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Pixel owners report problems after installing January 2024 Google Play update
- csdvrx 3y agoI don't use smartphones but I find their software stack very interesting. I just investigated a Pixel 5a phone that was brought to me for "sudden death". The owner reported the screen showed an update attempt, then ended up bricked. It's allegedly impossible, due to the A/B update mode. Yet it managed to end up bricked, so the question is how, and what can be done. After investigation (you can do it very simply by looking at the USB ids), it's currently in Qualcomm EDL firehose mode: this is likely due to a failed attempted update https://xdaforums.com/t/fix-pixel-3-qusb_bulk_cid-xxxx_sn-xxxxxxxx.4205331/page-2 https://xdaforums.com/t/fix-pixel-3-qusb_bulk_cid-xxxx_sn-xx...: "because the bootloader has been corrupted during an attempted update - it's in EDL mode because there's nothing else it can boot into. I'd speculate it has some link with that "clever" new approach of being able to update the OS in the background and switch to it on the next boot" The "clever approach" that causes the problem is called the FOTA (or OTA, for "Over The Air") update, done by the carrier. This is known and documented on https://issuetracker.google.com/issues/248340373 https://issuetracker.google.com/issues/248340373 To leave EDL mode, it needs to be fed a bootloader + an image matching its model, to flash the eMMC memory inside. On Windows, it's easy to do Qualcomm Flash tool (GPST/QFIL) , which is easily available from many places like https://github.com/stanislawrogasik/Pixel5-VoLTE-VoWiFi/tree/main/QPST%20EFS%20Method https://github.com/stanislawrogasik/Pixel5-VoLTE-VoWiFi/tree..., and the process is documented on sites like https://imobiefix.com/qualcomm-prog-emmc-firehose/ https://imobiefix.com/qualcomm-prog-emmc-firehose/ Ideally, the MBN file has to exactly match the model, brand (etc) so if you have a 5a, you need a 5a MBN (and maybe a XML file, still reading) According to https://support.google.com/fi/thread/227549262/sm7520-or-sdm765-elf-or-mbn-file-needed-for-pixel-5a-recovery?hl=en https://support.google.com/fi/thread/227549262/sm7520-or-sdm... the model SM7520 or SDM765 ; this is confirmed by https://github.com/hoplik/Firehose-Finder/blob/master/ForFilter.xml https://github.com/hoplik/Firehose-Finder/blob/master/ForFil... because it's listed as a "Snapdragon 765G" / 0011E0E1 According to https://xdaforums.com/t/bricked-google-pixel-4a-5g-mbn-file-needed.4382889/ https://xdaforums.com/t/bricked-google-pixel-4a-5g-mbn-file-... "Google does not make QPST files available for the Pixel series" but someone else might have uploaded that somewhere Based on https://discuss.grapheneos.org/d/9656-brick-5a-help https://discuss.grapheneos.org/d/9656-brick-5a-help it's a well known problem: "The Pixel 5A has some hardware issues. I had mine poop out on me recently. Contact Googles repair team. If you have warranty they will replace it" : It's described extensively on https://suspiciouslygeneric.com/2022/11/11/the-hidden-flaw-killing-google-pixel-phones/ https://suspiciouslygeneric.com/2022/11/11/the-hidden-flaw-k... According to https://xdaforums.com/t/ipsa-pixel-5a-extended-warranty-i.4616927/ https://xdaforums.com/t/ipsa-pixel-5a-extended-warranty-i.46... "Due to the Pixel 5a Black Screen of Death issue, Google has extended the warranty on 5a devices for one year beyond the original device warranty" However, google has denied the extended warranty, even while clearly being the cause of death of the phone. Shame on you google, for creating more e-waste by refusing to release the QPST. If anyone reading this works at google, try to do something. It's not nice to put perfectly usable phones in a landfill just because a QPST is not released. I hope someone will leak the QPST, because for people who don't have the money, it's also serious expense.
- devaiops9001 3y agoGrapheneOS users remain unaffected.
