OTA upgrade for Fairphone 3+ not available

Hello,

I use a Fairphone 3+ with /e/ 1.5 on Android Q. As there seems to be no 1.6 for that path, I would like to upgrade to Android 11, but no OTA upgrade is offered to me on the settings. Am I missing something? Can I use /e/OS Version Upgrade without data-loss and do I need to revert to stock Android for the firmware updates first? Searching in the forum here did not really help me. What additional information do I need to provide for a proper answer?

Hello.
What type of 1.5, stable or dev?
Here you find more information:

If you search in the same topic for “FP3” I think you’ll find something interesting.

Edit: and now also here: FP3: Unable to update from 1.5q-dev to r-stable - "Failed to find update binary"

Edit: I don’t have a FP3, so mine is only a fast forum search and something I have read.

Without looking I would have answered that I am on “stable”, but I checked and found that I obviously have dev, although I was dead sure that I aimed for stable. Anyways, this gives me a complete different starting point and it explains why I received no OTA upgrade. Thanks for having me check again.

1 Like

For me worked the sideload upgrade from 1.5 q-dev to 1.6-r via adb.

I had the same problem with dev on my FP3 and did an upgrade via ADB sideload from Q dev to S dev and it worked like a charme, so far everything (OS & apps) works fine. So you could also consider switching to the latest Android build.

Thanks for the feedback, also to @schwarz
Did this lead to a data and you had to restore you app data from backup? And this guide is to be followed? /e/OS Version Upgrade

I did it a little different. As I wanted to keep everything already on my phone, I didn’t even consider switching back to Fairphone OS first. Although in the offical guide no data loss is mentioned, it seemd to risky for me. Apart from this, Fairphone doesn’t offer Android 12 (S) for the FP3. I just upgraded to /e/s S dev OVER Q dev, thanks to the lead and encouragement from the community.

  • Turn on USB-Debugging in the developer options on your phone.
  • Reboot to /e/s’ Recovery Mode
  • Choose “Apply Update”, then “Apply from ADB”
  • Run adb sideload /path/to/zip (inserting the path to your /e/OS package) on your computer
  • Reboot your phone and you are done.

Everything worked out smooth for me, nevertheless it might be risky. I just went all in, eyes closed. I hadn’t any data loss and everything (apps & data) was kept in place. Insofar as Androids architecture changes, that might not be the case with future versions (Android 13+). For posibilities of data backup, you can look up the dicussion I had that led me to my upgrade here. You should also keep in mind that, for reasons unknown to me, an upgrade from a dev build to a stable build currently seems impossible and switching from a dev to a stable build currently seems to need complete reinstalling, including data loss.

1 Like

You can switch by sideloading it :wink: I did it on a spare FP3 and same version R 1.6 and I switched from stable to dev. It is just something I tested out. Can not give explantion why and the dangers of it. I am waiting for 1.7 to se how the OTA will behave

Concerning switching from dev to stable or conversely, I have no real information, but it was pointed out that that might be risky in the discussion linked above.

Perhaps “impossible” was said a little too rigorous^.^ Nevertheless, better safe than sorry, I personally would stay on the already installed channel.

I did the same as @Sebastian, although I didn’t dare to go straight to S. No dataloss, but I would also recommend a backup.
As @mihi I am waiting for 1.7 for the S upgrade .

Man, was I nervous. So I switched with adb sideload from 1.5-q to 1.6-r…it worked without data loss, so I do not need to recover from my backups. I did not dare to go to S. Thanks to everyone for the heads-up.