Upgrade Xiaomi Mi8 to /e/ Q and reverse

Hello!

Today I come to comment my experience with /e/ on a Xiaomi Mi 8.

I installed /e/ pie, prior downgrade on my Xiaomi, I’ve had it for two months, working properly, except for the bluetooth that gives me micro-cuts when playing music from the bluetooth device in the car.

Yesterday I was reviewing the manual update method to upgrade to /e/ 0.14-q. I will shortly indicate the process I followed:

1.- We have to update the Xiaomi Mi8 firmware for Android 10, we can download it from here: https://xiaomifirmwareupdater.com/#download

2.- If we did not have TWRP installed, (I guess if you are here is because you have /e/ installed and you want to update), we must install it, for this we take the instructions from the web installation of /e/ for Xiaomi Mi 8. If we have it installed, we go to point 3.

3.- Enter TWRP, Clean section, select “Advanced” and then check all the options. Once finished, we go back and select “Format data” and indicate “yes” in the next step.

4.- Go back to the general options and select “Restart” and then select the “Recovery” option.

5.- After starting, we have to mount the storage, first we connect the device to the pc and then, from the “Mount” section. Select “System”, then select “Select Storage” and check “Internal Storage”. Now, the phone storage should appear in the file explorer, to copy the downloaded file there.

6.- Once the file is copied, go to TWRP and look for the “Install” option. We will see the storage and the file that we have copied from the pc. Select the file and let it finish. Then reboot, the device should start directly in fastboot.

7.- From here we have to follow the steps indicated in the installation of /e/ to install again TWRP and the rom of /e/ 0.14-q that you can find here: https://images.ecloud.global/dev/dipper/

Whenever we want to change rom, if one of them gives problems, we must verify that the firmware we have is correct, if the rom is Android 9, the firmware must be for Android 9, and the same if it is Android 10. For this reason it is the indicated process to change the firmware of the device before installing the rom, and it is valid both to upgrade from Android 9 to 10 and to downgrade from Android 10 to 9 on the Xiaomi Mi 8.

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I just updated the firmware following the note in the FAQ without wipe/format and all went smooth.
The rest of the upgrade as discribed in “Manually upgrade dipper to Q” worked perfect. A big thanks to the /e/-team for Q on dipper!

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You’re lucky @stoepli.
I follow the instructions and wipe system + data + cache (my dipper was encrypted) and I consider it’s a an half-update!
Meaning OS is effectively updated from Pie to Q, but apps and data are just flushed.
It’s not a real surprise (wiping data has always the same behavior) but documentation about an upgrade should mention the data loss.
If you have made your backup properly it’s not a real issue, but for newbies it could be a bit “surprising”
At the end of the game it’s nevertheless worthy, big thanks to /e/ dev team.

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