Trapped in fastboot mode with locked bootloader and corrupted custom ROM

Help Fairphone 4
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Hallo @Volker ,
habe ich Samstag bereits gemacht, bis jetzt ohne relevante Rückmeldung :angry:
Ticket (automatisiert) habe ich, aber wie dort empfohlen mal anzurufen ist nicht möglich, keiner erreichbar, später versuchen :-1:

Habe gesehen das es einen “Negativ-Support-Thread” gibt, und werden den mal auffrischen :wink:

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Da gibt es einige und der support braucht halt min ne Woche zur Zeit, normalerweise steht das auch in der Mailantwort. Jetzt schon auf dem Support rum zu hacken wäre vermutlich etwas verfrüht. In dem Fall kann man auch sagen, irgendwie selbst verschuldet, da du ja prinzipiell um das Problem wusstest und unfair jetzt sofort Abhilfe zu fordern.

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Wenn du geschrieben hättest “selber Schuld ein FP zu kaufen” , hätte ich damit leben können.
Nach 4 FPs und einigen gerooteten Galaxys, kann ich deinen Vorwurf leider nur “wegschmunzeln” :wink:
Und meine kurze Schilderung des Problems (welches ja durchaus bekannt ist) und der Frage wo ich das Telefon hinschicken soll, bedarf wohl auch keiner über 3-tägigen “Würfelrunde”.
Habe noch mal per Mail nachgehakt,… schaumermal.

PS: Nur falls jemand auf die Idee kommt mir eine Adresse zu schicken,… nachher ist das Telefon weg und ich selber Schuld :wink:

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So, long story short: I was messing around with my FP4, trying to root stock FPOS by flashing a Magisk-patched boot image. Worked fine, but in my hubris I re-locked the bootloader without realizing that my latest flashing had reset OEM Unlocking to disabled and now I have a sustainably-produced brick.

  • When booting, it says “Your device is corrupted. It cannot be trusted and it will not boot”
  • Bootloader is locked
  • I can access Fastboot mode, but OEM Unlocking was disabled so I can’t use Fastboot mode for anything
  • Trying to access recovery just sends me right back to Fastboot mode

I’ve been searching the web and everything points to this being a hard brick, so I’ve already contacted FP support waiting to hear what it will cost in order for them to re-flash things at their facilities, but while waiting to hear back from them, I figured I might as well try my luck here at the forums in case somebody has discovered a magic way to unbrick an FP4 with a locked bootloader (I read up on the EDL Qualcomm Firehose strategy, but AFAICS it only works for FP3).

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I moved your post to this existing (there are more in the forum but think this is the most informative) although it was initially about e/OS. So far there is no other way than waiting for support and send it to the repair center. They charge 30€ for this (should Cordon try to charge more do not accept and get back to support).

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Just for the record, if you are in a similar situation again:
Don’t ever lock your bootloader with Magisk installed! Modified partitions and a locked bootloader are mutually exclusive.

Oh and welcome to the community :wave: hopefully your future experiences with the FP4 are a lot less paperweight like (and you don’t have to fight through the usual Cordon shenanigans) :crossed_fingers:

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God day fellow Fairphone users.
Recently I purchased a Fairphone 4 (Black, 128G), I followed the instructions on the CalyxOS website and the FP instructions on how to unlock the bootloader. The exact steps I took were:

  1. Follow the Fairphone setup and install latest update.
  2. Allow OEM unlocking using the code obtand enable USB debugging.
  3. Ran “fastboot flashing unlock” and “fastboot flashing unlock_critical”.
  4. Ran CalyxOS’s “./flash-all.sh”.
  5. Booted into CalyxOS, followed the setup and re-enabled USB debugging.
  6. Ran “fastboot flashing lock”
    After re-locking the bootloader I was no longer able to boot into CalyxOS and the phone would only display the “FAIRPHONE” splash screen and reboot. It never went further than that.
    USB debugging is still enable, so I can see the phone under “fastboot” devices, and I can boot into the bootloader and into the recovery menu.
    The phone does not show up in ADB. I fear this issue may be due to Google’s ant-rollback protection.
    The main article I followed is

I have already contacted support, but have yet to receive an answer. Has anyone else experienced these issues? Is there any known fix?
Thank you in advance!

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Welcome to the community :wave:

I’ve moved your post to this existing topic, where users with similar problems gather to mourn their bricked devices :see_no_evil:

Your only way forward is to wait for support to react (try calling to speed things up, if they have reopened the phone lines already), send your phone to Cordon for repair, don’t accept their usual 600 € estimate, talk to Fairphone again and get your repaired phone back for 0 - 30 €.

