Questions about install on Pixel 4a 5g bramble

/e/OS Devices Google
14

Okay, I got to S following hints above and in this discussion and this one, from @Jets, @menner, and @Sebb, to whom I am grateful.

I will recap the process for the sake of anyone else trying to do this.

  1. Downgrade to the most recent version of A11 using the android flash tool, get started here.

  2. Once your device is running on A11, use and follow the instructions of the /e/ Easy Installer. You don’t get to choose what version it will install. I found that it installed a version that was not listed for download on the images page, in my case, 1.12.3-r-20230614299637-stable-bramble

  3. Once /e/ r is running, enable developer options, USB debugging, and USB file transfer behavior.

  4. Follow the instructions in the upgrade documentation, but ONLY the steps under the “Manually upgrading your bramble to S” heading. You do NOT need to try flashing the phone to stock A12 firmware, and you do NOT need to download and install the recovery image file! Doing either of those may cause the problems discussed above. The recovery image that is already on the phone from step 2 will work to update your device to /e/OS s.

I did get one error during this process. It warned me that the signature verification had failed, failed to verify whole-file signature. I chose “install anyway”. I had checked the downloaded file against the SHA256 hash, but if anybody wants to tell me this means I got a corrupt version full of malware, please do so quickly!

I will note that @Sebb mentions a shortcut in this process that I did not try, since I already had done step 2 completely. He says he interrupted the Easy Installer process “when it restarted in Recovery mode, I closed easy installer and manually continued the installation starting with the wipe then adb sideload with verion 1.8.1-S (as mentioned in the guide)”.

I will also note that I do not know WHY the steps above work, specifically why the recovery for the r version works to install the s version, but the s version recoveries appear to cause the fastboot loop problem. That suggests that the s recoveries differ from the r recoveries by the introduction of some unnecessary bug!

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