It’s pretty interesting that they still haven’t fixed this over a year later.
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So I bought a used fairphone 4 from a big online retailer. Said in the description: foil on the screen was removed, functions flawlessly.
Well turns out it doesn’t work flawless. it is stuck at fasboot the bootloader is locked and booting to recovery or the system does show a quick fairphone logo and returns then to fastboot.
So i guess either someone bricked it and sent it back to the retailer and they sold it again without checking the function of the device, or it was not working from the beginning or magic happend.
I reached out to the online retailer to find a solution.
And it all makes me pretty angry, since i bought a fairphone because it is easily repairable - at least thats what i thought. And rn idk how much of that i can really believe anymore. since it seems to be a problem that needs the intervention of the official support. so what was then the point of getting a repairable phone if i cant repair it on my own.
Also that this wasn’t fixed yet. also the lack of replies to this from fairphone on this all disappoints me, i was hoping that with a company that is invested in repairability and sustainability things would be different but maybe a big part of it is just marketing. thank you all for helping me finding out what’s wrong by reading this thread. i hope the retailer i bought the phone from comes to a good solution for me. And i guess if buying used fairphone 4 phones if possible make sure that it boots beyond the fastboot before buying, especially when buying from private people.
I understand you are angry, however blame the reseller. it is repairable, your issue is not a hardware failure, so has nothing to do with repair overall.
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Hey all 
,
I recently got my FP4 as a present and was really hyped using it and trying out a custom ROM. But unfortunately I’ve run into the same problem as many in this thread have.
My story (short):
- (at first I ran into some issues because I, unexperienced and completely new to the topic as I am, forgot to update my FPOS to the latest release)
- then I installed /e/ OS using their EasyInstaller. Everything worked perfectly (except the automatic locking in the end of the installation process; that (fortunately) didn’t work)
- after locking the bootloader (because I read that it’s recommended) my FP wouldn’t boot (because of a corrupt OS)
- fortunately, I could unlock the bootloader and installed FPOS again and did the whole process over again except for the last step. Because of reasons my present-self doesn’t understand, my past-self tried locking the bootloader again (reversing the order of the commands, first lock and then lock_critical, because I’ve read it somewhere)
- and then my device got into said brick state, that is well known around here. Doesn’t boot and keeps returning to the fastboot screen.
Unfortunately I only discovered this thread after I bricked my device (next time, I hope I will be more careful).
I’ve contacted support 2 days ago (til now no answer, but they said in their mail that they would need 5-6 days, so no hurry on my side, my old phone works). I would be willing to pay the 30€ (after all, the accident happened while installing a custom ROM), but after reading this thread and as far as I understand the matter this is caused by a bug in Fairphone’s bootloader. I’ve already written in my support ticket that I tried installing /e/ (and I don’t like the idea of giving false information, e.g. that the error happened while installing FPOS, especially with a company like Fairphone, whose mission and goal I really care about).
Let’s see what will happen. In every case, I’m very excited for my new Fairphone (and waiting a few more weeks is a bummer, but won’t stop me from (hopefully) becoming a very satisfied Fairphone user).
Just wanted to inform you, that this is still relevant and still happens to inexperienced users like me.
(Sorry, this post unfortunately got longer than I planned.)
Thanks for the loads of really helpful advice in this thread (I wished I would have read it earlier). You’re all great!
8 Likes
Wait a sec. You mean that if I run into a 0, I can simply reflash the same rom and without rebooting there is a high chance that afterwards it’s 1 again?
Somewhere on here I read, that it might also help to alter the current slot. Is that true?
If yes, that will only help once, right? Because when let’s say slot a gives me a 0, then I change it to slot b and this one also get corrupted, there is no going back, right?
If you reflash the same ROM there is basically a guarantee that it’s 1 again. Once you boot it for the first time you will end up with a 0 (at least with stock FPOS and CalyxOS).
That’s why you shouldn’t boot into Android and lock it afterwards, that’s how you end up with a 
No, the install script will set the slot, don’t mess with it if you don’t have a good reason. Switching slots won’t bring back get_unlock_ability.
If your system is unbootable, your bootloader is locked and you have lost get_unlock_ability, then there is no way for you to switch slots. Changing slots only works with an unlocked bootloader.
