2 identical FP4's one is stuck at e os 1.21.1

googlehater · October 15, 2024, 5:40am

on one of 2 identical FP4 phones installed with the same version of E OS at the same time I am on android 13 already for quite a while and I just received an update notification for the latest E OS update.

Since there is a critical security patch I thought it important to tell my wife to check her FP4 (the other one of the identical FP4) and to my horror I found it is still on E OS 1.21.1 and it says there are no updates available when refreshing.

How do I force that phone also fully up to date?

Regain your privacy! Adopt /e/OS the deGoogled mobile OS and online services phone

aibd · October 18, 2024, 8:11am

Identical phones but are they identical Build types (and Android version) ?

This link [HOWTO] Give complete /e/OS version info easily for support, answers, comparison etc may help resolve that point.

As a first step you might try this Issues with the Updater and a solution.

The recent outage Update on murena.io service outage may have a bearing on troubleshooting. Please read updates at the end of the post.

googlehater · October 26, 2024, 10:06am

ok, I respect the drilling down to details that should not ever be needed for the casual wife/user.

I mean come on. I am dragging things along here. Please do not make it seem going with apple would be smoother.

In the meantime I have a tablet with the same issue. Not seeing an update.

does this help?

aibd · October 26, 2024, 10:40am

You might give us some feedback on …

… which is / might be the direct answer to

Any answer to your findings from the other links would be useful. The reason for asking about those tiresome details is that the Fairphone 4 is served by two different “Build types”.

googlehater · November 10, 2024, 7:41am

ok thanks guys. here goes.

First sorry for the delay but it is my wifes phone so it kinda dropped to the background.

So the removing of the data and cache for the update app did not help
So i’ll provide additional phone details.

Her Fair phone 4 that is stuck;
Android version 12
E-OS: 1.21.1-e-20240325389527-stable-FP4
Build number: e_FP4-user 12 SQ3A.220705.004
eng.root.20240325.215908 dev-keys

the details of my own phone that does seem to update to the most recent version
Android version 13
E-OS: 2.4.1-t-20241009439851-official-FP4
Build number: e_FP4-user 13 SQ3A.230901.001
eng.root.20241009.044449

I hope this helps as without a recent OS I am afraid that my wife will expose herself to unsafe stuff out there in the wild.

piero · November 10, 2024, 9:34am

Dirty upgrade to /e/OS-T is possible ! (But not for all devices) - #24 by piero

HowTo perform a dirty upgrade to “/e/OS-T” from a previous /e/ version ?

→ it is as simple as a dirty update…

DO NOT WIPE ANYTHING !

there are multiple ways :

download the file, go to " → settings → system updater" and use the called “locale update” feature if you have it in the “3 dot menu”.

OR

download the file, boot the phone to the recovery mode and use “apply update” then “from internal storage” if your “recovery mode” have the feature.

OR

download the file on a SDcard, boot the phone to the recovery mode and use “apply update” then “from External SDcard” if your “recovery mode” have the feature.

OR

download the file on a computer, boot the phone to the recovery mode and use “apply update” then “from ADB” :

Install platform-tools on a computer

Installing adb and fastboot on a Linux PC
Installing adb and fastboot on Windows PC

On the computer,

download the latest /e/OS-T build for your device
e-2.5-t-20241108446629-official-FP4.zip
not IMG-e-2.4.1-t-20241009439851-official-FP4.zip
(put it into the platform-tools folder)
.

Boot the phone into recovery mode.

.
Select Apply Update, then Apply from ADB

The screen should now change and the output at the bottom ask you to send the package from your computer.

On the computer,

Open a terminal from the /platform-tools folder, and
issue command to sideload the latest /e/OS-T installation zip.

adb sideload e-2.5-t-20241108446629-official-FP4.zip

the phone screen will be mostly blank with just the output at the bottom showing progress.
(Do not pay attention to the wipe related things on this photo that came from the full install from stock instructions !)

On the computer the sideloading shows progress as a percentage figure that will stop at 47%. The phone will still be installing though (even though it might feel like nothing is happening sometimes!) and you can expect to see the following screens (excepting the wipe related things)

Then press the arrow at the top of the screen to return to Home Screen

Tap Reboot system now to boot into eOS.

googlehater · November 12, 2024, 8:16am

thank you for the suggestion.

My marriage will end rather abrupt if I delete any data on her phone though.

Will a dirty update wipe her data? Or will she notice nothing other than of course now having the latest OS?

