Endless Optimisation Restart Loop after OOS 17.01 update (encrypted + OpenGAPPS)

After updating my device, like several times before, I phone begins optimising applications, restarting, optimising all of the applications again, restarting, etc. If I could find the cause of this issue it would be great, but sadly this time, I don’t even have a workaround.

Generally I “solve” this problem by factory resetting my phone, but this time my phone is encrypted. Apparently the recovery tool can’t mount anything on an encrypted phone. Sideloading hasn’t worked either. How do you recover the operating system when the device is encrypted? I don’t care if I need to wipe everything and start from scratch (okay I do care, but it’s better than no phone).

Does the phone start itself (e.g. when you put the battery back in)? If it does, there may be a hardware problems with one of the modules.

Did you install openGAPPs? If you did, you’ll need to flash those again to get out of the boot loop (see this useful guide if you need hints on how)

What do you mean when you say sideloading hasn’t worked - does the update file not install, or does it install, but not solve the boot loop?

I actually just noticed that the sideloading issue is less of a problem. I still can access the SD card through MTP, so I was able to put the images on the phone that way.

I do have openGAPPs on my phone, so I tried reinstalling that. Sadly the encryption problem comes back and it complains it can’t do the install because it can’t mount /data. Even trying to reflash the entire operating system fails for the same reason.

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Strange, I’m quite sure @freibadschwimmer, who wrote the update guide linked in my previous post, has an encrypted phone as well…

He/she does mention some things not working with encryption but I’m not able to get anything to work with encryption, because /data cannot be mounted by TWRP. The only thing I was able to find on another forum was to erase data. This of course removes everything from my device and is not a viable option after every system update. I guess I now have a working device, but I now have to choose between encryption or being able to perform updates.

Indeed with an encrypted device you cannot mount /data in TWRP (at least not with the available FP2 ports), and not make, for example, TWRP backups. However, it should still be possible to make a factory reset, as this should wipe /data (obviously also deleting all personal data).
For installing opengapps or xposed it should be irrelevant whether the device is encrypted or not, since these modifications are added and installed to the /system partition. Certainly me and a couple of other users with encrypted devices have done that several times already.

Thus, installing opengapps or making a factory reset should both be possible on an encrypted device.


Having that said, if you run into a bootloop after FPOOS update and you had opengapps installed, first attempt troubleshooting I’d recommend is to reinstall the latest version of OpenGAPPS in the recovery.


If for some reason the recovery is not accessible, a system could also be reset/reinstalled through fastboot. This will however delete all data and settings.

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Same story here!

I have got Fairphone Open OS installed, encrypted, with Open GApps (nano) installed.

I performed an update via the updater and OTA, after restarting it hangs in an endless boot loop. I tried to wipe everything via TWRP but there is always an error. I also even tried reflashing a fresh image, it seemed successfull but in the end everything seemed as before (see here).

I am so glad to find somebody else (@meoblast001) with the same issue - I really don’t know how to solve it since the last option (reflashing) didn’t work out…

So, same here, I would be very, very glad about some ideas how to deal with this!

Cheers,

Goody

I have exactly the same problem.

After updating the phone asked me to enter the SIM pin code and started rebooting and optimising apps forever.
I thought I had to upgrade openGAPPS after upgrading the OS
My phone has an encrypted HD

I’ll deal with the problem later in the meantime Ill use my iPhone 4 from 2010.

Well, I have to admit I never tried to make a factory reset from TWRP, but maybe it indeed needs to mount /data for wiping it.

For the exercise of doing a factory reset, you could also (temporarily) install the default Android recovery from a FPOS image, and then try to wipe /data from there.

If flashing the whole system image did not help, try to use the wipe option (-w) in fastboot. This should erase userdata & cache.

@freibadschwimmer did you apply the 17.01 update without this issue or are you sitting this one out?

I haven’t yet installed it, maybe I’ll give it a shot in the evening.

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@zybque was your phone encrypted? (As reinstalling openGAPPs got you out of the boot loop).
@goody , @meoblast001 What’s the error message you get when installing the openGAPPs package from recovery? Also, which versionnumber of openGAPPs are you using?

Also, as I replied to another post:
fastboot -w will erase userdata, but may leave encryption intact
fastboot format userdata is more likely to wipe out encryption along with the data.

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@Johannes No encryption.

I tried it several times and I always get back into the loop.

I upgrade the openOS with an encrypted FP2 with openGAPPS. And when things went wrong I read on the Forum that there are problem. It shouldn’t be possible to break a FP with updating the OS.

Anyway, how can I get my phone working again, when volume up and power on doesn’t work?

rgs

SOLVED
I finally succeeded with volume up and power to enter TWRP mode
and after reflashing openGAPPS my FP2 seems to work.

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I updated now as well to FPOOS 17.01, on an encrypted devices, and also encountered problems (maybe also @anon36364121 might be interested) .

I was following the update guide.
After the initial update process is finished in TWRP, and when the phone reboots, I usually go to recovery again right away to reinstall opengapps & xposed. However, I could not access recovery! When pressing [power] + [Vol up] the phone just rebooted twice after a short time (not sure if I can talk about a loop, as I aborted after not being able to enter recovery).
What I did to solve the problem was to install the community port of TWRP (as I still could get into fastboot). After this I could enter as usual into recovery and installed opengapps, xposed & Fdroid.

After that the phone rebooted normally, and I am running 17.01 now.

I tried to flash again the TWRP shipped with 17.01 manual-userdebug file and then could access the recovery as usual. I don’t know why it did not work after the update (which I initiated through the FP updater). It could be that either the recovery from the ota-update file was faulty or did not get installed properly. Though I didn’t experiment too much with it, I just tried to get my phone working again asap.

Anyhow, now running 17.01. Thanks for finally fixing the video focus :smiley:

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Wohoo, though reflashing Open GApps, I got out of the bootloop! Thank you soooo much! At least I have a working phone now! Now I try to get a proper factory reset via the GUI. So thanks again and let’s see if everything works fine…

THANK YOU!

Hey, now I tried to get a full factory reset via the Android settings but it didn’t secceded. I really don’t know how to get rid of encryption and how to get a clean Open Android… Does anybody know?

I just had a little chat with @anon36364121 who is not sure he sees a specific issue with encryption here.

Is someone with encryption and OpenGapps brave enough to try updating to 17.02 - following the update guide to avoid the usual issues that may arise - and see if they experience this issue again?
“This issue” means you get into a bootloop without the ability to:

  • enter recovery or
  • re-flash OpenGAPPS or
  • do a hard reset.

Taking into consideration some good advise by @anon36364121 I have modified the update guide. It is now recommended to install all packages (fp-update file, xposed, gapps, …) in one batch from TWRP. This is faster and smoother, as you only once need to access the recovery, without any hassle after the first installation.

I just followed the modified update guide and it worked smoothly.

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Thank you, Framb00s, and all the others. Flashing GApps got me out of a two day boot loop. Why do updates never go smoothly? :wink: