Stock fp3(+) (factory reset) boot loop (workarounds in first post)

Are you familiar with https://web.whatsapp.com/ - i.e. through that site you can use WhatsApp from your computer’s browser instead of relying on your phone. Instructions here: https://faq.whatsapp.com/834124628020911/?cms_platform=web

You need your phone to authenticate against it; so it’s worth doing that whilst your phone’s working.

WhatsApp Web talks to your phone to authenticate you (i.e. I believe your phone and computer have to be on the same wifi, as well as having done the one off QR code piece mentioned above). However; you don’t need to use anything on your phone to authenticate; so don’t have to enter your pin; so even with the phone in its semi-broken state you can continue to use WhatsApp on your computer. Hopefully that’s helpful for if your phone hits this issue again (e.g. if updates aren’t disabled).

For Signal it looks like a similar solution’s available; though I barely use the phone app and have never used the desktop app, so can’t comment… Worth investigating if you rely on it though.

Hope that’s some use.

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Hi all,
Let me share a recap of my situation and a couple of questions & thoughts:
Last night I finally managed to temporarily fix the issue on my FP3, thanks to the workarounds found in this thread (Many many thanks to @Pilo11 , @masalew , amoun, Jonibhoni and others!)

  • activating ‘Developer options’ in the Settings took me tons of unsuccessful tries, as I first had to train to do it EXTREMELY fast before the next spontaneous reboot would start…
  • enabling the USB debugging was even harder (I think I’ve reached Olympic levels of speed :stuck_out_tongue_winking_eye:)
  • I installed this file: com.google.android.gms_22.02.21_(150408-428111784)-220221039_minAPI30(arm64-v8a,armeabi-v7a)(480dpi)_apkmirror.com.apk
  • then I fully disabled Google Play Store (not Services)
    So far, so good. (Most important to me: I’ve retrieved all my pics and videos!)

Next:

  • I would leave the ‘USB Debugging’ ON (enabled), just in case. Although I don’t know if this could be harmful or anything…
  • Google notifications now keep telling me that my data are not saved. My pics & videos are now stored on a local HD so it’s Ok, but I’m still concerned about my OTHER data (contacts, apps data, …). Can I simply resume backups on my Google account (without triggering the whole ‘reboot’ dilemma again)?

For the step forward (and discussion): any news on an official fix?? Has anyone heard of other phone brands having experienced the same issue, or is this a FP specific problem? Who could (be ready to) fix an issue that only affects such a small community?
Just questioning. Many thanks again!
Cheers

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I would leave the ‘USB Debugging’ ON (enabled), just in case

As long as you have only allowed your own computer a trusted connection, the computer and the smartphone at the same time do not fall into foreign hands and your Fairphone has a lock pattern or password, there are, in my view, no relevant security concerns that make it worse than before.

Google notifications now keep telling me that my data are not saved. My pics & videos are now stored on a local HD so it’s Ok, but I’m still concerned about my OTHER data (contacts, apps data, …). Can I simply resume backups on my Google account (without triggering the whole ‘reboot’ dilemma again)?

That’s strange. I observed the same behaviour on my smartphone when I deactivated the GMS, but not when I reactivated it and deactivated the Google Play Store. The Google Play Store is also not actually responsible for backups.

Has anyone heard of other phone brands having experienced the same issue, or is this a FP specific problem?

Not yet. It seems to be a problem of the Fairphone-specific Android operating system in connection with the Google Mobile Service. This also happens with other manufacturers, but it’s a bit annoying because Fairphone updates have led to other problems more often lately.

Who could (be ready to) fix an issue that only affects such a small community?

The community is bigger than you think :wink:

For the step forward (and discussion): any news on an official fix?

I don’t think so. someone else feel free to improve me. It will also be a bit difficult to rollout a fix Update when every “infected” smartphone is continuously rebooting… In addition it’s not easy to find such a problem… We need to help ourselves at first and then hope for a good plan.

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Thank you JohnLBevan! I will definitely reach to that if the need arises (again)!

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I was hoping that they can rollout a hotfix while the phone is on and kind of stable in lockscreen…?
Do you think that this is a vain hope?

I received an email from Fairphone. Could @clabalde or @Pilo11 add this to their pinned posts describing workarounds, so that all solutions are centralized? The adb steps have to be taken first, then follow the steps below.

FROM FAIRPHONE CUSTOMER SERVICE:

In the meantime, the following workaround should resolve the issue in the short term:

Upon receiving the prompt to “Try again” or “Factory reset data” from your device, please chose “Try again”.

Once your device has been rebooted, follow the steps below - you may have to do so fairly fast before the prompt appears again.

