Re: OTA Updates not working

Purplecroc89

@luksus I think you don't need to have Android to unlock bootloader. Without Android you can unlock bootloader with this adb command : "fastboot flashing unlock" and to lock fastboot "fastboot flashing lock".

Purplecroc89

@luksus Ok, so i try again to install UT with images you give me in link.
I can boot on recovery manually. Just after installation i download and install lastest OTA update and after reboot, boot on UT again is impossible.
i don't know if i'm doing something wrong

Luksus

@purplecroc89 Does not sound wrong to me.
What exactly is happening?

Does it automatically reboot to the recovery, when you hit "reboot & install" and do you see the the ubports mascot with a text "installing update"?
Or does it immediately fail to install the update?
What is displayed on the screen?

Purplecroc89

@luksus When i hit reboot After OTA update download is finish, device reboot automatically on recovery and UBports logo appears with the message "installing update". After that device reboot and it reboot automatically on bootloader again and again.

Luksus

@purplecroc89 ok, that sounds like the error I encountered, when doing a full update.

What is happening here, is that the updater script formats the system partition and then reinstalls ubports on it. But that formatting somehow breaks something on the partition so, that the next reboot in the current slot fails, and the phone immediately reboots to the other slot, hoping there would be a bootable os...

Can you tell me, which size the downloaded update has? If it is something abourt 500MB it is a full update.
If it is lower, 100-250MB, it is an incremental update.

Perhaps there is triggered a fullupdate even without channel-switch.

Luksus

@Purplecroc89 I rebuild the system image, that you can flash the current ubports dev version:
https://gitlab.com/ubports/community-ports/android9/fairphone-3/fairphone-fp3/-/jobs/1051808201/artifacts/download?file_type=archive

Then you could try another OTA Update tomorrow.

If you want to keep a working OS on your phone, just flash both slots:

fastboot flash system_a system.img
fastboot flash system_b system.img
do the same for the bootimage

Then on a failed OTA, the system should boot after automatically switching to the other slot.

And for Reference:
Switching the active slot:

fastboot --set-active=a

Checking, which slot is active:

fastboot getvar slot-active:a

Purplecroc89

@luksus The downloaded update size something like 560Mb.

Luksus

@purplecroc89 Ok, then it is a full update and currently expected not to work until I solved this issue:
https://forums.ubports.com/topic/5553/bringing-fp3-to-the-ubports-installer/19

Purplecroc89

@luksus Ok, so, with yours steps and with dev system image version, latest OTA update work and i can use my phone normally. Thank a lot for your time and your help !

flohack

@keneda if I can steal your phone I can get all the data off your device, thats why a wide-open bootloader is a problem. If you are fine with that, ok

Luksus

@flohack I think kenedas answer was at least as ironic as yours.

Keneda

@luksus
lol not at all, MX4 with unlocked bootloader is so rare, that i would never think to lock it, i don't even know how to do that.

@Flohack Thanks for clarifying, i though unlocked bootloader only allowed to install third party OS, and only "dev mode on" allowed to access all system data.

Luksus

@keneda oh, ok

flohack

@keneda No unfortunately not, an unlocked bootloader allows to flash any open recovery, from which you can just pull all data. Note also that stock Android bootlaoders will wipe the data partition when unlocking to preven this to be too easy.

But for UT locking the bootloader would make it impossible to rescue your data off your device, since we do not use a huge cloud service like Android devices, and people would be very worried if they cannot get access to their data.

Also, in case UT fails for you, the open bootloader is the only way to reinstall without data loss with the installer. its a delicate question. Last, on some devices a locked bootloader will not boot an unsigned OS like UT, comparing that to a builtin certificate, and thats basically a good thing since it would provide a guard against tampering with the OS. But we cannot use that since we cannot sign our images as the vendor does

Keneda

@flohack
What would be the solution? Encrypted partition/device like talked in this thread https://forums.ubports.com/topic/1012/one-method-to-encrypt-home-phablet/33 ?

flohack

@keneda Basically we only need to encrypt 2 folders, not whole partitions, that makes booting easier. Yes, that would help, but with a bit of a different concept to make it "UT-compatible".

Keneda

@flohack
Ok, thanks for the whole explaination, i'll stick with my wide opened phone untill you (devs) have not better to do than implement encryption ^^
Not a big deal for me.

pan

@Luksus

Thank you very much for bringing UT to FP3. I have been long awaiting for this.

I have downloaded the latest image and successfully flashed to UT.
As soon as I boot to UT, the OTA update starts to download. I tried a few version and the results are as follows:

Version 207: when the phone started to reboot, it showed the failed message and could never be boot to UT again.

Version 208: when the phone started to reboot, it showed that the OTA update was successful. However, it then kept rebooting to fastboot.

Version 211: same result as Version 208

All these sizes were >500MB. Hope these information can help. Thank you.

Luksus

@pan Yes, after ~4 days, the update is not incremental anymore and full updates do still not work.

I just triggered a new build in the Gitlab CI.
To solve your boot issue please:

flash android 9 system image to system partition again
then download latest build artifacts and also flash it over the system partition

Latest build:
https://gitlab.com/ubports/community-ports/android9/fairphone-3/fairphone-fp3/-/jobs/artifacts/master/download?job=flashable

To keep OTA updates working, you should update at least every 3 days, I think.
If the OTA-Update size is bigger than 500MB, do not update and look for a newer build in the Gitlab CI.

pan

@luksus

Thank you very much! Everything works now
And I am able to OTA update to Version 212 successfully!