I have a OnePlus 7T that is currently on /e/ OS R Dev. I want to install /e/ OS S Dev on it and noticed the instructions say to flash the stock ROM of Android 12 first. Is this necessary and the reason I ask is because I’ve read a lot of feedback that the Oxygen OS 12 for OnePlus 7T has a lot of bugs and some are quite major like a yellowed screen, audio issues, etc. If I do flash the Oxygen OS 12 will those bugs carry over to /e/ OS S? Also, to gain technical wisdom why does the instructions say to install the stock ROM of Android 12? What does that do for /e/ OS?
This gives /e/OS the correct foundation to the actual hardware. The manufacturer has the opportunity to make software revisions to make the latest Android version work nicely on their hardware.
Loosely speaking there is the vendor’s software layer Hardware Abstraction Layer, HAL which the manufacturer uses to provide the correct new software access. This layer exists in the manufacturer’s stock ROM, but the layer does not exist in the /e/ ROM.
In turn /e/OS devs use this newly created layer on which to base the “new” /e/OS Android version.
So it is very often required to install the manufacturers stock ROM in the upgraded Android version.
Thank you @aibd for the reply. Will the bugs from the stock ROM carry over to /e/ OS? Also, how do I flash the stock ROM to my phone? Do I have to undo anything I did when I installed /e/ OS R?
Of course if the manufacturer has teething troubles with the new Android version, then there is the possibility that will carry over. Some individuals like to jump to new versions at the earliest opportunity while others will by nature wait a while for things to settle down.
If problems are being reported by Oxygen users another software revision may happen soon, idk.
The new Oxygen install will mean that you will need to be sure you have important stuff backed up.
Probably the OnePlus community is a good place to look for the latest Oxygen upgrade – there is nothing I can think of, /e/OS-r related, which you need to undo.
Is it true for all devices? I recently manually upgraded my FP3 from R Dev to S Dev using sideload. As there is an OTA from R to S available for stable channel I thought there was no need to flash stock Android S beforehand.
Also is it possible to sideload stock android then /e/ OS without data loss?
The relationship /e/ has with Fairphone allows /e/ ROMs to include Fairphone components effectively (which are installed when you follow detailed install instructions).
I will not answer the “Sideload” part of your question, as I do not have the detailed knowledge of the two different ways that /e/OS packages Fairphone ROMs.
After reading more reports of issues with the OnePlus Oxygen OS Android 12 for the 7T I’m not going to flash the stock ROM. The issues were originally reported late last year and OnePlus still has not fixed them and looks like have stopped supporting the 7T. I’m going to install the stable /e/ OS R and wait for the stable S to be released.
