OTA25 - BQ E4.5 does not boot

aimar · 4 Apr 2023, 07:55

I suppose this is not related to my phone but to OTA 25, that is my I post it here instead of the corresponding subforum. Feel free to correct me.
Yesterday I left my BQ Aquaris E4.5 charging and installing OTA25.
When I came back to it, the phone was turned off and I could not restart it. I pressed the power button, but nothing happened.
I decided to disconnect the battery and after that, I was able turn on the phone. But if I turned it off or reboot it, I would not boot again.
The first time I could see the "ubuntu touch" splash screen, then it turned off by itself. After that, nothing more could be done. Not even try to turn it on. Nothing happened. Even it does not seem to charge in that state.
If I remove the battery again I can repeat the cycle. First time it boots, second time it does not.
When booted it works fine and I can even charge it.
It is a strange behaviour.
Could be hardware?
Could be software, specifically OTA25 because that was which started this behaviour. Could I downgrade to OTA24?
Does anybody notice this issue?

domubpkm · 4 Apr 2023, 08:30

@aimar The boot problem is apparently a quasi-general big problem concerning OTA-25 @Flohack . A new update solving this ?

Concerning the BQ 4.5, you can try a forced restart when there is a blockage:
power and volume - for about fifteen seconds.

aimar · 4 Apr 2023, 11:23

@domubpkm said in OTA25 - BQ E4.5 does not boot:

The boot problem is apparently a quasi-general big problem concerning OTA-25

Do you mean something that has been going on for years? I have not experience anything similar in 8 years until yesterday when I updated to OTA25.

@domubpkm said in OTA25 - BQ E4.5 does not boot:

Concerning the BQ 4.5, you can try a forced restart when there is a blockage:
power and volume - for about fifteen seconds.

My problem is not a blockage. The phone refuses powering on. Even it does not charge the battery when turned off.
Disconnecting the battery serves for one and only one turn on. Once it is turned on, it works as usual.
I am one of those guys who turned off the phone each night, but I assume that for now I will have to leave it on, unless I want to remove the battery each morning.

aimar · 4 Apr 2023, 11:31

There are some similar issues on the forum here, here and here but are not similar to mine or are related to RC channel. That is why I opened a new topic.

Keneda · 4 Apr 2023, 11:41

@aimar said in OTA25 - BQ E4.5 does not boot:

Do you mean something that has been going on for years?

No he means concerning OTA-25 only.

Ællen · 4 May 2023, 19:33

hey! Look at this thread: https://forums.ubports.com/topic/8750/ota-25-call-for-testing-companion-post - yes it seems to be a general problem with BQ devices.
If you can downgrade back to OTA24 that's probably the best (or: only?) solution at the moment. Tbh, I'm kind of expecting my BQ M10 HD to stop booting altogether because it's been struggeling with bootloops since upgrading to OTA25.
best of luck!
Edit: I should add that downgrading is purely a quick-fix idea from user to user. I'm not really familiar with the inner workings of UBports.

lduboeuf · 5 Apr 2023, 20:16

@Ællen humm, but how to downgrade ?

domubpkm · 6 Apr 2023, 04:36

FYI: There was this in an old post.
I have never tried .. (and will not).
It is said with your own wrist but i said AT YOUR OWN RISK...

I don't even know what <build number> is for OTA-24.

Ællen · 6 Apr 2023, 11:21

@domubpkm Thanks for your post! Believe it or not I will have to try this right now. I just tried to boot the Cooler and now it's not only stuck in a bootloop, I can't even break the loop with powerbutton + volume- which means I can't even shut it off anymore. I've never encountered anything like it before... :astonished_face:

domubpkm · 6 Apr 2023, 18:24

@Ællen For a forced restart use power and volume less for about 15 seconds.
And if the bq refreezes on the black screen, redo the procedure.

Ællen · 7 Apr 2023, 07:56

@domubpkm Please read my post and the thread to avoid double posting in the future.
Because the device was stuck in a bootloop and all standard measures to shut it down proved futile, I had to physically open the device and disconnect the little power cable on the board. (I'm ruthless when it comes to hardware. Only do this at your own discretion!) After that I was finally able to boot the device to turn on developer mode. Since the screen was flickering really badly, it was hard to see everything but it worked. After that I re-flashed the device including a data wipe to OTA-25 stable, because downgrading is more or less impossible. However, I still get random bootloops on the MH 10. @aimar maybe re-flashing your device is currently your best option.

aimar · 16 Apr 2023, 19:02

@domubpkm said in OTA25 - BQ E4.5 does not boot:

@Ællen For a forced restart use power and volume less for about 15 seconds.
And if the bq refreezes on the black screen, redo the procedure.

Actually @domubpkm you were right. I though it was shutted down, but no. Power+volume less restarted the phone and as other users have reported the second time it booted correctly.
Only thing is that date and hour are wrong until connected to a Wifi network (I have not data plan) or corrected manualy.
So there is no point now to downgrade amd since a fix is on the way I will mark this post as solved.

aimar · 19 Apr 2023, 13:11

I know I marked the topic as solved but I have an important update. Good news, although I do not know how to explain it.
Now I can boot without any problem. The boot issue has fixed itself. Why? How? Currently I am not sure.
Since the update issue, I did not turn off the phone. I was just lazy and I did not want to use the workaround of booting it twice.
Simultaneously (and I do not know if it is related to OTA 25, but maybe), I had some issues with my microSD card that started to mount as read only file system.
At the time I did not want to turn off the phone to boot it again or extract the card, so I just restarted the phone. Several times indeed, because I did not know what to do to fix the card issue, extracting the card, without extracting the card, etc.
I know it is not a precise procedure. I cannot recall what did I exactly do. But restarting the phone is the only thing I guess might have some influence.
Now I can turn off the phone and boot it correctly again on the first try
Can anybody try it?

rugby · 19 Apr 2023, 19:22

I have the same problem with my BQ Aquaris E4.5 (krillin) after upgrading to OTA-25. The booting is stuck with a blank screen. I have to press power button for >15 seconds to force shutdown. For the second time it boots OK. There is a hotfix for OTA-25 which should fix it.

aimar · 19 Apr 2023, 20:24

@rugby but mine is not stuck anymore during booting.
Can you try restarting the device (without turning it off) and check if afterwards you can turn it off and boot it correctly on the first try?
If you are succesful we may provide to the devs valuable information about the cause of this failure.

flohack · 19 Apr 2023, 20:51

Please reinstall without data wipe, the problem is fixed in the latest OTA revision

aimar · 20 Apr 2023, 07:23

@Flohack maybe I did not explain it clearly. My device is now booting properly without any fix.
I do not need to reinstall it.
I thought it may be an interesting information to those who are still struggling with the boot isuue.
Thank you anyway.