I wish I could offer you better news, sorry :roll_eyes:

Edit: I don’t want to get your hopes up, but could you please check fastboot flashing get_unlock_ability :crossed_fingers: (didn’t see that in your description and you might never know)

Edit 2:

Wait, so you can still boot into Recovery? Maybe I’ve judged your situation too quickly…
Have you tried a factory reset?

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I’ve tried “Wipe data/factory reset” in the “Android Recovery” menu. The phone is stuck in the same boot-loop as before.
“fastboot flashing get_unlock_ability” returns: “(bootloader) get_unlock_ability: 0”.

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That’s not looking good, sorry.
Support will have to handle that.

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Hello, have you tried bootloader unlock again ?
After booting you get the bootloader warning, but the phone works again (normally).
The corrupt warning comes from the security level when you install a lower level than the existing one.
Got my repaired FP4 back, installed /e/ (IMG-e- 0.23-r) bootloader lock and bäääm, . . . corrupt warning :scream:
Then remembered the security patch story, bootloader unlock again and flashed the current/ new IMG. And it now runs normally even in locked mode. :sweat_smile:
I think the problem is when you want to reset or take out the battery because of the error message, for example, and disconnect from the computer. Then the debug mode is interrupted and nothing works. :-1:

So do not remove the USB cable as long as there is still hope !!!

I was able to simply unlock the bootloader again and flash the current IMG.
Just luck or problem found, … I do not know, but will not reproduce this in any case. :wink:
I can only recommend not to install the oldest version of the alternative OS.
The e-0.22-r of /e/ is no longer officially available and now the e-0.23-r is making trouble.
I am certainly not the last to notice this :roll_eyes:

Good luck with the support :+1:

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Can’t unlock the bootloader if you don’t have the ability to unlock the bootloader :point_down:

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Yes, that makes sense.
That was ever with mine before the repair also so.
But @brickman comes / came at least still in the recovery menu
My contribution should also be a help / possibility for those who still come. :wink:

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I think the difference in your case that you installed /e/ and not CalyxOS as in the meantime /e/OS defaults to OEM unlocked when manually installed… (imho for good reasons…).

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Continuing the discussion from Divest OS: Everything about Divest OS on the Fairphones:

So you was lucky as your system works and there was no need to unlock the bootloader so far. I think you can check OEM unlocking in the developer settings and see if its enabled/disabled, geyed out or not? Moved this here for further discussion in the user forum. FP stated they are aware and working on a solution (since months)…

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Well, it is greyed out and set to “no”. And also get_unkock_ability 0.

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That should probably not happen…
You can follow the steps outlaid here if you want to unlock your bootloader again. I wouldn’t lock it again after that though, not until we fully understand what’s the issue here.

I’m not an Android developer, so my understanding is also somewhat limited.
In general, (to me) it looks like we are dealing with 2 separate problems here:

  • get_unlock_ability reset to 0 when flashing (some) ROMs
  • Rollback Protection kicking in when the bootloader is locked

We’ve had people on iodé, who where able to just unlock the bootloader again after an unsuccessful locking attempt. That’s how I think it’s supposed to work (if you didn’t trigger anti-rollback-protection with an older build than the installed one).

It’s not the bootloaders unlockability, it gives you the unlock ability :slightly_smiling_face:

Personally my biggest problem is, that nobody at Fairphone has bothered to share their insights with us. Sure, they have made changes to the factory images and tried to address this, but no “here’s what’s happening, avoid doing x”.
The support is already swamped and we are trying to keep additional cases from piling up there, but half a year later and people still keep bricking their phones… :roll_eyes:

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I flashed a Fairphone 4 from CalyxOS 3.7.2 back to Stock ROM (FP4.FP40.A.142.20220628) a few days ago to do some tests and was able to relock the bootloader.

What I did was flashing Stock ROM, keep the bootloader unlocked, booted the device up once, rebooted into fastboot and get_unlock_ability was 0.

Then I flashed Stock ROM again but did not boot it. I checked get_unlock_ability and it was set to 1. I locked the bootloader using fastboot flashing lock, crossed my fingers and rebooted the device.

Everything went well, it booted up fine with a locked bootloader. Not sure if I just had a ton of luck though…

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Interesting!
I tried flashing the ROM multiple times in the past (both FPOS and Calyx) and couldn’t get it to change get_unlock_ability to 1.

Maybe something meaningful actually has changed :thinking:

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Just to be sure: OEM unlocking in Developer Options is available (not greyed) after that procedure?

I wonder if this is the same behavior I observed a while ago after flashing CalyxOS: immediately after flashing get_unlock_ability is 1, only after the first system boot it changes to 0. So probably this might work with re-flashing CalyxOS too - but I am unwilling to try :fearful: