Google Pixel 3 (XL) bricking out of nothing

https://issuetracker.google.com/issues/192008282

by c0d3z3r0 • 5 years ago

155 132 5 years ago

issuetracker.google.com

c0d3z3r09• 5 years ago

Phones are stuck in EDL mode with no way to recover, due to Google not releasing the signed firehorse files.

https://issuetracker.google.com/issues/192008282

https://www.google.de/search?q=pixel+3+brick&tbm=nws

I am not affected (yet). If anyone from Germany is interested in figuring out what the issue is and can risk losing their data, feel free to ping me on libera IRC. I have the ability to desolder and dump the UFS memory to start some investigation.

Dracophoenix• 5 years ago

Have you tried asking on Reddit or the XDA forums? r/Andriod and r/googlepixel might have a bigger audience than HN.

edoceo2• 5 years ago

The OG thread is here:

https://www.reddit.com/r/android_beta/comments/o7h1li/pixel_...

doublepg23• 5 years ago

I’ve got a Pixel 3 (non-XL) with a cracked screen that’s been sitting on my desktop for two years now I’m willing to part with.

SilverRed4• 5 years ago

I recently has a pixel 2 die on me in a similar sounding way. Was working perfectly fine and then suddenly it won't turn on and won't take a charge. Tested with one of those usb tester things and it shows 0amp being drawn.

errantmind• 5 years ago

Unfortunately there is a sign-in wall to this content.

nkozyra• 5 years ago

I don't think so, just a ToS agreement.

jffry2• 5 years ago

Accessing the linked issue tracker (https://issuetracker.google.com/issues/192008282) in an incognito window prompts me to login with a Google account

jffry2• 5 years ago

Here's a mirror https://archive.is/wmfel

madars2• 5 years ago

Try this: https://archive.is/G8MXx

rtkwe2• 5 years ago

Huh my Pixel 3 XL also just died in a very similar way the battery was starting to lose charge faster than expected and a few nights ago it died again and then wouldn't power on. It was taking charge, I plugged it into a powerbank with a wattage meter, and it was pulling just 5W over USBC. (The powerbank supports full PD) It's probably the wrong spot to report this sadly so it's probably been muted it seems like a hardware issue not an issue with Android itself.

usui3• 5 years ago

Especially with the Pixel lineup, there is a historical quality control issue with Google's phones that I'm worried hasn't been solved yet. I owned:

- Pixel 3: Past few months, volume buttons and power buttons gradually stopped working. USB port works for charging, but when connected to a computer, port connects and disconnects in an infinite loop. Bluetooth connection with car always skips/stutters during Maps usage even though iPhones and other Android devices work fine.

- Pixel: Camera stopped working

- Nexus 5X: Infinite boot loop issue, contacted Google and replaced it using warranty

- Nexus 4: No hardware issues

- Nexus One: No hardware issues

The Nexus phones were less problematic. I suspect it's because they were co-designed/manufactured by LG.

As time goes on, I use my phone less, not more, and I haven't dropped Pixel phones, unlike the Nexus ones.

I'm wary of purchasing the Pixel 3a, 4, or 5 since I don't want to be burned a 3rd time by specifically Google-designed phones. I think it would be best to avoid Android OS updates as much as possible as well.

I'm looking for the next smartphone to be modular. Heavily considering a Linux phone easier to DIY repair.

schmichael• 5 years ago

This is what got me to switch to iPhone. Ewaste is a big problem with Google phones. My wife has always bought iPhones and has gone through half as many phones as me.

usui3• 5 years ago

I fixed the USB port connecting and disconnecting by replacing the USB port.

I fixed the power+volume buttons not working by replacing the entire connector.

The Bluetooth issue remains as I haven't looked into exactly which parts are responsible for it or how to fix it.

I can try to keep at it forever but it's an uphill battle. I can keep replacing parts on the Pixel 3, but one day the motherboard might die. Unfortunately, I don't want to purchase a hot air rework station and handle reflowing those chips as the pitch of the joints is too fine.

madars2• 5 years ago

How do you deal with lack of uBlock Origin? It's Android's killer feature: you can have real browsers with extensions.

usui3• 5 years ago

On e-waste: I'm not sure if the Pixel 5 has done better in this aspect, but the Pixel 3/3XL's screen is almost impossible to remove without destroying it. There's low-quality hard-to-remove adhesive all over the screen, and you have to handle both the front-facing portion of the phone and the rear-facing portion in order to handle a screen replacement.

