Hi everyone, i’m a native french speaker but somehow i’m not allowed to post on the french thread for now…
warning, i’m not an advanced user.
I have an old Galaxy S9 with a very deprecated version of /e/ (i don’t remember which one unfortunately). This morning i noticed that update 1.14 was available since march 2025 (i thought that no update would be available due to the age of the phone). Usually updates via the UI don’t require a backup of the data so i was confident.
However after restart i’m asked to enter the android password, i tried the code to unlock the screen i got the message:
“your password you entered is correct but unfortunately your data is corrupt.
To resume using your phone you need a factory reset. When you set up your phone after the reset, you’ll have an opportunity to restore any data that was backed up to your /e/ Account.”
So i guess that after this factory reset i’ll loose all data on the phone.
I tried to enter recovery mode (press power+volume up) with no success, i always get that screen. so i’m not even sure i can factory reset. [EDIT] managed to do it using volume up + home + power
Is it possible to undo the update so that i can recover data?
I’m surprise this update was available over the air, considering the risk for user.
If your previous Android version was Android 10 (Q) then you are correct that encryption changes will prevent moving Android version forward without Format data.
Indeed. Many builds have rebuilt very recently reference
Good so what version is showing?
For clarity was /e/OS running ? Reboot system now is likely to consolidate the Upgrade.
Importantly what was the file you are updating / upgrading with ?
Advice will be guesswork if you cannot better define “a very deprecated version of /e/”
Thx for the quick answer!
Recovery mode shows version 1.14.
I think i was using android 10.
I upgraded from the file that was available on the update manager…
Change from Android 10 (Q) to Android 10 (Q) stable build should not be an issue.
Were you previously running a stable build ? If not, this may be the problem.
If you had already upgraded to Android 11 (R), you should not be able to “go back”.
So was the device running fine ? Please can you check if you have given an answer to all my points from my first post with a ? so we can avoid guesswork.
thx, I’ll do my best to be as complete as possible, while going through the five stages of grief concerning the data.
I bought the phone in the /e/ store, and never changed anything to the OS beside updates via the UI.
recovery mode shows version 1.14
I did a “Reboot system now”. /e/Os was running, i guess because i saw the “bouncy e” icon before the prompt asking for pwd.
By the way, i can enter any random password, the displayed message is the same.
I always used the update manager via the UI so i only installed stable official versions.
I don’t know the exact file.
-The device was running fine except that i was not able to download/update apps on the Apps lounge that are available on the Google store. It was solved last time by an OS update.
When i boot the phone i’m stuck to a black screen with “to start android, enter you password”, then i can enter a password. i enter any password, then i get the message about encryption asking to factory reset. i never did this step so i can’t use the phone and data are not wiped.
I was not using Murena recovery cloud.
I went through the logs that the recovery mod gives, i notice that the last two logs and previous ones have a different end:
I went through the logs and ro.vendor.build.fingerprint are always “samsung/star3ltexx/star2lte:10QP1A.190711.02”
what changes between logs is ro.lineage.build.version that goes from 1.5 to 1.14. I haven’t found any timestamp in the logs so i don’t know when they have been generated.
I have no experience, but i’m ok with command line tools. I installed adb. I enabled ADB on the phone. I manage to see the phone connected when starting adb as super user.
I tried to backup ./adb backup -all, but i’m being asked to unlock the device that i cannot do: Now unlock your device and confirm the backup operation...
EDIT not sure how i helps but when entering a random password when starting android i get a “wrong password” message. But, if i use my unlock screen password or “default_password”, i get the “your password you entered is correct but unfortunately your data is corrupt.” message.
I never used adb backup, I have heard that it can be problematic.
Are you able to adb pull some known things ?
Not something I can exactly explain, but this seems like behaviour I have seen before. So this seems to make it more clear that the password issue is fairly benign. What I meant was that the password is likely in the encrypted space, so is not being read accurately but of course this still leaves the phone locked.
Are you able to use e-Recovey > Advanced > Enable adb. Perhaps also Mount system.
Use ls to get your bearings. Folders you recognise may now appear for instance in /system/sdcard but cruise around a bit.
There is the Murena helpdesk only open to Customers (so perhaps include you old invoice number). They may be able to throw more light on why this has happened and whether is could be an issue with the build and its construction.
I would be interested to know if this is available to you and if it makes any difference. You might look carefully to see whether hidden symbolic links are opened so that the get a subtly different view of the tree hierarchy.
I was able to use a shell and using ./adb shell ls -R -a >> dump.txt i was able to seach for files that could be data i’m interested in but no luck. I’m not sure what you mean by hidden symbolic links, is it captured by using the parameter -a ?
Indeed; from my untutored point of view Android seems to obscure some little things so that the user cannot always tell easily whether they are moving to or from a directory or a partition. Do you use Linux? if you run ls --help you will see option L, --dereference
So try ls -al – additionally does ls -alc add colour – are links shown
Try ls -L – you may see nothing new. Try variants of -La or -AL
The next time you run ls -al – did anything change.
Ok so i followed your instructions, now indeed i can see symbolic links. However looking at the size of the folders, it doesn’t seem to contain my data.
Also, maybe i’m dreaming but i think i remember that previous recovery system was TWRP, now it seems to be something else “e recovery”? Could it be related to this issue?