- blibble 3y agoAndroid is just awful in terms of reliability I find it hard to believe anyone working for Google on Android actually uses an Android phone as their personal device I suffered all of: phone reboots 50% of the time using the camera, assistant won't answer sometimes, phone calls lock up the phone, alarm clock randomly doesn't work, it just goes on and on I had the original Android phone with Android 1.0 and had bought every 2nd or 3rd nexus/pixel phone now even I've switched to iOS (and in the process of switching my entire family too)
- flerchin 3y agoYour symptoms are all plausibly explained by a bad battery.
- fooblaster 3y agoI have used a pixel 4a and pixel 6a for many years now and haven't had any of these issues. It sounds like potentially had defective hardware, and instead of getting it repaired you just lived with it.
- shadowgovt 3y agoThis can definitely be the case. I had a phone that for a year would drop out frequently doing cellular data. I assumed my provider was throttling me. Upgraded my phone and the problem went away; likeliest culprit was the cell circuit in the phone was slightly damaged and running full data comms was causing it to reboot.
- refulgentis 3y agoAbout 3/4 use Android, but very few have the courage to run recent builds. It's been a frustration point up the ladder, because they feel the ~same as you: why are they the only ones filing bugs? But it's not that. It's decayed internal culture. There's other stuff around the margins they could change*, but, the rot is deep and unlikely to be fixed. Too focused on...non-business objectives...to be effective. Too crucial to risk reforming. And it's very unlikely they hear about it up the ladder. And that's before the morale decline of "even when you smile and nod and sing along with the antics, you can be let go at any point by a 2 AM email" * tl;dr: make it dead simple to get a phone. Line managers were always a bit squirrely about expensing. It's a non-starter post late 2021, and there were never ever enough DVTs/EVTs for them to be meaningful. Establish "everyone is on Pixel next year's - 2", and have the VP send an org-wide email saying individuals can expense as needed.
- jacek 3y agoThat's not the first story like this. It seems like more and more often the QA is done by users who have not signed up for it. Why can't a multibillion company do a proper QA?
- malfist 3y agoEven an unlimited QA budget won't catch everything. Though it is unflattering to have two major issues like this occur so close together.
- saghm 3y agoSure, but this is the past half dozen models of the phone made by the same company who makes the OS. You'd think these would be the easiest possible test cases for them to do up front.
- TillE 3y agoI'm sure they test those to some extent. I assume it's just a fraction of users affected, so it could be something like a service reading third-party app data and crashing due to a bug. The kind of thing that should be caught in code review, because comprehensive testing is next to impossible.
- 2OEH8eoCRo0 3y agoWhile true, why would it miss something so glaring? Minor rant but if trillion dollar companies can't get it right then what hope does anybody else have?
- charcircuit 3y agoBecause most test devices are likely constantly factory reset and aren't given the chance to live with multiple user profiles on them for a long period of time where cruft can build up and people can notice that using using external storage is broken.
- jeffbee 3y ago
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- 1905 3y agoImagine when this starts happening to cars
- deleted 3y ago[deleted]
- lgleason 3y agoTesla owner here. Many stories of that with them, and the latest autosteer update was a major downgrade.
- rconti 3y agoThankfully they mostly break the UI. Though my auto wipers got really bad recently. The body control electronics are pretty solid. I mean, you could lock/unlock, drive the car without the tablet. Not that regulators would approve of it.
- ashleyn 3y agoYou don't need to imagine: https://www.reddit.com/r/MachE/comments/18m3ne2 https://www.reddit.com/r/MachE/comments/18m3ne2
- radicaldreamer 3y agoRivian, Tesla, Ford (Mustang EVs) all have had bad OTA software shipped to them. The problem will continue to get worse as cars become mostly software defined.
- viscountchocula 3y agoIf you're not yet updated to the January Google Play system, can you keep the phone from auto-updating? I know how to do this for a full Android system update, but not for Google Play Services.
- apapapa 3y agoThe first thing I do with a new phone is disable all app automatic updates... Hope that also disabled the play store updates
- newprint 3y agoPixel owner here. Lately my phone been very slow or acting out. That explains it. Last year or few years ago, Google released update that broke Bluetooth on Pixels. Google's team released the update, broke things, went out for extended Christmas break and fixed things a few months later. I'm not fan of the Apple phones and the fact that they cost a fortune, but I don't recall them putting out hardware breaking updates.
