Really guys, how did this happen? What kind of update can totally brick the device, to the point even the bootloader and recovery are entirely bricked? And why and how wasn’t this catched during testing, was there testing done at all? Was this the work of a rogue employee?
Can we expect a public apology? Will the devices be repaired individually or replaced entirely during the RMA process? If the latter, that is kind of antithetical to the goals and point of the Fairphone; repairability and sustainability.
I am happy with the quick response though, and I did not expect this. Usually when companies screw up entire products on this scale, they point to the consumer and wait until the warranty runs out. So thumbs up for owning up.
Update: I have a hypothesis on what went wrong for some (including me) people during the update: the device randomly rebooting during the update. Resulting in corrupt firmware and a bricked device?
Random reboots were happening (to me and others) since the last update.
Bad luck and bad testing, didn’t account for the random reboot bug to happen at the worst possible time?
Hello everyone, is anyone experiencing issues after a second restart (following a successful update)? At the moment, I am attempting to avoid this, as my phone is still functioning…
Seems that happend to several of us. Hope that FP gives you help soon. I fear that my phone may brick along the next restarts. I’ll try to avoid that. Have a good time anyway!
When I connect the phone to my laptop it shows up as “Qualcomm CDMA Technologies MSM QUSB_BULK_SN:29AA346E”. To me this looks like the phone is totally wiped for some reason.
Oh man, I really think I dodged a bullet here.
I have the same setup with two sims (eSIM + physical) and two profiles (personal and work profile with shelter). The update was offered but it failed to download. Maybe it had been revoked already or there was a problem with my Rethink DNS firewall. I had no time to deeper check this and a few hours later the update was gone and I was confused. Then a day later I found this thread and I think I was very close to having the phone bricked. Sorry to all who ran in this problem.
Just a thought, could the work profile be related with the bricked phones. Or is here anyone with work profile where the update was ok, or alternatively someone without work profile who also suffers from a bricked phone?
My FP4’s become unresponsive after the update too, it was working fine this morning until I left it on my desk for a while (don’t know if it autoinstalled the update after I downloaded it a week ago or someting else). When I came back, it wouldn’t respond to any bootup button combinations or charging. I’ve just submitted a ticket.
I’m really sorry to still welcome some new bricked users ..
Since the problem is now known, with this 15.15.2 version (they removed it since Tuesday 9am), their should be some warnings sent to the people who upgraded it ..
Would’nt it be possible for fairphone engineers to :
send a “warning” with their ‘fairphone updater’ tool to tell people who installed new 15.15.2 version to save everything they can, .. and try not to reboot it
send a ‘downgrade’ tool , to go back to the former version
Hello. Since the last update on my FP4, I can’t start it any more. The screen stays black. The fingerprint sensor isn’t working either. It vibrates, but the screen stays black. I already created a ticket on the Fairphone Homepage. Greetings from Germany!
Hi Ivan, I assume your ethernet adapters are connected to the USB port. I have similar issues after upgrading to FP4.QREL.15.15.2: Before I had issues with the launcher constantly crashing, so I installed the update shortly after it came out. It didn’t brick my phone, and the launcher doesn’t crash anymore, but the USB port seems to have lost the major part of its functionality:
If I connect a charger, or a device that also charges the phone while connected (docking station, touchscreen), charging still works.
I had enabled secondary display support in the developer options already in a previous Android release. If I connect my touchscreen, or my docking station with an external display attached, the secondary display still works.
Apart from that, all other USB functionality seems to have gone. FP4 doesn’t recognise any other USB device connected, be it memory sticks or hard disks, external mouse and keyboard, and the ethernet connection of my docking station. Android Auto isn’t working anymore either, and my touchscreen cannot be used as input device anymore though it displays the secondary screen.
I have checked the connector for dirt accumulation, and did some careful cleaning, but the problem persists. Given the reports from other users who had their phone bricked some time after the update when restarting, I am reluctant to turn it off and disassemble the USB port for proper cleaning. I would also consider it a strange coincidence if dirt would cause problems just at the time after the update, especially if charging and secondary display still work normal.
I would therefore appreciate if you could confirm whether only your ethernet adapters are affected, or also any other USB device that you connect to the port.
Is anybody aware of an app to check the status of USB connections that works on Android 15? I have tried some of the USB device info apps I found in the play store, but they don’t show any information. As they don’t show any information on my tablet either, I presume these apps are not compatible with Android 15, maybe due to different security requirements.
The original update to Android 15 had the annoying effect of the crashing launcher, but at least everything else was working. This update has made things worse by making my phone unusable for many of my use cases. And given the fact that it took weeks before it was published, I am sceptical that these issues will be resolved quickly. Is there any safe way to rollback to Android 14?
