The XDA-Developer forums are populated by millions of users across a wide range of devices from OnePlus, Samsung, Huawei, Xiaomi, Google, LG, Sony, HTC, and others. What brings people together on our forums is the incredible work of hobbyist developers who share their apps, ROMs, kernels, and other modifications. Most of our readers are probably familiar with usernames like topjohnwu, the developer of Magisk, or rovo89, the developer of the Xposed Framework. However, there are a lot of other developers out there whose work is just as important, though their names are less recognizable to the average user. XDA Recognized Developer nkk71 is one such developer whose work impacts many on our forums, and we’re sad to announce that the developer has recently passed away.
The tragic passing of nkk71 has left many of those familiar with his work in a state of shock. He has made major contributions to TWRP, HTC development tools, and other tools such as resetprop which is fundamental for Magisk hiding from SafetyNet. According to the developers who knew him, he was also a very helpful, humble, and selfless person, often answering support questions on the VenomROM, TWRP, and SunShine IRC channels. If he had the means to help you with your problem, he would do so—he always loved a challenge.
We at XDA-Developers are saddened by the passing of nkk71, and so we would like to memorialize him by sharing some highlights of his contributions with the community so that more people know of his work.
- nkk71 is the original author of resetprop, which topjohnwu credits as being an essential part in SafetyNet hiding in Magisk as it is used to patch read-only props on boot.
- He is the one of the developers behind the HTC RUU/ROM Decryption Tool, a tool which greatly simplified the decryption of HTC RUUs by making it as simple as dragging and dropping in Windows.
- He single-handedly revived the MultiROM project by developing the “NO-KEXEC” method so devices without kexec-hardboot kernel support could port MultiROM. This paved the way for devices such as the HTC One M9 and the HTC 10 to receive MultiROM support, two devices which he maintained support for.
- He created the sysXtract tool that XDA Recognized Developer SuperR. uses in his Kitchen for extracting ext4 images with capabilities intact.
- He developed vold_decrypt which is used in TWRP for decrypting devices where standard TWRP decryption didn’t work. This allowed for data decryption on several HTC and other devices where decryption previously wasn’t possible.
- His work allowed for TWRP to support ZIP files over 2GBs in size.
- He set up the minimal manifest for Android 8.X so TWRP could be built with the latest Omni tree.
- He fixed a major error in TWRP that caused backups to be corrupted on multiple devices.
- His work also allowed for automatic detection and handling of legacy system properties in TWRP
- He assisted Team Venom in various ways, such as bug fixing, creating zips, examining recovery/kernel logs, and more.
- He made many, many other smaller contributions to multiple projects that made major differences. His GitHub page, the OmniROM gerrit, the MultiROM source code, and more show the impact that he has made on open source projects.
He will be missed by many, but his work will live on. We hope that our readers have a better understanding of the kind of developer, and person, that nkk71 was—and especially how important he was to the community.
I would like to thank XDA Senior Member captain_throwback, XDA Recognized Developer j to the 4n, and XDA Recognized Developer topjohnwu for sharing their statements on the passing of XDA Recognized Developer nkk71. May he rest in peace.