Hello Fairphone Support Team & Community,
I recently purchased a Fairphone 6 with Android, and I’m now trying to install /e/OS on it. Unfortunately, I overlooked the option to buy the device with /e/OS preinstalled through your website, so I’m attempting the manual installation route.
However, I’ve encountered a problem: OEM unlocking is blocked on my device.
When I try to enable OEM unlocking in Developer Options, the toggle is greyed out. No code is provided, and entering my screen lock PIN or Google account credentials doesn’t work. As a result, I’m unable to proceed with unlocking the bootloader.
Here’s what I’ve done so far:
- Verified that I’m signed in to a Google account
- Waited over 24 hours with the device connected to Wi-Fi
- Removed and re-added the Google account
- Rebooted the device multiple times
- Installed all available system updates
To confirm the lock state, I checked via Fastboot. Running the command:
fastboot getvar unlocked
Returns:
unlocked: no
And attempting:
fastboot flashing unlock
Fails with:
FAILED (remote: ‘Unlock operation is not allowed’)
It appears that the current firmware or provisioning is blocking the ability to unlock the bootloader, even though the hardware should support it.
Could you please advise:
- Is there a firmware update or unlock authorization available that would allow OEM unlocking?
- Can you enable bootloader unlocking for this device?
- Are there any safe steps I can take to move forward with /e/OS installation?
I would really appreciate your guidance.
Thank you in advance for your support.
You cant contact support (or FP in general) using the forum.
What do you mean with “No code is provided”? You know that you have to visit this site in order to get the unlock code?
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If you succeed
When in fastboot mode, run the command fastboot flashing get_unlock_ability before attempting to relock the bootloader.
Don’t relock the bootloader if the result of the command is 0!
Because you will brick your phone and then the phone needs to be repaired by Fairphone.
Please report here if you get 0 as a result.
Thank you! Yes, fastboot flashing get_unlock_ability returns “0”
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Thank you for the link, that’s exactly what I meant.
UPDATE:
I’m still trying to unlock my Fairphone 6 bootloader on Linux (fastboot v36), and the device is detected correctly. I now have my OEM unlock code, and running:
fastboot flashing unlock [my unlock code]
fastboot flashing unlock_critical [my unlock code]
but both return
usage: unknown ‘flashing’ command unlock
The OEM unlock toggle in Settings is still greyed out. It looks like the FP6 bootloader build simply doesn’t include those unlock hooks. Has anyone found a workaround or received an updated firmware to restore these commands?
Thanks!
Please read the installation instructions carefully. In particular, the information on when and where exactly the code is to be entered.
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Thats def not correct as several people already unlocked their bootloader and you are jumping around. So kindly advice where in the instructions linked above by @beedaddy you actually are.
Maybe post a screenshot of the OEM unlocking setting
I followed the instructions, and cannot get past step 4. This is how it looks on my phone:
Maybe I am wrong for the reasons why I cannot unlock this device, but I cannot unlock it directly on the phone (see picture) or using fastboot (see my previous post).
But didn’t you say that you have the OEM unlock code? Can’t you just type it in? I mean, this input dialog seems exactly the right place to do that. Is it not possible? (Sorry if I missed something obvious.)
3 Likes
Man, I feel so stupid. I didn’t see that this line is a field to type in… 
I was able to unlock it now. I will update this post when I succeeded (fingers crossed stupid me gets this done)
UPDATE: Everything else went seamless. I’m now running /e/OS! Thanks so much for everyone who helped!! Hopefully other people not seeing the line in the OEM unlock as the field to type in the code, can find the solution here.
2 Likes