- dannyfritz07 3y agoFYI, my pixel 5a phone has also been really slow and acting out in the last month. Crashes and extreme sluggishness in apps. Sometimes when I pull up the app-switcher, I can't get out of it without rebooting the phone. I however am not on the Jan 2024 Google Play update detailed by this article. I am still on the recommended Nov 2023 one.
- twisteriffic 3y agoIf you're low on storage space, try freeing up a few gigs. My pixel 5 was impossibly slow when I let it get under 5 gigs free.
- 7thaccount 3y agoI've often had like 20 Mb free lately....it REALLY doesn't like that. I'm also on a Pixel3. About time to upgrade lol.
- rconti 3y agoI'm sure someone will point out breaking iPhone updates that have happened in the past, but I've never been hit by one. Bad things happen, I think Apple is just REALLY aggressive about pulling updates that break things to limit the impact. That's the most important thing, IMO. Well, that and a fix for the people who got screwed.
- judge2020 3y agoTrue, no update process is perfect. My anecdote is with the Wallet in iOS 17 - suddenly, for some reason, I could not add any new cards to my Wallet, even after removing existing cards. No matter what I tried, adding it took approximately 10 minutes before it errored with "unable to contact your bank". I did a DFU wipe-restore and restored my phone from an iCloud backup, but I still could not add any cards. The only thing that fixed this was restoring my phone and not restoring from a backup, meaning I had to set everything up again; thankfully, it did fix the issue and I was able to add all of my cards back to my wallet. I have to imagine some update corrupted my years-old Wallet database. There is this screen[0] that should pop up if the Secure Element runs out of space, but I wasn't near the limit on cards, so I don't think this was the issue. 0: https://x.com/TapDownUnder/status/1750022004009586908?s=20 https://x.com/TapDownUnder/status/1750022004009586908?s=20
- curt15 3y agoDoesn't Android use A/B updates these days? How hard would it be to revert to the previous working version? https://source.android.com/docs/core/ota/ab https://source.android.com/docs/core/ota/ab
- csdvrx 3y ago> How hard would it be to revert to the previous working version? In Qualcomm EDL firehose mode? Super simple if you have the QPST: the phone is waiting for an image to write to the flash. It's actually waiting for the image to immediately reboot once it's written. But google doesn't release these images, so it's like having computer permanently bricked after the hard drive was corrupted because there's no install media available. I think we (as people who are on HN and can understand the problem) have a responsibility in not letting such things happen, if only because they hurt the people who don't understand the problem, the simplicity of the solution, and may just have a phone as their only computing device.
- summm 3y agoSince Pixel 6 Qualcomm is no longer used...
- csdvrx 3y agoThere are several similar formats allowing to do the exact same thing with other chips: I'm most familiar with mediatek, but essentially it's always a read-only bootloader, in case the normal boot can't start. I can't imagine google forgetting to add an EDL-like reflash mode for their SoC. I can however imagine them not providing the files needed for the reflash, since that's been true since they used Qualcomm.
- lgleason 3y ago[flagged]
- deleted 3y ago[deleted]
- ijhuygft776 3y agoI was unable to register new fingerprints or use existing registered fingerprints and my screen would randomly become unresponsive... I think it was software related because it appear to be working as expected now. (Pixel 7a) I don't auto-update apps though, just manually update the OS. I think it was the last time I bought a Pixel... but I am not sure because I don't know what else to buy.
- bloopernova 3y agoMine is running hot and draining its battery fast. They sure messed up this patch.
- therealfiona 3y agoLoved my Nexus 5x until the high power CPU cores started failing causing instabilities. Loved my pixel 2 until the battery stopped holding a charge. Liked my 4a (it is literally a faster 2 that you can't squeeze to bring up google assistant (the squeeze was my fave feature)) until the April 2023 update that ruined the battery life. They never fixed it. Pixel 7 was suffering the same issues at the time. I made the decision to switch to a Samsung S23+ and not looking back. Build quality of the Google flagships never have been the best, but they always have issues. I am getting too old to have time to fiddle with this stuff and just want something that works.
- bitwize 3y agoI hear a small company called Apple is making a viable alternative.
