WeakSauce is a crafty tool developed specially for HTC’s flagships because it creates a replacement class for the HTC system access. Furthermore, the finishing touches which make the exploit work involve disabling and enabling the Bluetooth. Doing so makes it trigger the pwn.sh. It’s popular for when the devices were running the earlier stages of Kitkat and now the second coming of the same is around for the final stages.

Android 4.4.4 is the last number under the KitKat name that comes with all of the great features we know from the chocolate software, plus bug fixes and minor UI tweaks such as the revamped phone dialer. From there each phone manufacturer applies some minor changes to their default apps too.

Weak Sauce

As I’m sure you know, all the buzz is around Android 5.0 Lollipop. However, since there isn’t many custom ROMs available for that version of Android yet, many people into rooting are still installing ROMs based on KitKat.

Rooting phones voids any remaining manufacturer warranty for the device. You can’t use the warranty again to flash stock official firmware back on the device, or you take root access away from another means such as using any app from Google Play.

Details of Note

  • You should be an advanced Android user if you are following the steps. Don’t attempt customizing your device unless you are experienced.
  • If you are experiencing a black screen you can try flashing official software manually.
  • Enable USB Debugging Mode from the Developer Options.
  • The Developer Option is hidden in Android 4.2. You must be running Android 4.4.4 KitKat to follow this guide. Check what version of Android software you are running by navigating to Settings > About Device.
  • You must have the latest USB drivers for connecting with the computer. If you are accessing the phone data from the computer you know the drivers are working already and you don’t need to find them.
  • Those looking for new drivers can get them from the official HTC website, third-party files or from any official HTC utility.
  • Temporarily disable the security application on the HTC One M8.
  • You may only follow the steps if you have the Verizon Edition. You’ll notice the branding stamped on the shell of the phone.
  • You can read more in the Weak Sauce exploit and how it works by clicking through here.
  • You may follow the steps even if you have a locked bootloader. That’s unusual since the bootloader is normally the first thing that must be unocked for tweaking the HTC One away from the default factory restrictions.
  • You must have a working computer, notebook or laptop that allows connecting via the USB slot. You connect the phone to the slow and transfer the file that way.
  • You can use any computer for transferring files such as Mac, Windows or Linux.
  • Backup the data so it’s easily restored again if you need it in future. Sometimes things go wrong for unknown reasons. If you are one of the unlucky ones you can’t send it away for repairs. It usually means booting it up in recovery mode and performing a full factory reset or a hard reset.
  • You can backup the data locally or by downloading any number of apps from the Play Store. Sometimes the applications cost money to unlock the premium features.
  • Use the HTC sync manager to import photos, music, videos and other media to the computer from the phone.
  • Other backup options include saving the phone contacts to the online account and exporting the contacts from the people app to the SD card.
  • There is an application you can install from Google Play that allows users to apply the hard reset. You can download the simple factory reset here. Understand that if something does go wrong you may have to apply the reset manually. Luckily all modern-day devices do have that feature.
  • Enable “Dalvik mode” by navigating to Settings> Developer options.

How to root the HTC One M8 for Verizon subscribers

  1. Download the Weak Sauce app here.
  2. Navigate your way to Settings > Security and enable the ‘Unknown Sources’ option.
  3. Transfer the file over to the internal storage SD card of the phone.
  4. Install a file manager app from Google Play.
    – choose from ASTRO file manager or various others.
  5. Open the app drawer and run the Weak Sauce tool.
  6. Follow the on-screen instructions to complete the task.
  7. Download the SuperSU application.

That’s all the steps to open up the system internals away from the factory restrictions put in place to close off the OS. If you decide you want to go back and have a stock Android smartphone running official software you can do that any time by downloading the root checker and unroot pro app. Otherwise, flashing most future software updates manually takes away root access.