Supported Devices: Xiaomi MI A1

While the Xiaomi MI A1 is on the list of supported devices (as it is also on the LineageOS list), it is yet not possible to install it on a real world MI A1 available in Europe. At least it wont work if you follow the official documentation and even if you invest much time, it wont work.

I suggest that you remove it for now from the list or at least upgrade instructions so that the available images could be installed on the device with acceptable effort and reliable results.

I understand that yet the software isn’t ready for prime-time. On the other hand putting devices on a list of “supported” devices is misleading, if in reality it is not possible.

BTW: Even LineageOS has currently problems especially on this device. Therefore it might be a more general problem.

@JackTheFish I am running /e/ on my MiA1. Please check the screen shots below. I am based out of India and have been running Lineage earlier and now /e/ for the last 6 months without major issues. Please can you specify what is the exact problem you are facing.

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Mi A1 (tissot) has A/B partitioning and treble. Both are relatively new and may make problem but LineageOS officially supports the device. I personally used LOS 16 and /e/ 0.2 on it and there are others that create and use “roms” for this device.

I agree that the MI A1 ist on the list of officially supported devices. However, if you try to install it on a brand new MI A1 (Global version), it will fail during install. Same for any derivative roms.

The MI A1 is one of those A/B devices and also has dm-verity active. Officially TWRP shouldn’t be installed - it should just be used temporary (fastboot boot recovery.img). It’s very instable on the MI A1. During install you get a lot of errors - sometimes the kDownloadOperationExecutionError, sometimes other. Usable documentation doesn’t exist.

I’ve used /e/ on a Galaxy S4 where it can be installed without any problems. But the A/B devices seem to cause massive problems. It might be possible to get rid of the problems if the OS could be installed completely via fastboot (without use of the TWRP stuff). However, this sort of installation is usually not offered.

It might also have to do with some recent changes made by Xiaomi. They currently behave a bit strange and closing all their newer devices - you have to beg for unlock. The MI A1 received some infamous updates during the last months which could also be a source of problems.

However… Yet I’m not able to install /e/ on a MI A1 (especially not by following the guide here on the website). If one has a working instruction I would be glad to read and test…

Update: It might be possible that the device has some defects. even the stock ROM shows some strange behavior, crashes, freezes and reboots - this correlates with the behavior of TWRP during install. This does not seem to be a rare thing - there are lots of complaints of users. It’s possible tribute to the cheap price.

I’ve ordered a second device to verify this theory and keep you all updated. I hope that my initial post turns out as wrong. May first tests on my Galaxy S4 were impressing - this project is on the right track. Very nice App selection and choosing LineageOS and MicroG is very smart as it allows focusing on app selection, tweaking and add-on services. We’ll see on Friday if it was a hardware defect…

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Update: Today I received a second MI A1. I tried to install /e/ and it was a really smooth and flawless experience. It runs like a dream and shows a very promising state of the OS. No crashes, no reboots and the install was successful on first try.

This also means that the first delivered device had defects - maybe a defect memory chip. I did some research and found that some people have similar problems - so might be a quality issue at Xiaomi’s side. With an eye on the price and the device features this is forgivable - anyway the behavior was really irritating and I never experienced something like that during the last 20 years.

Long story, short conclusion: /e/ works perfect on the MI A1. Sorry for the confusion.

@JackTheFish thanks for the update. No need to apologize. The feedback was important and would definitely be helpful for other users if in a similar situation.