Downgrading tip from Nougat (7) to Marshmallow (6)

Participate Do It Yourself
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After upgrading to Fairphone OS 18.09.2 I discovered I could no longer switch off SIM’s. So I decided to revert back to Fairphone OS 18.04.01. While doing so I ran into a problem: after reinstalling Fairphone OS 18.04.01 the phone wouldn’t boot completely anymore, it kept rebooting constantly. However, after also doing a factory reset the phone worked fine again, running Fairphone OS 18.04.01. My tip therefore would be to follow up the reinstallation of Fairphone OS 18.04.01 with a factory reset.

Performing a factory reset naturally causes you to lose all data, so it is paramount to make a full backup while still running Android 7.

To avoid losing data, the detailed order of things to do would be then:

  1. Perform a full backup. Instructions on Fairphone site: https://support.fairphone.com/hc/en-us/articles/210512123

  2. Download and Unzip image file https://storage.googleapis.com/fairphone-updates/7058d8ad-5694-4a1b-95c3-db9a76218c49/FP2-gms-18.04.1-manual.zip

  3. Follow instructions 1 through 8 on this page: https://support.fairphone.com/hc/en-us/articles/207914363-Manually-install-Fairphone-OS-for-the-Fairphone-2

If you’re lucky, you’re done now, and you’ll even still have all of your apps and data.

If you’re not, and you’re stuck with a continuously rebooting phone:

  1. Remove the battery to force it to a full stop.

  2. Carefully read the instructions under “If your Fairphone 2 doesn’t start anymore” on this page to do a factory reset: https://support.fairphone.com/hc/en-us/articles/115001610926-How-to-return-to-Factory-settings-on-my-Fairphone-2

  3. Insert the battery and immediately initiate the factory reset (you have to quickly boot into system recovery mode before the phone starts its own perpetual rebooting loop).

After performing the factory reset your phone flawlessly runs Android 6 Marshmallow again. Unfortunately, you’ll have to reinstall all of your data and apps again. But that is a small price to pay for having a well working phone again.

2 Likes
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@DvdG the #participate:diy category is not for software tips.
It fits best in #help:guides and tbh I’d simply add your steps 4-6 to ✏ Android 7 update: most annoying bugs, FAQ, etc 's " I regret upgrading, how do I downgrade?" paragraph as a sub-section.

Or do the other @moderators have a better idea?

3 Likes
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I think you’re right and a good merge (adding steps 4-7) with “android 7 update most…” would be the best way but to do it well some work.
A quick solution may be to add just a note instead of the merge and so linking to this (then moved to fp2 help category) - as I think - good elaborated article.

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Thank you both for the constructive comments.

Pardon me for asking (I’m completely new to this forum) but do I have to move the article to #help:guides and add a link to it in :pencil2: Android 7 update: most annoying bugs, FAQ, etc myself, or will the moderators do that?

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I’ll do this for you now :slight_smile:

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