- jacquesm 3y agoApple is by no means perfect when it comes to updating devices. https://www.google.com/search?q=apple+ota+update+breaks+phones https://www.google.com/search?q=apple+ota+update+breaks+phon... There isn't a single manufacturer that consistently gets this right, only different shades of gray.
- bdcravens 3y agoThis is very true. Maybe it's just perception, but from the outside, it feels like Google plays the most fast and loose of the mainstream options. Samsung and Apple seem more trustworthy.
- nucleardog 3y agoYes, but in terms of: > I am getting too old to have time to fiddle with this stuff and just want something that works. I definitely find the iPhone great. It _generally_ just works. If shit does break there's no fiddling... it's just broken. If it doesn't work the way you want there's no fiddling... suck it up or get a new phone. I was going to say it's like an appliance and compare it to my toaster, but I would 100% end up at my kitchen table angrily disassembling my toaster if it failed to make me breakfast one morning.
- seatac76 3y agoIt was stuff like this that made me switch to iPhone. The notable ones were the December bug and them breaking SMS. What sort of testing they use is beyond me.
- seper8 3y agoApple did the same in the past...
- HackerThemAll 3y agoThe funny part is that internally they get the update way earlier than anyone outside, so it should already be spotted. https://9to5google.com/2017/04/18/google-pixel-xl-ota-dogfood-test-build/ https://9to5google.com/2017/04/18/google-pixel-xl-ota-dogfoo...
- kevingadd 3y agoDogfooding there was historically kind of a joke. I had severe issues with my Nexus hardware as a Googler and none of them ever got fixed. When they offered to give us all free Nexus phones as a Christmas gift one year I refused because I wasn't about to subject myself to another one. I'd wager money that dogfooders caught this issue and reported it, and nothing was done because it either fell through the cracks or wasn't reported enough to pass the "care about it" bar. Don't interpret this as a slam on the individual developers from the Android team, though. They're determined to fix stuff and some of them worked with me to troubleshoot issues. At the end of the day though it was organizational priorities preventing fixes, or high level decisions resulting in trainwrecks down the road. My favorite example is that the Nexus 5x phone I owned (bought out-of-pocket) had horrible thermal characteristics. The second-hand explanation I got was that late in the design process, they decided to put a fingerprint reader on the housing such that it sat directly on top of the main CPU package, and it turns out fingerprint readers don't work terribly well as heat sinks. The people who knew enough to protest about this decision were, it seems, overruled. I can attest that the stupid thing overheated constantly, causing the CPUs to throttle. I had to stop using the official (also purchased from Google) case because the case further impaired heat dissipation. That was my second Google handset and the last time I will ever personally buy one. My current employer did buy me a Pixel 4a for work use but I don't have anything positive to say about it other than "it only makes me angry some of the time".
- nerpderp82 3y agoE_WONTFIX How many tons of ewaste was just created? Even the core products are hurting. The Boeingification of everything is serious risk for all the civilization.
- Volundr 3y ago> E_WONTFIX Where are you getting this? The article says they are looking into it.
- nerpderp82 3y agoWONTFIX is the most popular bug resolution status at Google.
- jacquesm 3y agoAh, another case of OTA murder of perfectly good devices. You have to wonder at what point regulators will step in to ensure that companies end up liable for updates that effectively cost consumers money. Updates should be to make devices safer and better, never worse. One of the devices in our house has been nagging me since forever to update and I'm just about 99% sure that if I do allow it to update I'll end up regretting it. So now I'm facing a tough choice: potentially run a device with a security issue on the network here or play the update game of Russian Roulette (with 5 bullets instead of the normal single one) and hope that I still have a functional device afterwards.
- NoZebra120vClip 3y agoLook at the bright side: a bricked phone won't collect your personal data, you won't be able to fall for phishing scams on it, and its battery should last a really long time! Hyperbole aside, let's remember that "better" and "safer" exist in dialectic tension. Or, "convenience" vs. "security". Often, functionality or features are removed because they were insecure, so now your device is "safer". If you've got a big feature update pending, consider how many bugs/flaws it may introduce as the software gets "better".
- jacquesm 3y agoSlim pickings...
