Hello,
Recently I bought a FP3 and successfully installed the /e/ 0.19, thanks in no small part to the detailed instructions and the discussions here.
Today I noticed that 3 days ago was released the 0.20. However, the phone automatic update cannon “see” it which prompted this post.
Which is the recommended way to manually update the os? Can I do it from the e-Recovery sideloading it, or I have to follow the original installation instructions of adb installing the system anew (-w and consecutively the a- and b- slots)?
Or perhaps there is some other way I am not aware of.
Im asking in view of how risk prone can sometimes be the installation on A/B devices.
Thank you in advance for the help.
On which release channel are you, dev or stable?
You can see it in the complete version string in Settings - About phone - Android version (tap on it) - /e/ version.
Since I got update notifications on the dev channel, I would suspect you are on the stable channel. The stable channel gets updates a few days later to see whether the dev channel perhaps encounters any problems which didn’t turn up before.
In this case you could just wait for the update notification still to come, as 0.20-q wasn’t released on the stable channel yet … https://images.ecloud.global/stable/FP3/
2 Likes
Thank you for the swift response.
You are correct, the phone is on the stable release (q 0.19-20211027142972).
Ok, I’ll wait a few days, it is not an urgent matter.
I was just wondering if the e-Recovery+sideloading would work as a way to manually update. If it does it will be fairly easy for it will essentially replicate the way TWRP is employed in similar circumstances on A-/ only devices.
Installing /e/OS on the Fairphone 3/3+ isn’t done via recovery, it will not work this way.
Partitions on the phone get flashed using fastboot instead.
The manual install instructions include unlocking the bootloader, which would wipe user data for security reasons, so with a locked bootloader this doesn’t seem feasible for a simple update.
In case you keep an unlocked bootloader for some reason, however, a manual install without wiping data (the fastboot -w command in the instructions) should work as a manual update.
Unfortunately I followed the /e/ installation instructions to the letter and locked the bootloader and only later learned the implications.
From all that I read here it seems to me that this page (/e/ OS Version Upgrade) is incorrect since it guides to flashing TWRP in order to update.
1 Like
Well, keeping the bootloader unlocked has security implications which should be considered seriously, so it’s a bit of pick your poison.
Well spotted. This misinformation pokes through from time to time from the base templates of the documentation, it seems.
@Manoj: Can this be fixed again, please?
That’s why I said ‘Unfortunately’ - for my needs locked bootloader and the limitations it entails is a big No No.
You can always install again, once you have a backup of all your important stuff.
Question of the level of suffering 
.
Sure, though it’s a bit annoying to reinstall all apps and set them up again (not to mention the waiting for an activation letter for a banking app). With no root the options to backup apps and their settings are, if non existent, then pretty limited.