the source of it.
    Many thanks

  • THANK YOU SO MUCH FOR THIS ARTICLE :). It had been hard for me to find a daily DRIVER for JOYEUSE, but i am installing Legion OS and Yuki Kernel thank you

  • I’,m testing cherish os, aosp inspired to PE.
    Seems very good, nice and stable.
    At the moment, no info for battery life.

    • Nice thats great.Thanks for sharing.

      Btw to anyone who sees this I would love to have more discussions in the comment section of what people should try.

  • Now, I’m on arrows os.
    Great developer and great rom, stabile and good battery.
    Regularly updated.

  • At the moment I’m on DOTos, very beautiful ROM, stable and good battery, with etherious kernel.
    Latest version have random reboot, but seem solved changing network SIM settings.
    IMO, better than arrow.

  • Hello AY, I followed you post about you last post (9/23/21), about rom and you all setup. Installed custom Pico Opengapps with only play store and contacts sinchronization,and wow, Gapps Trash Remover removed all AOSP apps and Gapps!! I had to install dialer,contacts,calendar,calculator,messages and xbrowser as critical apps. Installed Lightning Kernel too.

    But i have a question:

    How do you configure min cores? I tried with Franco Kernel Manager but i dont find how to set minimal cores. Only can disable cores manually.

    Sorry for my english, and i appreciate you help!!

  • Thanks for the article! It helped me a LOT!

    What about all the stock apps? Like dialer, clock, contacts etc.

    Do you have a package/recommendation where to get those from?

    Kind Regards,
    afehst

    • Just don’t flash Gapps app remover to use Aosp apps and if you want the gapps version flash a larger package of Nik Gapps.

      • Thanks, i am going to use the apps from simplemobiletools.

        I noticed that the microphone does not function when calling. The other side only hears my voice after I open the speakers. Did you pherhaps the same issue?

        • I have only had this issue with certain bluetooth devices but not the phone itself. You can report in the group on telegram.

    • As you can see this is formatted by date. PBRP is no longer reccomnended. It was reccomended before OFOX existed for our device. You either have to read all the way through or start from the bottom up for the information to be relevant.

      Let me know if you understand what im saying.
      Good Luck.

  • Hi there, I wanna know if there’s any concerning bug on arrowos a12 beta b4 I start daily driving it
    As in is there any mic issues or battery issues?
    I want to hear your experience on a12 arrow so far

    Thx 🙂

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