Login to Snapchat on rooted Android devices using Bluestacks

Issue: How can I restore my login to the Snapchat app on a rooted Android device using the Bluestacks application?

There is quite some confusion about the Snapchat app and it’s login on a rooted Android device. A lot of the time people online claim the Xposed framework is the culprit – after deinstalling this framework there’s a good chance to log in again. This is not the case anymore. My test device is a rooted LG G4 with the bootloader unlocked – there was never Xposed framework installed, but I still get the error “Oh no! Your login temporarily failed, so please try again” (or something like this). So I suppose the culprit isn’t Xposed, it’s rather root. Most replies recommending to remove Xposed are quite old, too. Snapchat seems to use the SafetyNet Api by Google to verify system integrity now. Moreover people claimed joining the Snapchat Beta will eliminate this problem – it does not. A rather interesting thing is, that Snapchat allows you to create a new account to login on a rooted device – but when logging out you will not be able to login back again. In this tutorial I will describe how to restore your login on a rooted device by using a backup done in Bluestacks.

Step 1 – Installing Bluestacks

In a nutshell Bluestacks is an Android emulator. We will use this application to obtain a non-root environment in Windows to successfully login to Snapchat. Download Bluestacks from here and get the newest, pre-rooted version. Install the executable and start Bluestacks up. Although it mentions pre-rooted I found there is no root access applied – however this is a good thing for us to be able to log into Snapchat.

When clicking through the initial setup of Android, you may want to use a different Google account and / or disable the backup and restore checkbox. We do not want anything to interfere with our workflow.

Step 2 – Setting up the environment

Everything explained in this step will be done in Bluestacks, not in your phone. After booting up Bluestacks and clicking through the initial setup of Android you will find yourself in the homescreen. Search for the Google Play app and install Snapchat.

Once Snapchat is installed, open it and log in with your credentials. After verifying your login succeeded, close the Snapchat app. For backing up the data containing the login information, we will be using Titanium Backup. Unfortunately I cannot say if the version from the Playstore will work, as my research concluded a specific Titanium Backup for Bluestacks is needed (you will find the version, when querying this in Google).

If you start up Titanium Backup, you will find it freezing at “Detecting SU and Busybox” (if you do not, you may skip a few passages here). I suppose the non-working root is causing Titanium Backup to stop at this point. Close the app again and download Busybox from the Playstore. Install the Busybox binaries by clicking Install inside the app (I used the regular install, not the smart one). When it’s done, close Busybox again and download SuperSU from the Playstore. When you open the app it will display to update the SU binaries. Ignore this message and close the app again. Next google for the Kingroot apk, then download and install it. Swipe up the intro screens in Kingroot until there’s a round button displayed to root your device. Click on the button and wait until Kingroot displays your device is successfully rooted. You may close Kingroot now.

Step 3 – Backing up Snapchat

Open Titanium Backup again – it will now skip the previously frozen screen and is ready for backing up apps. Do a backup of Snapchat. Once it’s done transfer the backed up files to your phone. For this I downloaded a file explorer (I recommend FX Explorer) from the Playstore. Navigate to the backup folder (default is TitaniumBackup on internal storage) and copy the 3 files. I copied them in FX Explorer to internal memory -> windows, which is a mounted folder of your host (the users/documents folder) and transfered them with Airdroid to my phone. I previously deinstalled the Snapchat app from my phone.

Step 4 – Restoring the login

Open Titanium Backup on your phone and restore the backup (app + data). For me this didn’t do the trick as I opened Snapchat and was still logged out. I had to do a restore in Titanium Backup once more, but chose only to restore data. Titanium Backup will ask you to confirm the killing of the running Snapchat app – hit Okay. When opening Snapchat you should be logged in.

There might be an easier way to do this, but this one worked for me. As I suffered from bad performance in my VM, I did not try to get Titanium Backup working without SuperSU, Busybox and Kingroot. If you know of a way, please let me know.