IMO iPhones fare a lot better in terms of screen replacement (and therefore preventing e-waste) because lifting the adhesive is more like a fine string around the screen rather than a thick pool of glue. Once the string is pulled, it's easier to mobilize the screen and gain access to the connectors, etc. There's a higher chance of being able to disconnect the screen and still have it be usable, unlike when replacing a screen on the Pixel lineup.

I just attempted a Pixel 3 screen replacement on a dummy phone. Difficult to do it cleanly without breaking things.

chrisjc• 5 years ago

Agreed. I was going to post the same thing but I would have expanded beyond phones to all Google and Google related hardware. The amount of ewaste I've generated over the years of buying Google hardware or hardware running Google OSes is appalling. Phones, tablets, media devices, etc... all in the landfill (actually to ewaste facilities).

A few years ago, I finally had enough and switched over to the iphone and haven't looked back. I've had the same phone for the last 3 years and it's still running strong getting the latest updates, performing as well as the day I bought it.

And even if I got rid of it to buy the latest and greatest new version, I would rest easy knowing that it would end up in the hands of someone that would continue to get a lot of use out of it. And even after that, it'll probably end up being used for its parts.

The churn of Google hardware weighs heavier on my conscious than on my wallet, and it hasn't been an inexpensive experience.

biotinker• 5 years ago

Pixel 4A: Known for failures of its OLED screen manifesting as quickly-spreading purple smears.

hyperpl• 5 years ago

Interesting, I just RMA'd mine because of this and they asked about liquid damage, etc.. I had no idea this was common. It almost looked as though some purple ink got under the screen.

chooseaname• 5 years ago

Have a 4a. Have never heard of this.

andbberger• 5 years ago

Pixel XL: usb c to c charging doesn't work, slow charge only

jeffbee2• 5 years ago

I had two Nexus 4 die the same way: touch stopped working on the bottom half of the screen only. Pretty wacky failure mode.

walteweiss2• 5 years ago

Yeah, same for me!

foobarian• 5 years ago

Still have a working Nexus 6P which was a Huawei device. But, it runs really slowly around app startup, as if the built in flash device has somehow slowed down. Wish I had a good way of diagnosing by watching kernel events while phone is in use to give me a clue.

Macha• 5 years ago

On the nexus 5x - it was designed by LG and several non-Nexus LG phones of the same era had the same issues

wyldfire2• 5 years ago

IIRC the issue was related to how the flash storage device was mounted.

aaaxyz• 5 years ago

Two of my relatives had Nexus 5 and the power buttons on both devices stopped functioning shortly after the warranty expired

breput3• 5 years ago

Don't forget the Nexus 6P. I got more settlement cash out of this one phone than every other class action item, combined, in my life.

The Pixel "a" series is solid. The features that Google reserves for their flagship level is laughable (hey Soli) when all most people want is just a reliable phone with a decent update story and maybe a few "premium" features like water resistance and a headphone jack.

13of40• 5 years ago

I had a terrible experience with the Pixel 3a XL: Within a couple of months the daughter board with the main microphone on it died, so I could only make calls in speaker phone mode or on Bluetooth. Then the USB-C socket degraded to the point where it wouldn't charge or the plug would just fall out. Sometimes it would half connect to the charger and vibrate every five seconds or so until it eventually died. It seemed like the software was pretty reliable, though.

mcny• 5 years ago

I’m sorry but the Nexus 4 had what I called a “study assist” feature. If you tried to use Snapchat, the phone would randomly turn off or reboot. You don’t know when it will happen but it will happen meaning you will not respond to Snapchat messages, meaning you don’t get distracted by friends, meaning you can do your homework.

caf• 5 years ago

The only Pixel's I had are two that you didn't - the Pixel 2 XL and the Pixel 4 XL.

I've had no hardware issues with either. Interestingly the Pixel 2 XL is another LG one, so that might be another data point there.

suby• 5 years ago

This matches my experience. I've got a Pixel 3A here which I've owned since July of 2020. I take good care of it, my previous phones have all lasted on the order of 6 years.