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hello,
my fairphone 4 is blocked in fastboot mode.
after installing /e/ OS i wanted to secure again my phone and enter these commands:
fastboot flashing lock_critical
fastboot flashing lock
but my oem was locked by the official e installer…
so my phone always start in fastboot mode and the only authorized operation is poweroff
is there any possibility to unlock oem?
fastboot see my phone but not adb
trying:
- fastboot flashing unlock : FAILED (remote: ‘Flashing Unlock is not allowed’)
– fastboot devices find my device - adb devices didn’t see anything
i tried to contact fairphone support to be helped but, i’v bought my phone in Orange Store (and neither the store nor the 3900 want to help me at this time). so i only receive an automatic message from fairphone telling me to contact them. No answer from fairphone at this time (contacted from a week ago)
someone could help me to unlock oem?
thank you
Welcome to the community 
I’m sorry to say, but there’s no way for you to fix this yourself other than going through support. You’ll need a shipping label from support, the phone gets sent to Cordon, they’ll charge you ~30€ and you get it back.
If support doesn’t answer soon, try calling them, that usually speeds things up.
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is there any french phone number to call them?
How do I make sure the install script won’t reboot the phone automatically? I tried to alter the script but then it wouldn’t run at all since the checksum didn’t match anymore.
Which OS are you trying to install, sounds like stock FPOS?! 
In that case you can delete the line in the SHA256SUMS file that points to the install script.
I want to try different custom roms to see, which one suits best for me. I was on eOS 1.81 and want to try iodeOS 4.0 now.
In the documentation it says you need to be on latest stock FW with locked bootloader - locked critical to be precise.
I was on unlock ability 0 until I found your post yesterday. Thanks to your kind help I was able to flash stock without automatic reboot, therefore unlock ability was 1. 
I then sucessfully run fastboot flashing lock_critical, but afterwards the phone booted automatically and I’m back on unlock ability 0. 
This is ok as a prerequisite for iodeOS installation, but is still very frustrating when someone wants to go back to stock completely. 
Those are two very different things!
Locked critical partitions means you can’t flash any of the critical partitions, that’s not directly tied to the state of your bootloader (you loose that ability if you lock the bootloader though).
You should not have a locked bootloader however if you plan on installing iodéOS.
As long as the OS you are installing flashes the frp partition, not sure if iodé does, you will end up with get_unlock_ability=1. Just make sure you check the state after flashing and don’t lock it if it’s 0.
2 Likes
Hello together,
I’m getting desperate and do not know what to do and hope someone can help me. I bought a Fairphone 4 and wanted to install CalyxOS on it. This has worked well so far. Then I restarted the phone and now have the problem that I’m stuck in a bootloop. I made it into the bootloader and the device is locked again. OEM seems to be deakvitert again, because when I get I always get an error. So I’m in the situation of having a bootloop with locked OEM and can’t unlock it via CLI. Also my attempt to install a recovery image via adb sideload fails. Does anyone have any other idea ? I am getting desperate.
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Hi and welcome, I assume your are hit by the above and the only way to unbrick is to contactsupport and send the FP4 to France…
Not sure how you installed CalyxOS maybe have a look here as well
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Welcome to the community
Did you lock the bootloader manually, the installer should protect you from bricking?
If you didn’t, you can just run the installer again and that will take care of everything.
If you were on the latest FPOS release, you might have to wait for a few days to be able to lock it.
What’s the output of fastboot oem device-info && fastboot flashing get_unlock_ability?
Depending on the recovery (slot) you ended up in, you won’t get far without a properly signed update, that fits the state your phone is in right now.
It’s basically a dead end.
1 Like
I got this:
(bootloader) Verity mode: false
(bootloader) Device unlocked: false
(bootloader) Device critical unlocked: true
(bootloader) Charger screen enabled: false
OKAY [ 0.010s]
Finished. Total time: 0.010s
(bootloader) get_unlock_ability: 0
OKAY [ 0.000s]
Finished. Total time: 0.010s
That’s a case for support, nothing we can do here 
How did you lock it, that shouldn’t happen!
via Bootloader. Could i send it to them ? F*ck… i want to use it.