Deinstall recent Google Play Services updates

  1. Go to Settings > Apps & Notifications > See all XX apps
  2. Find Google Play Services
  3. Tap the 3-vertical-dot button in the top right corner
  4. Tap Uninstall Updates
  5. Tap OK

Disable automatic Google Play Services updates

  1. Open Google Play Store >Tap on your profile picture > Settings > Network preferences > Auto update apps > Don’t auto-update apps.
  2. Open Google Play Store >Tap on your profile picture > Settings > Network preferences > App download preferences > Ask me every time.

Note: The only data being removed is the updates to the Google Play Store.

Please rest assured that we are doing our best to have this resolved permanently as soon as possible. Once we have released a permanent solution, we will inform you right away and instruct you to reinstall all Google Play Services updates.

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Sorry, does not work within 10 seconds … :wink:

I marked this as solution ,so it will be visible better at the top, without removing the other possible workarounds

Hello yvmuell,

for me this is a workaround - not a solution.

Hopefully there is a final solution comming from Google/Fairphone within the next hours!

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Hello:

So it seems that we can reactivate the Google Play Store if we have these settings on in the app?
In my case it could explain that I didn’t encounter the problem as the settings are put that way (I always prefer to manage updates myself :wink:).
On my side deactivating the Google Play Store has reactivated ads and has deleted premium functions in some of the paying apps I use :yum: (by the way I prefer that behavior than having a boot loop!).

Thanks in advance and I hope that the root cause will be fixed very soon.
It will be interesting to have a feedback post-mortem on this issue.
A special thought to users that don’t use the forum and are “basic users”…

Thats clearly stated in the post that it is a workaround, still its the current solution till a permanent fix

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Dear skilled forum members, thx to your help I managed to workaround and have used my FP now for 2 days -with fingers crossed. Impossible for me to try USB and other geek hard programming stuff, really too complicate for me, so I’m very happy that so far it seems to work without that. I did not disable GPStore because at the beginning of this story I happened to try the factory reset (before it was made clear here that it is useless). So I have to reinstall my app one at a time and carefully. (But I deactivated the auto-updates like mentioned in FP suggestions).

So big thanks to our helpful angels and others sharing their experience, which I follow daily since last week.

Well sorry for this long and maybe uninteresting but grateful intro, but actually I do have a question: As far as anybody knows, are only FP3 (and I think I saw one FP2) concerned by the bug?
Because I recently convinced my 80-yo mum to by a Fairphone, so she has been now for a few weeks the proud owner of a brand new FP4, as her first smartphone ever, and I really fear the moment where she call me to fix such an issue (I leave in a different country).
What do you think, should I try some preventive action?

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I know how you feel. I needed approx. 10 times to do it. You can do it, too!

By sheer coincidence, I can shed some light on this problem: it’s related to the FP3-REL-8901.4.A.0017.3-gms-15368f27 and FP3-REL-8901.4.A.0016.6 -gms-f0c20986-user-fastbootimage.zip updates.

Since I have a rooted device, I need to manually update my FP3. Well, I forgot this for a while, and only today remembered that I should do it.

Well, guess what: After installing the 0017.3 update, I couldn’t load into android anymore, just like all of you. Then, I used the version prior to that, FP3-REL-8901.4.A.0016.6 -gms-f0c20986-user-fastbootimage.zip, and the problem still persisted.

Then, I reverted to the version that was last installed on my phone,FP3-REL-8901.4.A.0013.4-gms-c1b5afb7-user-fastbootimage, and guess what - it works again.

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Sorry, I’ve only installed 69 Apps but it is not possible within 10 seconds to press more then the three dots within the Google Play Services … and I think, the deinstallation sould also run within the given 10 secs.

But I think if Fairphone knows already what’s the problem it should be solved in a short time together with Google.

Hi. I can happily concur with @Pilo11 . After downgrading Google Play Services and disabling Google Play Store, my phone has also been stable for 2 days. The workaround seems to work so far…

I found myself wondering why the 3 other non-Fairphone Android phones in our household were not affected by the boot loop, so I checked and they are all on version 22.43.12 of Google Play Services. The boot looping on my FP started when Google Play Services was updated to 22.44.16… So maybe the update got pushed to Fairphones too soon? Don’t know, but wanted to share this observation.

Thanks again to everybody in the forum who contributed to this workaround!

As you mention FP3-REL-…-versions, is this a clear answer to the question whether or not only FP3 devices are effected and FP4 nor FP2 are not?
Maybe someone else can answer that?

so far I havent seen any report for the FP4 or FP2, you might want to search the forum :wink: So currently it seems to be an isolated FP3 issue, for whatever reason

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Unfortunately, I abstained from the forum a few days and noticed that thread not until today morning. Fortunately, the faulty update was not installed on my FP3+ yet. So I instantly disabled Wi-Fi, disabled the Google Play Store and enabled USB debugging and told my mother to do that also on her FP3.

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Hi all,
one question,

I disabled google play services, cleared the cache, deleted all the updates and made the two changes in the settings in the play store so there won’t be any updates for now.

Can I re - enable google play services (and stop the endless notifications)?

Thanks, Thomas