I do not know if you have a backup. Any upgrade you need essentials backed up.
I have no experience of eSIM.
Do you fear or know if your eSIM is at risk if you Format data? I suggest you resolve that before any intervention.
The standard commands are here, officially, one is advised to treat the upgrade as a new install.
I have an undocumented proposal / suggestion.
The opportunity to do this vary by device and Android version. Please open Settings > System updater (aka Updater) > top right, 3 dot menu do you see Local update? If Local upgrade is available on your device we could try to simulate the OTA Upgrade.
In the same menu > Preferences check that the default “Upgrade recovery” is toggled on.
I downloaded the Android 12 (S) ROM e-1.8.1-s-20230203257059-stable-flame.zip
and investigated the contents as per this method.
ROM inspection
~/TEMP-flame$ ls
e-1.8.1-s-20230203257059-stable-flame.zip
payload-dumper-go_1.2.2_linux_amd64.tar.gz
~/TEMP-flame$ tar xzvf payload-dumper-go_1.2.2_linux_amd64.tar.gz payload-dumper-go
payload-dumper-go
~/TEMP-flame$ ./payload-dumper-go e-1.8.1-s-20230203257059-stable-flame.zip
Please wait while extracting payload.bin from the archive.
payload.bin: /tmp/payload_726534387.bin
Payload Version: 2
Payload Manifest Length: 94251
Payload Manifest Signature Length: 267
Found partitions:
boot (67 MB), system (1.4 GB), vbmeta (4.1 kB), dtbo (8.4 MB), product (642 MB), system_ext (403 MB), vbmeta_system (4.1 kB), vendor (906 MB)
Number of workers: 4
boot (67 MB) [================================================] 100 %
system (1.4 GB) [================================================] 100 %
vbmeta (4.1 kB) [================================================] 100 %
dtbo (8.4 MB) [================================================] 100 %
product (642 MB) [================================================] 100 %
system_ext (403 MB) [================================================] 100 %
vbmeta_system (4.1 kB) [================================================] 100 %
vendor (906 MB) [================================================] 100 %
The ROM contains contents for the vendor partition, this helps to confirm it is suitable for an Upgrade of Android version. However I do not know if other “magic” is required to perform an OTA Upgrade.
If you have “Local Update” option available you might consider this.
Download the e-1.8.1-s-20230203257059-stable-flame.zip
ROM to a location like SD card or OTG USD drive, checking in advance that the System updater can navigate to your chosen location.
Now follow the Updater prompts to perform the local Upgrade.
Please do this only at you own risk if you fully understand the proposal, and take seriously any error that is shown by the Updater.