- csdvrx 3y agoI've posted a small summary below, with links to consistent reports of this happening + a software course of action to unbrick the phones. It's totally on google who's refusing to release the QPST files. It's creating ewaste for no acceptable reason. Hopefully, someone will leak the QPST files to allow a restore from the Qualcomm EDL firehose mode.
- jacquesm 3y agoNice sleuthing! It's incredible to me that there is no bullet proof recovery mode for this, even something as dumb as an Arduino can recover from almost every form of abuse.
- lacoolj 3y agoTitle is super misleading. I have 3 different pixels, all different versions (4, 5a, 7a) and none of them are "unusable" after the update. I'm sure others are having issues, but this isn't something that's bricking everyone's phones.
- jassyr 3y ago6a user here. No issues.
- jjulius 3y agoFWIW, I'm a Pixel user (who drags his ass installing these updates, so I haven't updated yet) and I naturally assumed reading the headline that this didn't actually impact all Pixel phones. Reason being that we would've obviously heard a loud uproar if every Pixel phone was suddenly bricked.
- ffsm8 3y agoPixel 8 pro and pixel 6 owner here. no issues so far, both devices are up-to-date
- queuebert 3y ago[flagged]
- ijhuygft776 3y ago> Reason being that we would've obviously heard a loud uproar if every Pixel phone was suddenly bricked. Many people (most?) have more than one device... computer... etc.. either way, there are many other ways to contact someone.
- jacquesm 3y agoWith three phones and a one-in-eight chance of being unaffected (assuming 50% for each phone) that still leaves a very large number of phones out there that are potentially affected. 100's of millions of devices. The article is pretty clear that it doesn't seem to affect every phone, but that there are numerous complaints. I'm always imagining 'Some' in front of headlines like these unless it says 'All'.
- green-eclipse 3y agoMine is working fine.
- e12e 3y ago> The issue is being reported by owners of numerous Pixel models, including the Google Pixel 5, 6, 6a, 7, 7a, 8, and 8 Pro, suggesting that it isn't confined to a particular hardware architecture. > The root cause is unknown but is likely a software issue with the January 2024 Play system update that Google hasn't pinpointed or fixed yet. > If you are still on an older update (last was November 1, 2023), it is recommended to stay on it and postpone applying the January 2024 update until the situation clears up. > In the case of Pixels, it appears that Google performed a staged roll-out of the January 2024 Play system updates, so not every Pixel owner has received the problematic update yet.
- microflash 3y agoYou can turn off Automatic system updates with "Settings > System > Developer options > Automatic system updates > toggle it off". Also, note that this is not OS update which is causing havoc (as per the article). Google Play system updates are different[1]. [1]: https://support.google.com/product-documentation/answer/11462338?hl=en https://support.google.com/product-documentation/answer/1146...
- neotoy 3y agoStill using my Pixel 3 and running the latest update, no issues. Hopefully my phone is just too old to be effected.
- fletchowns 3y agoI installed the update on my Pixel 7 but I haven't experienced the issues described in the article. However, I am back to having to re-pair my Garmin Venu 2 Plus watch every day after some Pixel update a few months ago. It was broken in early 2023, then they fixed it, then broke it again :( https://www.reddit.com/r/GarminWatches/comments/12hpk0c/venu_2_plus_pixel_7_constantly_having_to_do/ https://www.reddit.com/r/GarminWatches/comments/12hpk0c/venu... I can't help but think they do it deliberately, in order to drive folks to the Pixel watch.
- cmrdporcupine 3y agoAh, so. I'm not the only one. In my case I actually can't properly pair the device at all. I hadn't used my watch (Fenix 6 X) in many months, and last time I used it was with another phone. I went to pair with my Pixel on Android 14 and the actual bluetooth pairing works fine -- shows up in the list of Bluetooth devices -- but the Garmin app refuses to add it, thinks it can't talk to it. So the phone / watch connection can never happen. I suspect Google has made changes to bluetooth stack yet again and the Garmin stuff simply isn't working with it. (TBH their apps seem pretty janky) After this I might just go back to an iPhone.
- fletchowns 3y agoI always have to go to the gear menu on my phone, Connections -> Connectivity -> Phone -> Pair Phone to put it in pairing mode in order for the Garmin Connect app to detect it. The bluetooth pairing alone is never enough for me, it seems to pair successfully but then like you mentioned, the app never talks to it.