This phone has its charging port failing where it will not charge 80% of attempts until I manipulate the cord enough to make it happy. I've tried multiple cables as well as cleaning out the charging port, hasn't helped. I went with the phone to save some money, but in retrospect if it fails after a year I'll come out behind.

BugsJustFindMe2• 5 years ago

- Nexus 4: No hardware issues

More like "Nexus 4: glass back shatters on contact with barely cold countertops".

the-rc• 5 years ago

I have two or three of those in that state in a box somewhere... plus the glass back was so slippery that it would slide across most surfaces that were not perfectly flat! The same could happen with the front, too: https://youtu.be/-OQVn8xwjkI

It's true that this tends to happen on any new phone without a case that hasn't been smudged much yet, but the N4 was in a class of its own.

GeekyBear• 5 years ago

Others have noticed the same thing.

Every time a new Pixel phone comes out, we make a whole article summarizing all the problems people have with them. We don’t do this for any other manufacturer. Google has proven over the years that its phones simply have way more issues than others.

https://www.androidauthority.com/google-pixel-biggest-proble...

thaumasiotes2• 5 years ago

But Google isn't even the manufacturer. The Nexus 5 had serious issues... and it was made by LG.

jfrunyon7• 5 years ago

I had 3 different Nexus 5Xs. Bought the first one, it ended up crashing multiple times a day. Got the second one advance-replaced under Google Fi's "device protection plan" (for something like $70 + $100 deposit), it did the same thing even before I had done more than set up my Google accounts on it.

And then I had to fight and cold-email a VP off of LinkedIn in order to get them to replace that one without another fee+deposit since it would reboot itself several times a day (and the power button didn't "feel" right, although it was functional the whole time).

In the end I cancelled my Fi service, went and bought a phone from AT&T, and gave the final replacement to a friend when it came in.

And yeah, I dropped my Nexus 5X tons and all it had were scratches on the bezel. My Pixel (4A? I think?) fell out of my pocket about 2 feet onto the floor and shattered. Now I have a OnePlus.

josephg• 5 years ago

Yep. For all the problems I've had with apple products, knowing I can call or visit apple to get the problems fixed is fantastic.

Since owning my 2016 macbook, the screen died due to the flex cable issue (while travelling - which was super annoying). And one key on the keyboard got sticky. They offered a free battery replacement while they fixed the keyboard (since battery life was dropping faster than it should). The tech broke another key on the keyboard while they were fixing the first one, so they ended up replacing the whole keyboard & trackpad. And when I got the machine back from being serviced, it started crashing due to a RAM issue. So it went back in for a motherboard replacement.

This machine is the worst apple product I've ever owned. But, despite all these problems showing up outside the warranty period, the repair work was all done for free. They have basically replaced the entire computer at this point. (I think the only original part is the backplate).

I think it makes sense for this work to be free, because these were all design problems. But good luck getting this sort of service out of Google or Dell or HP or something. Dell used to have an excellent service program, but those days have long passed. Just reaching a human at google who can help is like getting blood from a stone.

ldehaan• 5 years ago

I am going to get a Linux phone next as well, they look solidly built and I can handle the occasional hassle, I have a s21 ultra and it's ultra disappointing, I got it because they stopped making notes, had note 10 super duper or whatever but it died. Samsung and all the big phone makers have been getting less and less desirable, I am rooting my s21 ultra to see if they did anything interesting in hardware nobody is using, but I doubt it besides the massive camera. They even removed expandable storage, after making it possible to take a 104mp picture... so dumb.

Linux phone ftw

axegon_• 5 years ago

I used to have a 2XL and now a 5. To be honest I've never had a single issue. I did sign up for the android 12 beta and while there are some minor hiccups(completely normal phenomenon for any beta), things work pretty smoothly.

ehsankia• 5 years ago

Yep, I've actually had every single pixel (XL, 2XL, 3, 4XL and 5). The only one that had issues was the 4XL, with the back peeling. Got a free swap that came in 2 days, and it was fine afterwards. I give my phones down my family afterwards and each one has lived 3-4 years easily.

walteweiss2• 5 years ago

Nexus 4: partially unresponsive sensor, my very own Nexus collects dust, since it works actually, but it's unusable because of the sensor. I used it to watch some video before, since you don’t need sensor for that, but now it’s just collecting dust.

micromacrofoot• 5 years ago

I really really wanted the Google phones to succeed, but after following a similar path with 5 completely broken phones (across 3 models) I've lost all hope. At one point with the 5X Google replaced my phone with another 5X that bootlooped within a week of receiving it.

