I purchase in may directly from fairphone site a FP5 with e/OS installed. it never worked. It freezes on the screen with the logo Murena and the dancing point and nothing else. I became no help from fairphone, no return voucher, no help no contact, despite several reminders from me. I tried to reinstall e/OS, myself, but unsuccessfully : I can access to the recovery menu and activate the adb functions but I cannot unlock the boot I becam the code but it is never required and the device remains locked.
I am very disappointed : I have a device (600âŹ) that I canât use. Please could anyone help me either to try to solve the problem myself or to indicate a professional who be able to solve it (preferably in the region of Tours in France.
Thank you very much for your help.
So we know it runs an /e/OS âofficialâ build (not a âcommunityâ build as per Different Build Types) âŚ
The /e/OS recovery gives a version number at the top, which version is it?
You could try to simply reinstall the current /e/OS version (matching the recovery version) via ADB Sideload in recovery. This isnât affected by the state of the bootloader, and you can find the applicable OTA files for use with ADB Sideload here (these are not the files on the download pages of the FP5 install guide, as the FP5 install guide uses fastboot to install, not the recovery) ⌠https://ota.ecloud.global/api/v1/FP5/official/ ⌠the /e/OS version numbers are given in the file names.
Are you familiar with ADB Sideload or do you need instructions?
They had serious issues with their support for a while, but claim to be in the process of betterment ⌠How did you contact them? Did you get a ticket number at least?
Hello,
the version of e/OS is 2.9, i suppose itâs the latest.
I had never used adb before, i am trying to lean it, but i use linux since 20 years and it seams that some instructions are similar. To morrow, i shall try the solution with the link you sent.
Thank you very much,
The âurl:â lines on the page provide download links for the various OTA files on offer, a version 2.9 file is there, too. I would advise to stick with 2.9 to not complicate matters on the first try, because itâs Android âtâ = 13, while following versions would be an Android version upgrade to âa14â = 14 (itâs good that they finally dropped the letter naming).
I suspect the page is the reply of the OTA server to a query by the updater normally, so it would not primarily be intended to be readable for humans, but it looks readable enough.
The adb command for use on your computer can be found as a part of the Android SDK platform tools here ⌠https://developer.android.com/tools/releases/platform-tools ⌠alternatively your Linux distribution will also have a version of those to install with your package manager of choice.
Once you have the phone booted into recovery and connected to the computer, you can start the ADB Sideload mode of the recovery, then the adb devices command on the computer should report the phoneâs serial no. and âsideloadâ as the ADB mode the phone is in.
With the connection confirmed this way, you can then adb sideload filename (filename ideally being e-2.9-t-20250321478215-official-FP5.zip now in your case) and wait for any error messages or success.
Thank you for your prompt response. I was not at home yesterday. So I come back on this problem now. Just a question at the last line of your last mail, about the file e-2.9-t-20250321478215-official-FP5.zip should i use this zipped file or unzip it first ?
Hello,
I follow the instructions. Every thing began fine : i controlled that the device was connected and that adb was allowed. on the phone I saw : "send the package to device with adb sideload, bur when I ran the command adb side load (with the zip file in the directory platform-tools, I obtained :
âadb: sideload connection failed: closed
adb: trying pre-KitKat sideload methodâŚ
adb: pre-KitKat sideload connection failed: closedâ
or : âadb : failed to read command:successâ
I made several try.
On the device something like âprocessâ finished with status 1
I had some warning for rebooing and finally I shut down the device witch is now in the same state as before.
What made I Wrong ?
Thank you for helping me
Sorry, I forget some information witch may be useful : I am working with linux : Kubuntu24.04 and KDE 5.27. I have 2 versions of adb One inside the platform-tools directory in my home directory, I launch this one with ./adb. The second one is in the system and doânt need ./ to be launch. Both are the latest releases obtained directly from google.
Hello,
Thank you for your reply. I tried once again this morning after changed the rights of the zip file to 777, and I went a little father : first I became the message on phone that the signature was not recognized, i chose to load anyway and on the computer it looked like the downloading began with 0% then it stopped. The messages on the phone were:
ârecovery signature verification failedâ
âerror : footer is wrongâ
I know the method you mentioned in your last post. I have tried it first but for this method you need to unlock the boot and I never found the way to do this, I never found the screen where you must give the required code.
Have a good Sunday.
This is the expected result if you try to sideload the install file. It is unsuitable for this purpose.
The error from sideload the correct file seems unusual. In your OP you told of a problem to contact the seller Fairphone.
Do you want to go down the âflash it yourselfâ route ?? Or contact Fairphone for support in why you failed to unlock ?? I guess probably the Fairphone unlock code is not required when they already installed /e/OS.
Is there any change if you launch it with sudo ./adb ?
Ok, you know how to deal with fastboot.
With the phone in fastboot mode (not in recovery) and connected to the computer, what does the command fastboot flashing get_unlock_ability give you as a result, 0 or 1?
I apologize for the long speech but may be it would be better if I tell the whole story : I am 77 and was not born with a smartphone in the pocket. I waited that a solution without google is enough developed and reliable. So I purchased my first smartphone on last December from fairphone site. Itâs a FP4-e/OS, ti works fine and I am very satisfied. So I decided to purchase an other one for my wife. This one is an FP5-e/OS ; he never booted : it freezes on a Murena screen. I mentioned the problem to Fairphone; they gave me a request number and said to wait a response. After 10 day I became a message where they âappreciate my patienceâ and advise me to solve the problem with the help of their F.A.Q. and then nothing else despite several revival. I contact consumers associations (include consumer European Council) without success. The information about the societies on the official french sites say that Fairphone closed his activity in December 2021 (!!!), but they I tried to let repair it by a professional, only one accepted to try and he donât reached. So I have only 2 ways either I throw a device at 600⏠in a bin, either I try to solve the problem myself. I chose the second solution and I discovered for three weeks trough internet : the recovery menu ; adb ; fastboot, etc⌠but I am far away to be an expert with this things.
I tried first the solution witch is described by Murena to install e/OS, but they say that I must unlock OEM and unlock the boot, I never reached to do that. So I tried to reinstall through sideload, I understood now that itâs not the good way. Then I followed your last advice and tried to launch the fastboot mode on the phone. When I reach (on the phone connected) the screen âenter fastbootâ I have 4 possibilities : reboot system now ; enter recovery ; reboot to bootloader ; power down. None goes to something interesting. With the screen fastboot in the phone the command âadb reboot bootloaderâ in the computer returns :
âerror: device unauthorized.
This adb serverâs $ADB_VENDOR_KEYS is not set
Try âadb kill-serverâ if that seems wrong.
Otherwise check for a confirmation dialog on your device.â
What I missed ?
Thank you very much for your help.
ADB doesnât work in fastboot mode, only the fastboot command does.
And bootloader is just a different name for fastboot mode, so adb reboot bootloader attempts to boot into fastboot mode (aka bootloader).
But you are already in fastboot mode, the screen with the reboot options and power down is it.
So ⌠what does the command fastboot flashing get_unlock_ability give you there as a result, 0 or 1?
With the fastboot screen on the phone I taped :
âhpelitedesk800g2sff:~$ fastboot flashing get_unlock_abilityâ
It returns
FAILED (remote: âUnrecognized command flashing get_unlock_abilityâ)
fastboot: error: Command failed
Same result in sudo mode
One inside the platform-tools directory in my home directory, I launch this one with ./adb. The second one is in the system and doânt need ./ to be launch. Both are the latest releases obtained directly from google.