Trapped in fastboot mode with locked bootloader and corrupted custom ROM

At least if the phone doesn’t boot. :crazy_face:

That’s imho the important rule to follow if you want to be safe.

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Same problem here after trying to install Iodé.

Contacted support on June 23rd, I sent another message yesterday (June 29th) and got a reply today (June 30th) telling me that it can be repaired by shipping to France repair center for around 30 € (not under manufacturing warranty because problem happened after trying to install a third-party OS).

They told me the same thing, but the repair price ended up being 0€ anyway.

How go back to Fairphone stock Os from calyxos or E/OS without bricking the phone?

Well I’m glad I followed my intuition and chose not to lock the bootloader when installing CalyxOS, given all the headaches people have had with returning to FPOS afterwards.

For the record, when I installed CalyxOS and skipped the last instruction (fastboot flashing lock), I got a strange behaviour where I was being dumped in the recovery after a couple bootloops, stating that my files were corrupt and I had to perform a factory reset. It was a bit of a scare, but after performing the factory reset I booted into Calyx and all seems to be working really well (it’s been a week).

By the way, could someone explain why in the instructions from CalyxOS it offers two steps to unlock the bootloader, and whether both are necessary? These are the steps:

  1. fastboot flashing unlock_critical
  2. fastboot flashing unlock

In my case, I went ahead by executing both commands in the shell, but it felt redundant, especially given that for the OnePlus 8T they mentioned only the second step (fastboot flashing unlock).

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Welcome to the community :wave:

I’m glad to hear you didn’t end up as another victim of a bricked FP4 :tada:

fastboot flashing unlock_critical unlocks the critical partitions so they can be overwritten through fastboot commands, fastboot flashing unlock unlocks the bootloader which makes all of this possible in the first place.

For a list of critical partitions see:

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Thank you @hirnsushi , I’m really glad to be here!! Coming from a Huawei where the manufacturer would not even provide codes to unlock the bootloader, this is such a thrilling experience to have a manufacturer that not only permits tweaks but also works with the community of users and developers to provide as much official guidance and support as possible (even if Fairphones devs seem to have been slow to react/resolve these issues around the manual installation of FPOS through fastboot).

While were at it, do you think there is a chance of encountering this problem if one tries to flash FPOS with an unlocked bootloader as opposed to a locked one? Because in that case, perhaps the fix would just be to make sure the bootloader is unlocked on your custom rom before you revert back to stock android?

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You need an unlocked bootloader to flash anything to your phone stock FPOS or custom ROM doesn’t make a difference. The biggest :triangular_flag_on_post: is if get_unlock_ability=0 after flashing a ROM, if that happens definitely don’t lock the bootloader!

It’s been confirmed that the Fairphone devs are still working on a fix for whatever causes phones to brick, but as you mentioned there hasn’t been a update to the factory images in quite some time.
Maybe Fairphone are using Valve Time internally? :man_shrugging: :smirk:

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Oh of course, silly me. The last phone I had I kept with the bootloader unlocked, so I never tried to see whether you could flash a factory image through fastboot with a locked bootloader on a custom rom.

Ahaha, yes indeed, it seems they are on a different temporal wavelength for this one!

Jetzt hat es mich auch erwischt. :cry:
Keine Chance im locked Bootloader das FP4 wieder zum laufen zu bringen. Das FP4 lief bis vor paar Tagen tadellos mit /e/OS. Mein Mädchen kam dann auf die Idee das mit der Google-Version alles “bequemer” ist. :man_facepalming: Hatte mit meinem alten FP4 (128GB) ja auch paar Probleme wegen den Slots, das konnte ich aber beheben.
Jetzt geht garnichts mehr.
Und die Warnung bezüglich “corrupt” hatte ich auch nicht.
Hat von euch schon jemand eine Idee oder Lösung ohne das Telefon zu FP einzuschicken?

Transl.:

Now it’s got me too. :cry:
No chance to get the FP4 running again in the locked bootloader. The FP4 was running fine with /e/OS until a few days ago. My girl then came up with the idea that with the Google version everything is “more comfortable”. :man_facepalming: I had some problems with my old FP4 (128GB) because of the slots, but I could fix that.
Now nothing works.
And the warning regarding “corrupt” I also did not have.
Does anyone of you have an idea or solution without sending the phone to FP?

Wenn Du das unlock-Kommando vom bootloader nicht akzeptiert wird, dann ist höchstwahrscheinlich OEM unlock deaktiviert (ist meiner Erfahrung nach auch der Standard, wenn du von /e/OS auf FPOS wechselst). Dann habe ich bisher von keiner Alternative zum Einsenden gehört. Da jetzt ja aber FPOS installiert ist (und nur nicht mehr hochfährt) stehen vermutlich die Chancen relativ gut, dass es auf Garantie läuft…

EDIT: hattest du den bootloader direkt nach der Installation wieder gesperrt - oder erst nach dem Hochfahren und Prüfen, ob es eine noch neuere Update-Version gibt? Es hält sich weiter das (vielleicht wahre) “Gerücht”, dass das Problem dann auftreten kann, wenn du von einem neueren Patchlevel auf einen älteren wechselst…

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Hallo Volker.
Die Installation (Stock-Rom) war fertig und ich wollte den Bootloader wegen der Warnmeldung sperren und dann die neuen Updates über die Einstellungen installieren.
Dazu kam es aber garnicht erst. Ganz “normal” über die Console gelockt und auf dem FP4 bestätigt. Dann war Feierabend und nur noch der Fastboot Modus und Locked.
Das Gerät wird über fastboot devices erkannt, aber alle Eingaben enden mit not allowed bzw not in locked mode :cry:

Ja, tut mir leid, aber ich bin mir ziemlich sicher, dass es in diesem Fall nur hilft, den Support zu kontaktieren… :frowning:

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:

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.

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:

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).

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!