I bought a Fairphone 5 in the UK about a year ago and it is running Android 14. I use it for work and it is now a security requirement for me to have Android 15, but the phone says that it is up to date and I can’t find any way to force it to update. I will have to change my phone if I can’t get Android 15 on it.
I put in a support request 13 days ago, which was acknowledged but no response yet. Chased up via the chat, but didn’t get a live agent even though it was supposed to be live agent hours. The lack of support is really concerning, but I’m loath to change phone when I only bought it because it is supposed to be a long-term sustainable option… support
The support seems to be non-existent, so I’m trying here - thanks in advance for any help!
This is most likely an issue with the provider/carrier. There might be network compatibility issues remaining which delay the upgrade to Android 15 on your FP5. Unfortunately, the Fairphone company is contractually bound to not publish which providers are affected.
I have not followed the discussion here much, but perhaps other users can contribute experience which providers in the UK have already received the upgrade and which not. You might want to add yours to speed up clarification.
Sky is a MVNO, in other words they don’t have their own masts but use those of one of the operators who do. Their website is strangely coy on the subject, but as far as I can see (Which?, Wikipedia, …) they use the O2 network.
This is important, because in most cases, the roll-out of OS updates depends largely on the technical network, not really the commercial one. You might want to contact Sky and / or O2 to find out more about the delay.
You might also get in touch with Fairphone Angels in the UK who may be able to help with information Hanworth, London, Edinburgh. Click the blue spots on the map for their respective Heaven e-mail addresses.
Please also read about FP5 updates to A15 in particular here and here. Especially, if your Fingerprint sensor is not working I would strongly advise you to wait until a corrected update is made available.
[Edit - removed a sentence that might be interpreted as “hearsay” and that adds little except my own opinion.]
Thats really rather completly out of scope of what angels know or support. Angels dont have such insights, so kindly dont refer to Angels in such cases.
I’m not suggesting FPAs have inside information, but they may know whether the update has come through on other networks, if they have or know others who have FP5s and their localities are therefore of value to my mind.
Thats not really how its working in my eyes and in my eyes we should be careful with sending people with such questions to Angels, as it can give (again) false impressions on what Angels are and how they are connected to FP. Such questions have to be addressed and answered by Fairphone who seem to be not willing to officially answer the question in genersl on how things work. I asked that several weeks ago and have some kind of answer, however I dont want to add any further hearsay again for this topic.
Nothing that I have written is “hearsay” (q.v.), though a simple expression of my own opinion seems to equate to that in your opinion. I have removed that. I have cited my sources where relevant.
thats not what I said or meant. I meant when I add now here the Info I got from FP around processes with providers, that would be hearsay and we already have too much around this topic (why are some providers not getting the update, do they do testing etc.) spread in the forum. This is why I asked FP to explain this officially in a blog post or similar however it seems they are not willing to do this, or need several more months to write it.
It tells you to do it via ADB, but in recovery menu I see “apply update from sd card” so I guess you can do it that way, putting the extracted folder on the root of phone storage or additional SD card.
AGAIN BEWARE THAT IF YOUR FINGERPRINT SENSOR IS DEAD, UPDATING TO ANDROID 15 WILL BRICK YOUR DEVICE FOR NOW.
And like everytime we strongly advice you to backup device like before any update.
I dont think you can sideload FPOS on the FP5 this option is only available for the FP3 (unless they reecently suddenly made this available for all devices? ) thats still stated on the support page in the upper part, and Step 3 is misleading a bit…
Important: OTA sideload is currently only possible for the Fairphone 3(+).
Indeed, since that would involve wiping all the phone’s data. @Rae please bear that in mind if you decide on that option, make sure you have adequate backups of all your data, and bear in mind that you wouldn’t have the same options as when you move to a new phone.
From my point of view “less convenient” meant obligation to unlock bootloader, using adb, so having a computer with adb working on it, and prey for no connection loss during process…
Just chiming in to say that I haven’t had a single bug with my FP5 in almost two years (and that includes the Android 14 update).
After upgrading to Android 15, not only do I have the infamous notification popping up whenever the phone connects to a telecom network, I also have aggressive background app killing, the automatic daily wallpaper update is broken and a coworker has had to jump through hoops to get her phone to work again because of the fingerprint reader issue (even though she wasn’t using it at all). I’m on this forum at all BECAUSE of all these issues.
If you’ve been chosen to be spared the buggy Android 15 update, you should thank your lucky stars. Maybe you’ll get it in a few months, when the main issues have been sorted out. Believe you me, right now it is not worth the hassle.
