Fairphone - FP3 - FP3+ Documentation Suggestions

Please add your suggestions to improve the documentation for the Fairphone - FP3 - FP3 here …

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Addition to avoid confusion:

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Installing /e/ from the bootloader

  1. Unzip the archive [in Windows Explorer or any other tool on your laptop you’re normally using]
 unzip <zip>

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Add a screenshot from Fastboot Mode screen.

In section named

Getting a fastboot error ?

There are several fastboot commands that start with a upper F: as in Fastboot flash boot boot.img
For copy/paste to work, they should be fastboot.

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Link in tip at bottom should not mention […], Please create a dedicated thread on our community forum ; but be same tip as at top of page (with a lower case p for please :wink: ):

Tip: If you find an issue with this installation document or to suggest any improvements , please add your suggestions to this topic on our community forum

I am new here, but it seems that recent version of fastboot allows to avoid some problems.

This makes me suggest to remove the 2 messages indicating:

On previous versions of fastboot , the command is fastboot oem unlock

At least, it seems to me that is should be changed to was.

The workaround for the occuring problem: couldn’t parse partition size ‘0x’ Did only work partly. The thing that finally worked was to use the command:
Fastboot flash boot_a boot.img
Without the previous commands, so in total:

fastboot -w
fastboot flash system system.img
fastboot flash boot_a boot.img
fastboot flash vendor vendor.img
fastboot flash dtbo dtbo.img
fastboot flash product product.img
fastboot flash vbmeta vbmeta.img
fastboot flashing lock

Otherwise the phone would not boot at all.

The version of fastboot that came with debian buster and ubuntu bionic is broken. If you keep getting mke2fs errors, this is a known problem in that version but they included it in their release anyway, see https://bugs.debian.org/cgi-bin/bugreport.cgi?bug=924591

I worked around this by doing the install from xenial, which worked perfectly.

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The solution is to use the current Android SDK platform tools directly from Google anyway.
Section “Requirements” step 2 of the install guide includes a link to a setup guide to achieve this … https://wiki.lineageos.org/adb_fastboot_guide.html.
An additional hint was added to advise users to really follow this setup guide to avoid “unexpected issues”.

Another option, but is that easy enough? Installing from the package manager tends to be the easiest approach…

But I don’t understand why the distributors still provide a packaged fastboot if for whatever reason they can’t make it work (from what I gather in the link above, it seems fixing fastboot would break other parts of their system so they chose not to).

(sorry for the duplicate, I’m still learning how this works…)

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Hey, I am new to e/OS and the last custom ROM that I flashed is atleast 5 years ago, so I am quite deppendend on the guide.
For unlocking the bootloader, after you already are in the bootloader, I have to finally unlock it with the command

fastboot flashing unlock

this worked for me, but the step afterwards

  • The device reboot automatically. It will show a warning. Press Volume + or Volume - to display boot options, select fastboot and confirm with Power to reboot on fastboot

Wasn’t the same for me. I only could interupt the reboot with Volume + or Volume - nothing else.

Did something changed recently?
Now when I boot into the bootloader again it says that fastboot is enabled and the device is unlocked.
I can select:

Recovery Mode
Start
Restart bootloader
Power off

Nothing with fastboot. I highly suspect that Recovery Mode is the way to go for the next step.
While fastboot -w in the bootloader gave me a waiting for device or something similar.

Edit: now I tried again fastboot -w on the bootloader to see the exact message and it erased my user data this time, without changing anything. :thinking: is this the right way or did I fucked up?

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In Failed update, why (q0.17, FP3) the original poster said something about TWRP being mentioned in the install instructions.

After having a look I indeed found

TWRP

  • Errors while running TWRP version 3.4.x.x or above - Try downloading and using a previous TWRP version… below 3.4.x.x
  • In TWRP if this error shows up failed to mount /preload - Try in TWRP wipe screen in advanced menu select preload and swipe to wipe
  • /cache/recovery/xxx -> no such file or directory error while flashing a ROM - On PC run adb shell in the console now create a folder called recovery for e.g. here the devicecode name is violet “violet :/cache# mkdir recovery”

in an expandable section called “To find some troubleshooting tips… click here”.

