Device not booting after flashing factory image and locking bootloader

…and there it is !


still with the protective packaging.
Thanks you all, guys !

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Fine, what are you doing now? Re-flash?

I’ll try to sell it, because I bought another one :smiling_face:. I took the picture with the second one.

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I got my package today from the repair center … and inside was a grey 128 GB Fairphone …

I had sent my speckled green 256GB for repair. :face_with_raised_eyebrow:

What is wrong with this repair center?

I have not yet received an invoice for the 29.90 €, do they want to fob you off so?

This is all really VERY unpleasant for the name Fairphone and my first own Fairphone :confused:

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And someone may have got your 256 ???

And I get today my 256Gb FP4 back with a broken Backcover! This moment I checked, I got really mine back…
But now I’m waiting for FP Support what’s next about the backcover!

Fairphone isn’t doing itself a great favor when it comes to its reputation. This can end badly very quickly…

Unfortunately, this has nothing to do with long-term customer loyalty

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(Not sure where to place this post - strictly speaking it’s CalyxOS in my case not factory image; but the actual topic is the locking bootloader issue…)

I got my new FP4 today and installed CalyxOS test build (FP4-factory-22303020.zip). Thanks to this forum I was prepared and aware of the problem with bricked phones after re-locking the bootloader. Installing CalyxOS went fine and it boots. get_unlock_ability is 0 and “OEM-Entsperrung” is off and greyed, says (correctly) that the bootloader is already unlocked.

If I understand correctly, this is the situation where locking the bootloader might brick the phone, right? What to do next? Is there a way to set get_unlock_ability to 1?

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Yes, there is a way as long as you have not locked the bootloader, using magisk. You may want to read this post by @hirnsushi and the posts thereafter: Trapped in fastboot mode with locked bootloader and corrupted /e/ OS - #117 by hirnsushi

I was as in the same situation as you after flashing CalyxOS and was able to reset get_unlock_ability to 1 before locking.

Good luck!

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I would strongly advise against taking the Magisk route!
You were lucky and didn’t brick, but get_unlock_ability was reset to 0 in your case as well, if something would have gone wrong, your phone would have been bricked.

As I mentioned in my follow up posts, I haven’t been able to get get_unlock_abiltiy to stay at 1 so far. If get_unlock_ability was reset to 0 at some point, the safest way is still to keep the bootloader unlocked and wait for a release that really fixes that issue.

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For my understanding: release of what? Of CalyxOS? What confuses me here, is that (if I have read the different threads correctly) it happened with three different ROMs: CalyxOS, iodeOS and FPOS - do they all suffer from the same bug?

Thanks!

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New FPOS factory images probably, that’s what I’m waiting for since the latest ones didn’t solve the issue.

The next CalyxOS release will integrate the fixes from the latest FPOS factory images, but since those didn’t help I wouldn’t get my hopes up that there’s a fix for it in the next Calyx release.
From what I can tell from the chatter in the Calyx Matrix channel, they aren’t exactly sure what causes it either :man_shrugging:

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Thanks for putting my post into perspective – I am clearly still biased by the feeling of relief after having used your magisk approach and, at least for the time being, avoided bricking my phone :slight_smile:

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I think this is sufficient and you’re safe as long as you use this moment to change “OEM unlocking” to “enabled” and as long as you’re careful and only lock the bootloader while OEM unlocking is still enabled…

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I’m not sure it’s safe, you should be able to unlock the bootloader again if something goes wrong and you wouldn’t be able to if get_unlock_ability gets reset. get_unlock_ability should definitely stay at 1, until that happens I’m not gonna recommend it.

I myself won’t risk it, but that’s mostly because I don’t plan on locking the bootloader anyway, I’m only interested in solving this problem :slightly_smiling_face:

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In case it is of interest: Updating to the newest CalyxOS release 3.5.0 OTA with locked bootloader and OEM unlock enabled worked fine for me, with OEM unlock not getting changed at least in this case, i.e. get_unlock_ability staying at 1.

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I don’t know if this is something new, but I just found that immediately after flashing CalyxOS get_unlock_ability is 1, after the first boot its 0 again:

tuxedo:/daten/temp/FP4-sp2a.220505.002 # fastboot flashing get_unlock_ability
(bootloader) get_unlock_ability: 0
OKAY [  0.001s]
Finished. Total time: 0.001s

tuxedo:/daten/temp/FP4-sp2a.220505.002 # ./flash-all.sh 
Sending 'abl_a' (148 KB)                           OKAY [  0.009s]
Writing 'abl_a'                                    OKAY [  0.003s]
Finished. Total time: 0.019s

[..]

Finished. Total time: 124.915s
Rebooting into bootloader                          OKAY [  0.000s]
Finished. Total time: 0.050s

tuxedo:/daten/temp/FP4-sp2a.220505.002 # fastboot flashing get_unlock_ability
(bootloader) get_unlock_ability: 1
OKAY [  0.001s]
Finished. Total time: 0.001s

tuxedo:/daten/temp/FP4-sp2a.220505.002 # fastboot reboot bootloader
Rebooting into bootloader                          OKAY [  0.000s]
Finished. Total time: 0.050s

tuxedo:/daten/temp/FP4-sp2a.220505.002 # fastboot flashing get_unlock_ability
(bootloader) get_unlock_ability: 1
OKAY [  0.001s]
Finished. Total time: 0.001s

tuxedo:/daten/temp/FP4-sp2a.220505.002 # fastboot reboot
Rebooting                                          OKAY [  0.000s]
Finished. Total time: 0.050s

tuxedo:/daten/temp/FP4-sp2a.220505.002 # fastboot flashing get_unlock_ability
(bootloader) get_unlock_ability: 0
OKAY [  0.001s]
Finished. Total time: 0.001s

BTW: There is another problem: Recovery Mode does not work, I only get the “no command” screen.

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Very interesting discovery! :+1:
I’ll have to check if that’s the case on stock FPOS as well :thinking:

In Calyx Recovery Mode is accessible through fastbootd, that might have to do with Androids general direction towards fastboot in userspace.
So you’ll have to adb reboot fastboot / fastboot reboot fastboot and select “Enter recovery” from there to get into recovery.


Update: I did some tests and it’s basically the same on stock FPOS, but in an effort to gain some more insight I checked all the other ways I could think of to access the system before the first boot.
The starting point is a freshly flashed stock FPOS, not rebooted (there’s a handy variable for that in the script):

Action Result
  • Regular boot
  • Booting _Safe mode_
| `get_unlock_ability=0`
  • fastboot reboot bootloader
  • fastboot reboot fastboot
  • fastboot reboot recovery
  • Factory Reset
|`get_unlock_ability=1`
  • adb sideload A.0116 OTA
  • fastboot boot magisk_boot.img
|failed

Regardless of what I tried, after the first successful boot it always was reset to 0
Maybe I’ll get a “free” get_unlock_ability=1 on my 10th try? :thinking:

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Hello all,

Little question, if the case you want to switch back from CalyxOS (let’s say with get_unlock_ability=0 to stock FPOS, is the documentation from fairphone complete or do we need for example to erase custom key flashed with CalyxOS?

In the case you successfully flashed stock FPOS but that your get_unlock_ability is still 0, the only solution to relock the bootloader will be to wait for a firmware update?

Do you have any changes since it is now CalyxOS 3.5.1?

Thanks,

ps: An other question for my understanding: Why does some cutsom rom (like IodéOS) do require to unlock/lock only the non critical partition and other like CalyxOS both? Moreover, CalyxOS unlock the critical but ask us to not lock it after locking the non-critical. What are the consequence of this? I’m a little bit lost

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