My 14.1 -> 15.1 upgrade struggles

[paulakreuzer]

Something strange happened to my phone when I upgraded Lineage OS:

• My contacts app lost many contacts and when I restored them I could no longer add groups.
• The Lightning browser crashes every time I try to start it.
• After some time my texting app started crashing every time I clicked on a text (happens with the pre-installed “messaging” app as well as QKSMS).
• Then all of a sudden no app was able to connect to the internet anymore.

I cleared all caches & app data and reinstalled the apps (or disabled and reenabled) and nothing changed.
So I thought I’d start from scratch and wiped everything in TWRP (except external SD), then flashed LOS again -> the phone booted and everything was still there.
I thought TWRP had no problems with encryption as long as it happened in 14.1? I also didn’t get any error messages, TWRP told me all wipes were successful.

[Roboe]

@paulakreuzer

the phone booted and everything was still there.

Weird, but I’ve read some other user state this too (if you’re reading, sorry, I don’t remember you). I don’t recall this happening to me when I updated, I did several tries with and without data.

The usual troubleshooting would be Wipe → Format data from TWRP and re-encrypt the phone. But there’s the TWRP issue with decrypting Oreo encryption. So I’d Wipe → Format data, install 14.1, encrypt, upgrade to 15.1.

I can provide the last Lineage OS 14.1 ROM from my backups (with SHA256 sum and signed) if the web doesn’t store it currently.

[Singulus]

Is Oreo using full-device-encryption (FDE) or perhaps just a file-based-encryption (FBE) as a new default?

[AnotherElk]

@Singulus

Is Oreo using full-device-encryption (FDE) or perhaps just a file-based-encryption (FBE) as a new default?

Oooh. Ohhh. Lineage 15.1 (testing)

No. Or at least it’s not known yet why twrp cannot decrypt partitions that are encrypted under O. I am not yet sure if twrp can decrypt 15.1 if the encryption was done under 14.1. Chris

[paulakreuzer]

@Roboe

So I’d Wipe → Format data , install 14.1, encrypt, upgrade to 15.1.

Since it seems that the format data step is already not working I’ll instead try: restore old backup from 14.1 → wipe → format data → encrypt → upgrade to 15.1.

[AnotherElk]

@paulakreuzer

Since it seems that the format data step is already not working

Please confirm that Format data in TWRP is not working for you.
Wiping is not formatting. Wiping leaves encryption intact, formatting doesn’t.

[paulakreuzer]

Lol, I’ve never seen the format data option before. I just thought you meant an advanced wipe.

[Roboe]

@AnotherElk

Wiping is not formatting. Wiping leaves encryption intact, formatting doesn’t.

Thank you, I forgot to state this explicitly.

[AnotherElk]

@paulakreuzer

Lol, I’ve never seen the format data option before

Ok, have a detailed TWRP introduction then (different device, but TWRP works the same)
…

MIUI 14 -Xiaomi Global

[JeroenH]

Do you use an SD card as well? The recent ones tend to go bad quicker than previously (MLC/aMLC). How long does the eMMC last?

[paulakreuzer]

Ok, so here is where I am now:

I can:

• wipe and format and then flash 15.1 and start fresh without encryption and any data
• restore my backup from 14.1 to get all my data back, but then not boot (bootloop)
• flash 15.1 after restoring 14.1 and have all my data, but all the issues posted in the first post too (and this time they don’t appear one by one, but are there from the beginning) oh and for some reason 15.1 then encrypts without asking me for a PW and I can’t use TWRP anymore because it asks me for a code that I don’t know.

So anybody have an idea how I could start 14.1 again to manually save my data?

PS:

@JeroenH

Do you use an SD card as well?

Yes

@JeroenH

How long does the eMMC last?

What’s that?

[JeroenH]

eMMC, the internal flash memory (storage).

Are you merging the SD data with the internal storage or are you using it solely for media?

If you’ve merged, have you attempted to boot without the SD card installed?

[paulakreuzer]

I finally got somewhere

• I wiped and formatted again, restored 14.1 & installed 15.1 -> lots of apps broken, encrypted with unknown password, but data there.
• I moved the latest oandbackup to my SD card (cause I still haven’t figured out how to make oandbackup work with the SD card in the first place)
• I wiped & formatted again and started a clean 15.1 -> encryption gone (I can live with booting 3x faster though ) but everything working.
• I restored some things with oandbackup -> things started going wrong again
• I repeated the last two steps a few times restoring less and less data.
• now everything works except the restored contacts disappear after every reboot. Maybe 15.1 can’t handle contact groups well? If I create a new contact (which I can’t file into a group) it will last.

PS: I think I fixed the contacts issue: I restored them and before the next reboot exported them as a vcard. When I re-imported them the contacts were no longer in groups, but I think they are lasting now. Instead of groups I just use the nickname field now. E.g. for @Stanzi I filled “Fairphoner Stanzi” into the nickname field and now I find him along with others I filed as “Fairphoner” with Kiss Launcher.