Running fastboot -w update softwareupdate.zip with the -w flag you are overwritting the recovery and boot flashed on the previous steps PLUS deleting all your userdata from the phone. ALL.
$ fastboot help ... -w Erase userdata and cache (and format if supported by partition type).
I really hope you made a backup of important stuff from TWRP before executing the third step you describe. That was the only purpose of my tutorial.
And why did you flash TWRP as recovery without using it? The file you downloaded holds the images for the whole OS, so flashing it all has to remove the just flashed recovery and boot.img.
Instead you could have used TWRP to backup the images âsystemâ, âcacheâ, âbootâ and âuserdataâ and then flash the images from the zip-file (without ârecoveryâ) via TWRP.
Try again, this way youâll learn âŠ
Thanks for your concern, I did what I did perfectly knowing that I would erase my userdata partition.
Maybe I wasnât clear enough, but I did not succeed in any of the steps, so I couldnât either have TWRP running. I have a backup of all important things because a phone is just a phoneâŠ
My concern now is that there may be tens, or hundreds, or thousands of Fairphoners in the same trouble and that Iâm not going to have an FP2 up and running any soon⊠as the repair service is « overwhelmed » as they are stating it.
Best regards,
Guillaume
By any chance, maybe you didnât wait enought time on the âFairphone / powered by Androidâ black boot screen?
who are you actually talkin to?
Sorry, you are right, I should have pointed my answer to Lomig.
Each time, I waited for several minutes, letâs say 3 to 5, isnât that enough ?
No definitely not!
If I am correct, I red in this forum that some people had to wait at least half an hour (or hours?) before the device finally finish installing everything.
Can everybody confirm that?
I had the same problem. Fairphone powered by android for hours.
Volume up plus power button for 15-20 sec. solved it for me. dont release after it vibrates!
After 15-20 sec. TWRP started and i was able to restore a backup.
@Zwetschke: I guess you are using the free software version for FP2, as you mention TWRP which is included in it.
On my side, I reflashed the normal 1.3.6 version of Android with fastboot, which went smooth, but then the reboot was still stuck on âFairphone powered by Androidâ. I tried what you said, waited for a few seconds after the vibration (but not too long either because after another 10 to 15 seconds, another reboot occurs) and released volume up and power buttons. Same behavior, no recovery tool being launched 
Questions: how long did you wait after vibration before releasing buttons ? Does it matter whether the USB cable is connected to the computer ? Does it matter whether battery is inserted or not ? Mine seems to be discharged now and Iâm not sure that it gets charged without any OS controlling it.
Iâm going to reflash the latest open source 16.06.0 image for fastboot, which includes TWRP as far as I know. But Iâm not expecting much out of this. Iâm afraid there is something else wrong with the phone.
[update] nothing better with this open source version 
@Gauthier67, did you make any progress on your side ? Did you get any feedback from Fairphone support ?
@Lomig, I did exactly the same as you, and still nothing better. I have no answer from the support either.
The only news is that last time I didnât manage to flash the system.img, and now it worked.
Just for info, what system are you using on your computer? Iâm on Ubuntu 14.04. Iâll try the procedure from windows tomorrow.
Iâm using MacOS 10.11.5 El Capitan. I currently gave up and Iâm waiting for the support to answer, hopefully during the week to come. I will try it from windows if you report some success, which I doubt very much.
If you all flash so much, why donât you simply flash TWRP as recovery. If that works, you wonât have any trouble flashing the other images oder single images, doing backups and restores. And if you are working with TWRP be aware, not to flash any recovery-image - or tell TWRP to prevent that. Flasing the update via this recovery is under 15 minutes.
By the way: working with adb and fastboot is always the same on Mac, Win, Linux âŠ
Update: After reseting the phone, it still bricks. So, itâs probably not a problem with the updateâŠ
In my case, I can not go to the recovery mode, as the phone never gets out of the black âFairphone powered by Androidâ screen.
The only communication channel that I can open with the phone is from computer to phone with the fastboot mode / protocol, which reports a successful flash of either the regular 1.3.6 OS, or the latest open source version, but no reboot occurs in either case, even after waiting for several hours. This fastboot reflash is somewhat the equivalent of a hard reset, isnât it ?
As the only thing that I performed so far is software operations, I would say that my phone is soft-bricked. But then maybe thereâs something wrong with the memory or some other hardware.
Sounds like you are in Fastboot mode (Power + Vol. down). If you want to get into the recovery, you need to press [Power] + [Vol. Up].
Let me be more precise, I already several times to enter recovery mode (i.e. power + volume up press for ~10 secs): after the phone screen goes black for one second (tentative reboot ?), then lights up again with the âFairphone powered by Androidâ screen, and does not change for hours whatsoever.
This is why Iâm saying that I cannot enter the recovery mode.
You donât need to press both buttons for 10 sec., it is sufficient to release the buttons once the phone vibrates.
Though I donât know if that denies you to get into the recovery.
Since you have access to fastboot, you could try to only flash the recovery image. Unfortunately I canât find the file for the latest release, but since you already tried to install the 1.3.6, the corresponding recovery image is available here; just unzip. If Iâm not mistaken, you would then flash the recovery with the command
fastboot flash recovery.img
The whole archive would also be the proper file to flash from fastboot, if you want to install the 1.3.6. system (note, that for fastboot you should NOT use the *ota.img file).
Hello
If for any reason youâre unable to flash anything (like flash partitions messed up), you could try to run TWRP without flashing it :
fastboot boot recovery.img
instead of fastboot flash âŠ