Fairphone 5 bricked while attempting to install Ubuntu Touch

iz_zi

Greetings UBports Community,

While attempting to install Ubuntu Touch my Fairphone 5 was not responding to the bootloader being unlocked so I thought that locking it and then unlocking it would resolve the issue.

Upon reboot the phone said that the bootloader was not trusted and proceeded to become stuck in fastboot with no access to recovery.

I attempted to use…
fastboot flashing unlock
fastboot flashing unlock_critical
fastboot oem unlock

to no avail.

Currently I have reached out to Fairphone Support and am hoping to hear back to if they can help me with this issue.

Hope that people will some how avoid this in the future.

kugiigi

If it still boots to fastboot then I guesd you can run the installer again? If the screen says it's "untrusted" then it means it's already unlocked.

sixwheeledbeast

It doesn't seem bricked from what you have said.
If bootloader is unlocked try the installer again, maybe from another machine or try another port or usb lead.

iz_zi

@kugiigi @sixwheeledbeast

Fastboot says that the phone is locked.
I locked it without thinking that the bootloader could be corrupt after flashing the phone with a fresh copy of Fairphone Android 13 before installing ubtouch.

I’ve tried reflashing with Fairphone Android 13 multiple times and the flashing cannot take place with a locked bootloader.

I am able to put the device into EDL mode but the lack of a public loader is what makes that difficult.

I’ve attempted other EDL loaders that are from chips that are similar to the the qcm6490 with no success.

Keneda

@iz_zi
I guess you downgraded your Fairphone 5 from 14 to 13 for installing UT.

Sad you didn't get the info before but :

You MUST let bootloader unlocked for being able to install AND run Ubuntu Touch on most devices (I think only volla devices sold preinstalled with UT have bootloader locked and can run like that).

When you downgrade Android version on recent android devices like FP5, YOU MUST NOT relock bootloader, because of the "anti rollback protection" google imposed on recent devices specifications.
There is a warning for that particular case ("downgrading", which can be on the same android version, because most important here is the security patch date) on the Fairphone website downgrade/manual install tutorial.

Sadly your only way now is to contact FairPhone support.