- cmrdporcupine 3y agoOh, I'm doing the pair process through the Garmin Connect app. I put the watch into pairing mode, then go to the app. The app sees the watch, then Android prompts for the bluetooth pairing code. That succeeds, the app goes into some sort of state of talking to the watch -- the watch switches to showing a little logo for the app even -- but then the app cacks out saying the pairing was not successful. Something is going wrong with some internal state transitions, or it loses connectivity while doing some sort of data sync or something. Sketchy.
- mihaic 3y agoMy Pixel 5's camera has not been working since October 2023 (app crashed on start), and I don't seem to be the only one. No update to fix this seems in sight. Google seems to really have dropped the ball on Pixel QA. It's a damn shame, since the Pixel was really the only good phone that wasn't huge or with an awful glass back.
- 0xblinq 3y agoiPhones are expensive for a reason. Moving from android was the best decision I’ve made tech-wise. If you can afford it, it’s totally worth its value.
- blashyrk 3y agoOr, unpopular opinion, if you don't care about brand and/or cutting edge camera quality, just buy a cheap Xiaomi phone. I have been using the Poco X3 for 3.5 years with absolutely zero issues. Even the battery still holds through an entire day of regular usage. It cost me 1/4 of the price of an iPhone and I get the same if not bigger value for my use cases (bigger in terms of battery life which was laughable back when I still used an iPhone 6, don't know if things have gotten better now).
- 0xblinq 3y agoI’ve had a Xiaomi phone and it was the worst crap I’ve ever had. I can understand somebody compares a pixel to an iPhone… but the only advantage of a cheap/low tier android phone is that…. They’re cheap.
- GeekyBear 3y agoAn iPhone SE is not expensive and is supported for just as long as the flagship iPhones are. The OG $399 iPhone SE from 2016 is currently on it's eighth year of security updates, having gotten another update just a week ago. That works out to $50 per supported year.
- dralley 3y agoI've lost so much respect for Google over the past few years. I keep having problems with the Youtube app locking up on my Pixel 4a, requiring me to force-stop the app via applications settings before it will work again. And after doing some travel with my phone, I have a difficult time believing that the Android PMs do much traveling with theirs. So many little issues that my wife didn't have with her iPhone.
- tadeegan 3y agoThe android pm probably wear Patagonia and use iPhones. Honestly
- blackbear_ 3y agoNo problem whatsoever on my side. GrapheneOS btw
- anderfernandes1 3y agoI have a Pixel 7 with the January update and everything is fine.
- mataug 3y agoAs much as I don't like apple's walled garden, reliability and consistency are exteremly valuable for users like my mom who's currently a pixel user. I hate being worried about her calling from a neighbor's phone one day because her phone is unusable. I'm aware that this issue doesn't affect all pixels, but an issue like this affecting even 1% of devices is not okay. I'm holding on to hope that google hasn't agressively pushed out this update, and my mom's phone won't auto update until this is resolved.
- rurp 3y agoIt's not just breaking changes that are a problem, UX changes just for the heck of it can cause people a lot of frustration. Pretty much every major Android version moves or changes core functionality. Changing the UI without a functional reason is the sort of thing a lot of people in tech get excited about but most people outside of the industry loathe.
- lancesells 3y agoI feel Apple does this too. The main app I use is Music and it sure feels like the UI is worse and overly complicated these days. Not to mention uglier.
- solarhess 3y agoThis happened to my Samsung S23 after the update too. The thing would black screen spontaneously following the update. At first it would respond to an hard-reboot, then repeatedly complain about Google Play Services crashing, and eventually black-screen again. After hard-rebooting it a few times it no longer even responds to the hard-reset key combo.
- deleted 3y ago[deleted]
- kn100 3y agopixel 6 pro owner here, up to date on everything, phone is entirely fine.
- zerof1l 3y agoNo problems with my Pixel 7a with latest GrapheneOS update is perfectly fine
- t0bia_s 3y agoHopefully it makes users more curious about alternative, more secure ROMs as LineageOS or GrapheneOS.
- MHoratio 3y ago[dead]
- MG1N 3y ago[dead]
- MG1N 3y ago[dead]