Perhaps usefull information:
when I go look for release notes in the updater that alsways works for me on my phone.
On her phone it http error 404 (not found)

Would it be as easy as to change the URL on her phone where the updater will look for updates or is that hardcoded?

piero · November 12, 2024, 8:31am

No,
Unlike clean upgrade that erase /data content…

googlehater · November 12, 2024, 8:59am

Cool Piero, Thank you.

Now at least we have a last resort method if all else fails.

ok I can’t be sure but I think I found the following;

github.com

LineageOS/android_system_update_engine/blob/lineage-21.0/UpdateEngine.conf

<!DOCTYPE busconfig PUBLIC "-//freedesktop//DTD D-BUS Bus Configuration 1.0//EN"
  "http://www.freedesktop.org/standards/dbus/1.0/busconfig.dtd">
<!--
  Copyright (C) 2019 The Android Open Source Project

  Licensed under the Apache License, Version 2.0 (the "License");
  you may not use this file except in compliance with the License.
  You may obtain a copy of the License at

       http://www.apache.org/licenses/LICENSE-2.0

  Unless required by applicable law or agreed to in writing, software
  distributed under the License is distributed on an "AS IS" BASIS,
  WITHOUT WARRANTIES OR CONDITIONS OF ANY KIND, either express or implied.
  See the License for the specific language governing permissions and
  limitations under the License.
!-->
<busconfig>
  <policy user="root">
    <allow own="org.chromium.UpdateEngine" />

This file has been truncated. show original

Yet at first glance I did not find a URL and even if I did find one I guess I will be needing root previlages to make any changes yes?

piero · November 12, 2024, 10:31am

I do not understand this document (or any script in fact…)
But i am confident to the update/upgrade process via recovery !

If the bootloader have been relocked, gain root availability will erase /data

googlehater · November 26, 2024, 2:51pm

I forgot to mention that the phone is encrypted. or at least the data folder is. Does that matter?

I noticed that the e/os [v1.21-r ] through [ [v1.21-t ] includes the [Android security patches] available until February 2024.

Anything later and the security patches have changed.

Would that pose an issue sideloading and preserving the data?

piero · November 26, 2024, 3:04pm

As far as you don’t explicitly wipe /data partition, there will be no dataloss.

googlehater · November 26, 2024, 4:40pm

wow this is difficult

so many things can go wrong.

anyway I tried flashing trwp to the recovery partition like so
fastboot flash recovery_a twrp-3.7.0_11-0-FP4.img
but now I need to reflash the e/os/ 1.21 recovery that was there originally.

where can i find those images?

piero · November 26, 2024, 4:45pm

TWRP and the recovery-e can both install /e.OS.

but recovery-e version 1.21 is yet not available

googlehater · November 26, 2024, 5:15pm

grrr. twrp did not work for me as it tried installing in slot b

so i reinstalled recovery.img that i found in the official 2.5 installer IMG.

now my e-recovery went from 1.21 to version 2.5 and the adb update is now blocked because it is considered a downgrade.

I can kiss my marriage goodby

where do I find the official installer for e/os version 1.21. the one that was running on here before the mayhem began. I will take the recovery.ima from there then and try again.

or where can I find the non installer image for e/os/ 2.5? that could also work

googlehater · November 26, 2024, 5:37pm

I am looking now for the non installer IMG-2.5*-FP4.img but I can’t find it.
https://ota.ecloud.global/stable/FP4/e-2.5-FP4.zip
but it 404s.

anyone an idea?

EDIT: never mind. found it
this is not advisable this route. I should have just tried to repair the updater

piero · November 26, 2024, 6:12pm

https://ota.ecloud.global/official/FP4/e-2.5-t-20241108446629-official-FP4.zip

googlehater · November 26, 2024, 6:16pm

it is already too late. everything is wiped and now my wife is yelling at me

googlehater · November 26, 2024, 6:26pm

so what happened is the first time i tried starting into recovery mode it did not work and it started reinstalling e/os. I did not go through with that process though but it is now already too late.

i did do a dd
adb shell “dd if=/dev/block/sda11” | dd of=./userdata-backup.img bs=4M
after the sponanious reinstall of e/os but that data seems encrypted en I can’t get it dycrypted on my local computer.

should I just copy it back using dd and then see what happens?

piero · November 26, 2024, 6:40pm

From the begining of the discussion we advise to not wipe anything…