Fairphone 2 - Booting in EDL mode and unbricking

Help Fairphone 2
16

Sooo, a guide for those interested.
I’m writing it as promised, then taking a few weeks pause from the forum, I’m too busy right now :slight_smile: So don’t await feedback from me too quickly.
@demetrio

How to (try to) unbrick a FP2

This is the draft of a guide to unbrick the FP2, greatly inspired from the Fairphone 3 unbricking guide get a read at the topic as well, you might get a few helpful tips). Yet untested. Please press the green pencil button in the bottom right corner to edit and improve this post if you feel you can.

Disclaimer: I and the forum members having contributed to the post are not responsible for any damage you can deal to your device or yourself in any way.

Note: This guide currently won’t work for various reasons. So currently don’t try it as is, it will get improvements in Feb 22 sometime.

  1. Get a computer ready for android operations (get ADB/fastboot ready, get a working Python environment; my own on which I started elaborating the guide is a Debian 10 KDE with latest ADB/fastboot binaries from Debian and Python 3.9 in a virtual environment)
  2. Get to know what EDL mode is, open a terminal and relax, and the 2 hours you prepared for it will become 8.
  3. Get edl.py on your computer by reading their README (do all required steps and install all missing dependencies in your python environment)
  4. Check edl.py is working by entering edl.py -h, and try with different variants (./edl.py -h or python edl.py -h), it will display the help.
  5. Download the latest Fairphone OS or Fairphone Open manual installation file, extract it, copy the “images” directory and paste it in the main edl.py folder.
  6. Check if your bricked phone is in EDL or not. From a Linux computer, lsusb should output a line containing “9008” or “9006” (should be something like Bus 001 Device 009: ID 05c6:9008 Qualcomm, Inc. Gobi Wireless Modem (QDL mode))
    • If your phone isn’t in EDL mode already, see this post to start in it by short-circuiting the test pins (:warning: This can deal physical damage to you or your device, be very careful and take precautions and inform yourself, and remember you’re short-circuiting some electric circuits, which can lead to fire if not careful) You can also inspire yourself from this post done for FP3 [@Alex.A: I didn’t manage this step, my devices output an empty line after the ID, I have to check and try again, probably ModemManager I forgot to disable. If you also have an empty line at the same step, go on and try, it may be some FP2 special.]
  7. In the terminal enter edl.py wl images --loader=images/emmc_appsboot.mbn && python edl.py reset
  8. Follow what’s told, see if it’s your lucky day, your phone should reboot in the end and you should be able to reach fastboot.

Good luck!

TODO:

  • Improve the structure of the guide if needed
  • Adapt for Windows
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