So I begrudgingly switched to Apple. I haven't had a single hardware problem with my family's phones since. I will never pay for another Google phone. In hindsight I can't believe I tried again after the second time.

It's embarrassing that Google is continually having these significant hardware issues. Ultimately Apple didn't sell me on their ecosystem... Google did.

thaumasiotes2• 5 years ago

Nexus S: No issues.

Nexus 4: Battery swelling.

Nexus 5: Catastrophic failure.

Pixel: Could not connect to my computer over USB.

Pixel 3a: No issues so far.

perryizgr8• 5 years ago

After my nexus 7 became unusable shortly after a year from flash degradation, I have decided not to spend a single ₹ on any Google product or service. They simply do not care about the customer. Buy pixel hardware at your own peril.

yosito• 5 years ago

with the Pixel lineup, there is a historical quality control issue

I guess it's hit or miss. I've had a Pixel 3 and now have a Pixel 5. The build quality of both has been far better than any of the other two dozen phones I've owned. No problems whatsoever with the 5. With the 3, I had a problem with the charger occasionally not working, but that was because the port was filled with pocket lint. And there was also what seemed like an occasional speaker problem on video calls, but it turned out to be a software problem with feedback loops and not a hardware problem.

aPoCoMiLogin• 5 years ago

- nexus s: no issues, after 2 years battery was meh - nexus 4: the only issue was usb port after 2 years of use - nexus 5x: no issues - nexus 6p (owned by my girlfriend): strange issue with battery, the phone just shut off after 20% of use and showed 0%; after warranty repair the phone is still working and had no issues - pixel 2xl (owned by my girlfriend): no issues per see, but was droped in the bus and the screen got cracks - pixel 4: no issues so far - pixel 5 (owned by my girlfriend): no issues so far

all of these phones I still own and store them in the boxes, they still are working.

Razengan• 5 years ago

If this was about iPhones this would have 999 comments and 10 times as many upvotes, but any other brand and people are like oh no, anyway.

jeffbee2• 5 years ago

I can’t believe they inflict buganizer on the innocent public.

jsolson• 5 years ago

Awwww, I kinda like Buganizer -- but also it allows for much more direct engagement between Googlers and the issues reported by the public.

malkia• 5 years ago

I've had similar issues with all Pixel phones I've got too :(

I do like the fact that nothing fancy gets installed on the phone (unlike Samsung, the rest), but my Samsung N9 Note has been working for 2-3 years no issues! (yes, I don't like the crap that they add, but got used to it... by ignoring it)

zamadatix• 5 years ago

Samsung has hardware issues over time the same as the rest, heck it was only 5 years ago their premium model had quality issues so bad they had 2 rounds of recalls and cancelled the model completely.

I still went with OnePlus again with the 9 Pro even though the initial (or maybe all, I stopped checking after I heard the initial reports) 8's were troublesome. OnePlus isn't half as good as what they use to be but at least you can get a decent phone without overdone software. That they actually let you just unlock the bootloader on new devices says a lot to me even though I don't think I'd deal with custom ROMs anymore.

The main thing I've found when getting an Android phone is more than which brand is reliable wait a couple of months for the first batch of common users (not reviewers) to see how it actually is before going for it. Yeah you're eating into the short update lifecycle Android phones have but you know it's not bad out of the gate and there is no crystal ball telling you which phone models this generation are going to have unforeseen issues in 2 years (though I guarantee it will be some).

If only the iPhone let me install apps from 3rd party sources... I'd jump on that hardware in a heartbeat.

wyldfire2• 5 years ago

I have no idea what EDL mode is but some googling led me to an open source utility [1] called "Sahara." I wonder if you could use it for recovery?