I assume that’s part of a template included in all/most docs?
Not sure if it applies to the FP3.

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Thanks for pointing this out @Ingo_FP_Angel …let me figure out a way to selectively disable this in the template for some devices

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I asked myself the naive question

Why is flashing the FP3 stock-rom advisable to get updated firmware, when /vendor blobs are installed via /e/ anyway?

and thought I best document the answer here, which partitions Fairphones FP3_flashall is writing to (via fastboot flash + _a / _b scheme).

If /e/ or Lineage is on a specific buildstring, best get the stock rom restore zip of the same version string (as A.0101 in https://gitlab.e.foundation/e/devices/android_device_fairphone_FP3/-/commit/2f9774da148d3ac94975cc0eb6028eff02def01c)

(!) removed the A/B targeting suffixes to diff it easily, these are not direct fastboot flash instructions

/e/ instructions:

system system.img
boot boot.img
vendor vendor.img
dtbo dtbo.img
vbmeta vbmeta.img

Stock ROM - run strings FP3_flashall to get all of them in the A/B partition targeting

system system.img
boot boot.img
vendor vendor.img
dtbo dtbo.img
vbmeta vbmeta.img

userdata userdata.img # skip until here obviously

product product.img
mdtp mdtp.img
splash splash.img

modem NON-HLOS.bin # mounted to /vendor/firmware_mnt/
dsp adspso.bin # mounted to /vendor/dsp/
sbl1 sbl1.mbn
rpm rpm.mbn
tz tz.mbn # qualcomm tee zone
devcfg devcfg.mbn
aboot emmc_appsboot.mbn
lksecapp lksecapp.mbn
cmnlib cmnlib_30.mbn
cmnlib64 cmnlib64_30.mbn
keymaster km4.mbn # probably skip this, not sure if it can hold keys already in use

In theory one can skip flashing all and only flash accompanying partitions… (checking FP3_flashall though if there is a change between versions).

Edit: see this method for an example.

As there is firmware outside the /e/ images, if errors arise it’s hard to compare the devices if all you have are getprops build/vendor finterprints.

I am referring to this instructions: /e/ OS Version Upgrade

I have a Fairphone 3+ with pre-installed /e/ OS. I received messages that updates are available for 0.21 (22.01.22) and 0.22 (28.02.2022). I understand that these must be installed manually, but cannot work with the information provided on the page referred to above.

In particular, I cannot relate the /e/OS reference displayed on my phones´ “Systemupdates” (0.21-2022012215…) with the exact build to be downloaded.

Also, I cannot separate descriptions for Windows and Linux users.

The upgrade documents are not correct. We are working on improving the install and upgrade guides. Disabling the upgrade guide for the FP3 while this is rework is in progress

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I just tried today this guide, the post #1, and it worked fine for my FP3.

The docs still mention /e/ Recovery, but the download page only provides an install image, and no recovery image… I guess something is broken here.

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The FP3 install file includes the recovery file. Follow the steps in the guide to install the recovery as part of the process. No need to separately download and install it. The reference to the recovery needs to be removed from the guide.

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Bonjour,
Mon fp3+ ,avec la version 1.1 marche très bien ,pour ce que j’ai testé, à savoir applounge qui ne plante plus et camera. Je vous toens au courant plus tard pour le reste.
Une suggestion: un raccourci sur le bureau vers le cloud et la communauté. Mais peut être que c’est déjà possible et que je n’ai pas compris comment faire.
Autre suggestion: que l’on puosse créer dds dossiers d’appli sur bliss.
Merci pour votre super boulot. Bel été à tous.

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@Manoj the installer guide is completely useless at the moment. The only zip file I could find to download is the official system.zip : https://images.ecloud.global/dev/FP3

then the guide asks me to

  1. Unzip the archive
  2. Confirm that extracted directory contains following content:
    • bin-linux-x86 directory - which contains linux tools including fastboot and adb
    • bin-msys directory - which contains Windows tools including fastboot and adb
    • img files - The img files that are to be flashed onto the device.
    • flash_FP3_factory.sh - The installer script.

but it DOESN’T. it just contains the img files, nothing else.

is it really me??

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