Unity8 Failed to Load unable to boot
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After recent update I have been left unable to boot into Ubuntu Touch, receiving the following error.
Previously on other phones, I would just use the UBports installer, plug in my phone, select the Dev image or something and select not to wipe data and fix it that way. The Pinephone doesn't work with the Ubports installer. Apparently that leaves two options of wiping the phone using JumpDrive or SSH. I don't have a spare SD card for JumpDrive, so that basically leaves me with SSH.
Despite previously having SSH working, all I get when I try and SSH into the phone is "Connection Refused". I have found SSH on the Pinephone very hit and miss, it seems to work for a while and then randomly stops working again. I can access the filesystem by holding down the Volume Up and Power buttons at the same time, is there a way of copying over keys to get SSH working enough to access the phone and switch channels?
I'm guessing this kind of thing is going to happen often, and after more than a year I am assuming that the Pinephone is never going to work with the UBports installer, so I am looking for a fast, efficient way of restoring the system rather than having to wipe it each time problems are encountered.
Is it possible to backup the userdata partition and then re-flash and wipe and then copy the userdata partition back into place? Or will that cause other problems?
As this is a developer phone and very much in testing, I am surprised that there isn't a thread on how to recover from potential disasters, suggested backup routines or anything of the like.
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@connor OK, so to answer my own question, yes it is possible and actually pretty simple. This is what I did when you have neither SSH access nor a spare SD card.
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Connected the Pinephone to my Ubuntu PC via the USB charging cable.
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Turned the device on holding the Volume Up button and the Power button and reached the Awaiting Command screen.
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This allowed the internal memory of the Pinephone to be accessed. Using Gnome disks I backed up the partition 'userdata'.
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I then downloaded an Ubuntu Touch image for the Pinephone from here: https://ci.ubports.com/job/rootfs/job/rootfs-pinephone-systemimage/
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I then used Gnome Disks to restore this image to the entire internal memory on the Pinephone.
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I booted, made sure it was all working OK. Then I turned off the phone and connected it to my Ubuntu PC and then turned it on again using the Volume Up key and the Power button to reach the Awaiting Command screen again.
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I then restored the 'userdata' partition only, using Gnome Disks and the backup image I had made earlier.
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Then I rebooted the phone again and so far everything appears to be exactly as it was before the mishap, with no problems.
The whole thing took less than an hour, was a little inconvenient but all in all I probably spent more time trying to unsuccessfully SSH into the phone. It is good to know that you can still backup the user partition even if you cannot boot the phone.
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@connor Thanks for the info. That might come handy
Would you edit the main title on the post to add a reference to this mini-howto? It would helpl to find it later