[1] https://github.com/openpst/sahara

shakna• 5 years ago

As noted by the project:

It should be noted that devices that are hard bricked and in Sahara mode (Qualcomm USB PID 9008) and have secure boot enabled (pretty much EVERY production device) will only accept signed programmers. This means that it is not only device specific (i.e. MSM8x26,MSM8974,etc) but vendor specific as well (i.e. LG, HTC, etc) since OEMs generate their own private keys to sign all firmware images, including EDL images.

Google have _not_ released the signed firehose files required to be able to fix this.

samueldr• 5 years ago

Short answer "not really".

While it could be used to recover the phone, it requires a "programmer" program, which is signed by the vendor (Google, here) that hasn't been leaked.

Or, really, I should say that these programs should be made available as "software rights to repair".

---

Some reading:

https://alephsecurity.com/2018/01/22/qualcomm-edl-1/

A more up-to-date open source tool:

https://github.com/bkerler/edl/

EDIT:

see also this sibling (to you) reply:

- https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=28545937

thatcat• 5 years ago

Just had a pixel 3a brick out of nowhere a few weeks ago after the battery died

jqquah2• 5 years ago

Mine too like 4 months ago

dmitrygr2• 5 years ago

That mode indicates that the boot ROM failed to verify the signature on the bootloader. Generally this means that for some reason your bootloader got corrupted. The way to restore this is a special qualcomm tool, but you also need a properly formatted and signed package to flash using the tool, and i doubt that google would give it to you.

How did it get corrupted? FTL issue in an aging eMMC? Bug in linux kernel block device driver? Malicious code? Sheer dumb misfortune? Who knows...

userbinator• 5 years ago

The way to restore this is a qualcomm tool, but you also need a properly formatted and signed package to flash using the tool, and i doubt that google would give it to you.

I don't know how it is now, but my almost-decade-old generic Mediatek Android smartphone (still working, although seldom used) lets you access the whole eMMC in a special recovery mode using SPFlashTool, and there's no signing required. Looks like they have locked down things since then, ostensibly for security but more likely for corporate control and planned obolescence...

dmitrygr2• 5 years ago

The official answer is that with no bootloader locking, there is no way to prevent an evil maid attack (replace OS with a replica that logs your passwords, exfiltrate them later). The real reasons are anyone's best guess...

c0d3z3r09• 5 years ago

Don't compare Qualcomm to Mediatek... it's different

molticrystal2• 5 years ago

How is under investigation, but the when is much easier, the reports surge in the morning after an OTA update occurs while the owner is asleep.

c0d3z3r09• 5 years ago

Mostly correct. Just a slight correction: You not only need the right image to flash, which you do get from google (factory images) but you need a signed firehorse/edl binary the boot ROM will accept.

shp0ngle3• 5 years ago

Crap.

I’m now considering buying a new Pixel phone - I need to switch from iPhone to Android for certain reasons, and I hate pre-installed crap of Samsung. (Samsung Internet? Really?)

But I also don’t want to deal with HW issues and my family never had any HW problems with Samsung… so I guess Samsung it is?

Justin_K• 5 years ago

Ive been blow away at how great my OnePlus 8 is. Camera is not as good as Samsung but everything else is great.

vorpalhex• 5 years ago

If you don't need the latest and greatest, Nokia ships relatively vanilla android phones that are durable as hell.

shp0ngle3• 5 years ago

They don't do vanilla android anymore and the new models have some shovelware stuff.

therealcamino• 5 years ago

Before I had a Pixel 3 I had a couple of Motorola phones, and they didn't have much extra crap installed.

sundvor2• 5 years ago

Samsung Internet is actually surprisingly good. Highly performant, and a plethora built in adblockers (sadly not Origin).

Night mode works across all sites, it clearly was written by a team enthusiastic about their jobs.

mekster• 5 years ago

Galaxy somehow makes owning phones actually fun.

Pixel makes me feel I got a bare bone phone except I like the camera better than Galaxy's which feels a bit too vivid.

Kudos to the Galaxy team.

cute_boi• 5 years ago

Samsung phone are the worst phone I have ever used. They are even hard to root because they have some shitty knox trip button.

I used xiomi and they are also bad due to adverts/data collection but I flashed other roms and my device is working flawlessly.

908B64B197• 5 years ago

Pixel 3 is EOL anyways as of October 2021. No more software updates and no security patch. Makes sense the hardware is EOL as well.

Meanwhile an iPhone SE from 2016 can upgrade to the latest iOS. It just works.

zerocrates2• 5 years ago

As a long-time Android user, it is a little ridiculous how short Google's timeframe for even security support is, on their own hardware. Updates to Android that were supposed to help remedy this problem haven't seemed to make a dent.

I'm sure, being Google, they've done all sorts of data analysis and cost-benefit and shown that it's a small group that keep phones that long and that people don't care that much about the support period... but it's just another seemingly penny-pinching situation from them that I think hurts their brand more than it could possibly be saving.

I like my 3a a lot, and bought it cheap later in its lifecycle, and it's a little galling to check and see that the support "guarantee" only goes up to next May, and the security timeframe is the same! If they stick to that schedule I'll have only basically their dead minimum of 18 months of support from when they stopped selling a device, or close to it. Is there really that much upside to these cutoffs?

If anything, they should be using the Pixel line as a cudgel (or let's be nicer, example) to encourage longer support timeframes from other Android manufacturers.

Nition• 5 years ago

Meanwhile an iPhone SE from 2016 can upgrade to the latest iOS. It just works.

Which is especially good considering no decent phones in that size have come out since!

Edit: I'm downvoted to zero, but there really aren't any. Try this custom search on GSMArena: https://www.gsmarena.com/search.php3?nYearMin=2016&nHeightMa...

floatingatoll• 5 years ago

Meanwhile an iPhone SE from 2016 can upgrade to the latest iOS. It just works.

Please don't say things like this here. That part of your comment is inappropriate and incendiary, and contributes at best nothing and at worst drama to this discussion.

This particular bit of your comment does not contribute to the problem under discussion, to the potential solutions or work in progress, or to any other related concern. It is not tangentially-related to Android problems or to Pixel problems. It does no benefit to the post topic, "Pixels bricking unexpectedly", to start a flamewar about iPhones.

HN does not benefit from conversational arson directed at some random Android device post, that has nothing to do with how you feel about Apple versus Android. There are enough fires on HN as it is. If you feel very strongly that we should consider and discuss your views about the relative hardware warranty times of iPhone versus Pixel, then write a blog post and submit it to HN.

Sincerely, another HN reader.

inshadows• 5 years ago

Planned obsolescence by bricking old hardware?

jfrunyon7• 5 years ago

Really? You're going to suggest that Google is the worse perpetrator of planned obsolescence when Apple still slows down phones and uses their flawed design as a scapegoat (and originally did it secretly and lied about it)? Okiedoke. https://www.bbc.com/news/technology-51413724

yjftsjthsd-h• 5 years ago

No more software updates and no security patch. Makes sense the hardware is EOL as well.

No more official updates from the vendor. It does not make sense that hardware should die when aftermarket ROMs are perfectly serviceable.

jfrunyon7• 5 years ago

An iPhone SE from 2016 has about 2 hours of battery life left and is slow as molasses to eke even that little out of it. I know because we have one that my toddler gets to play with once in a while. That's the only thing it's useful for.

SilverRed4• 5 years ago

Apple does battery replacements on them for a reasonable price. Might not be worth it for a phone that old. But it is nice that Apple keeps updating devices until virtually no one is using them anymore.

jqquah2• 5 years ago

My Pixel 3A bricked suddenly as well. It’s now just collecting dust in the cabinet, very disappointing. Meanwhile, my iPhone 6S still works but with a deteriorated battery.

icecap12• 5 years ago

Huhn. My wife's Pixel 3 broke just days before the 5a was released (this happened just a few weeks ago). Her LTE radio seemed to be having problems. It wouldn't connect to the cell tower, even after a factory reset. Sometimes, removing the SIM card and reinserting it would cause the phone to magically start working, but it quickly would lose it's connection again. We tried different SIMs, and finally it was totally dead and she used my old iPhone 6 for a few days while we waited for the 5a to arrive.

derefr2• 5 years ago

Googling EDL mode, apparently one way to enable it is to "short the test points on your device’s mainboard." Maybe Pixel 3s are getting these test points bridged by something inside the case, possibly due to e.g. thermal battery expansion pushing something against the mainboard?

c0d3z3r09• 5 years ago

Definitely not possible, since the board is not located under the battery but more like "around" it. (I know, because I had opened multiple Pixel 3 in the past) Also, the probability of just shorting exactly the right two pins is reeeeeeeaaaaaaally low

derefr2• 5 years ago

Also, the probability of just shorting exactly the right two pins is reeeeeeeaaaaaaally low

Ah, I was assuming that the "test points" were pads, not test pins. (You've opened these: are they pins?) JTAG is usually pads on most motherboards; it allows factory QA automation to prod the pads with pogo pins, while introducing a bit of setup friction in the way of doing an Evil Maid attack in the field, since there are no self-aligning pins or ports to quickly plug a cable onto.

Pads are pretty easy to bridge if whatever surface the board is facing is has electrically-conductive elements; especially if the pads don't have much separation. (Often in ruggedized embedded devices you'll see the JTAG pads specifically have been kapton'ed over by the integrator, presumably because of an anxiety about something exactly like this happening due to e.g. metal shavings getting in.)

RHSeeger• 5 years ago

I liked this exchange

    Case ID [9-2313000031523]
    Me: I am also recording this conversation
    Support: We do not allow you to record
    Me: So you can record, but I can't?
    Support: That is correct.

I'm pretty sure that, in the US, even in "2 party consent" states, once both parties are aware the call is / may be recorded, you're on solid ground. As such, if the Google end says "this call may be recorded", you can record. (IANAL, etc... just my understanding)

least• 5 years ago

I really loved my nexus 5 phone from Google until it got stuck in a bootloop and wouldn't charge. It was a a couple weeks out of warranty but they were nice enough to send me another one (with a charge hold) that almost immediately became a brick as well with the same issue and that one they would not replace.

It kind of sucks to see that this is still an ongoing issue on their newer and (much) more expensive phones. I've already sworn off getting another device from Google and this just reinforces this point. Samsung's hardware (with uh, one Note-able exception) has been solid and while it didn't get the same updates and of course had all the nonsense that Samsung added on top of the base android experience, was much better than any other Android device I've owned.

That said, the iPhone 4s I owned and the iPhone Xs Max I currently own are the two best phones I've owned and it's really not close. Of course it's frustrating dealing with the limitations of the OS and man would I love to sideload some of the great applications they have on Android, but the reliability and support are just unparalleled, not to mention iOS just kind of gets a lot of basic things right which makes it a much more enjoyable experience without tinkering.

EugeneOZ• 5 years ago

- My phone is bricked...

- Please go to Settings...

that was hilarious :)

c0d3z3r09• 5 years ago

Keyboard missing. Press F1 to continue. :P

loso• 5 years ago

I will buy a Google made phone for Development purposes since they get updates fast but as far as everyday use? Never again. My Nexus 6P bricked just because I forgot to charge it and it went down to 0. And when I did my research online about the problem it was a known issue. That made me furious. It made me move over to a Samsung Galaxy which I love. I can't believe this is still an issue with them.

molticrystal2• 5 years ago

The Advanced Hardware Support Team are currently requesting only for phones that are in EDL mode. While the issue tracker has become a graveyard for phones, the particular focus of the engineers are Pixel 3/3 XL phones entering EDL after an OTA update.

If you have had this problem, please star the issue ticket and add a comment about your circumstances.

Some technical explanation about EDL mode is couple pages into the xda-dev forum thread: https://forum.xda-developers.com/t/fix-pixel-3-qusb_bulk_cid...

A reddit post that lists just about all the reddit posts at the time on this topic: https://www.reddit.com/r/GooglePixel/comments/ongj1j/a_remin...

Some additional news stories on this:

https://9to5google.com/2021/09/01/some-pixel-3-devices-are-g...

https://www.androidpolice.com/phones-devices/google-phones-d...

https://www.phonearena.com/news/pixel-3-and-pixel-3-xl-model...

https://www.extremetech.com/mobile/326636-something-is-brick...

https://slashdot.org/story/21/09/03/019201/pixel-3-and-3-xl-...

Google Pixel 3 (XL) bricking out of nothing

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