Why no updates in over a year? FP4

[piero]

@Docnux

I need is a procedure to get regular updates again - and this understandable for me stupid non-hacker user.

@googlehater

How do I force that phone also fully up to date?

Dirty upgrade to /e/OS-T is possible ! (But not for all devices) - #24 by piero

HowTo perform a dirty upgrade to “/e/OS-T” from a previous /e/ version ?

→ it is as simple as a dirty update…

DO NOT WIPE ANYTHING !

there are multiple ways :

1. download the file, go to " → settings → system updater" and use the called “locale update” feature if you have it in the “3 dot menu”.

OR

2. download the file, boot the phone to the recovery mode and use “apply update” then “from internal storage” if your “recovery mode” have the feature.

OR

3. download the file on a SDcard, boot the phone to the recovery mode and use “apply update” then “from External SDcard” if your “recovery mode” have the feature.

OR

4. download the file on a computer, boot the phone to the recovery mode and use “apply update” then “from ADB” :

Install platform-tools on a computer

Installing adb and fastboot on a Linux PC
Installing adb and fastboot on Windows PC

On the computer,

download the latest “OTA” (aka “recovery-compatible” or “adb-sideloadable”) /e/OS-T build for your device :
e-2.5-t-20241108446629-official-FP4.zip that can preserve your /data on the phone.
not the IMG-e-2.4.1-t-20241009439851-official-FP4.zip one that is designed to works with fastboot command for new install from scratch and imply a deletion of the /data on the phone.
(put this file into the platform-tools folder)
.

Boot the phone into recovery mode.

.
Select Apply Update, then Apply from ADB

The screen should now change and the output at the bottom ask you to send the package from your computer.

On the computer,

Open a terminal from the /platform-tools folder, and
issue command to sideload the latest /e/OS-T installation zip.

adb sideload e-2.5-t-20241108446629-official-FP4.zip

the phone screen will be mostly blank with just the output at the bottom showing progress.
(Do not pay attention to the wipe related things on this photo that came from the full install from stock instructions !)

On the computer the sideloading shows progress as a percentage figure that will stop at 47%. The phone will still be installing though (even though it might feel like nothing is happening sometimes!) and you can expect to see the following screens (excepting the wipe related things)

Then press the arrow at the top of the screen to return to Home Screen

Tap Reboot system now to boot into eOS.

[aibd]

OK I hear where you are coming from, Detlef, @Docnux

This method is something of a hack from the point of view where you are

a Customer

I tried to address this point in Post #15. A similar point was made in post #4.

I want to say this in a non-perjorative way, but it may sound rude, if I only implied it before.

It is quite unusual for someone to buy an expensive phone and have it not update for a year. Going back to the seller is the natural way to go, I think.

The documentation does not cover this event Viz “relatively expensive relatively new phone which missed upgrades”.

However volunteers try to help – it has cropped up in the past that OTA Android version upgrade was missed by a few months and we were told that the OTA service, if regarded as “completed”, was no longer put out to air.

@Docnux

So what is the procedure “option to upgrade the OS OTA”?

It should have been automatic, a year ago.

• Ideally you would have received a notification (maybe some error prevented this)
• You navigate to Settings > System updates > you are informed the update status as

You can check all the settings from the 3 dot menu top right of the page to check if updates are prevented by some setting.

If you want to take the hacker route

@Docnux

the above recommended ZIP-file …
I get permission errors concerning

• chmod;
• creation of mount points.
  What does that mean?

Forgive me, but talk of anger and frustration, just gets in the way.

To answer this it would be great to have a copy of the trace from the PC if this is where you see it.

If seen on the device, a photo would be great.

@Docnux

I guess it has a locked bootloader

This can be verified from the Bootloader screen

How to Boot into bootloader mode

This section will be relevant later throughout the guide, when you need to reboot into bootloader mode.

1. Remove any USB-C cable and turn off your Fairphone 4

2.Tip:* If you cannot turn your device off, remove the battery for about 5 seconds, then put it back in.

3. Press and hold the Volume Down button.
4. Insert a USB-C cable connected to the power (can either be a power outlet or a computer).
5. Release the Volume Down button as soon you boot into bootloader mode

For more details on how to erase the data on your FP4 refer this guide

The data destructive way

Is to allow Factory reset, all data is lost, and commence a fresh install Install /e/OS on a Fairphone FP4 - “FP4” – we have avoided this method so far.

[Docnux]

Just to get the emotional part out (facts later):

I remembered the Murena page as stating: You need help: Check the FAQs and tutorials. Otherwise we have a community where the wizards hang around.
I didn’t realize that there is in fact a contact form below, in the case when all above options fail.

Therefore I assumed that the support personnel is found in the community (and mentally assigned a supporter tag to people showing wisdom here).

It got clear to me now that this is plain community. Ok. My failure.
So thanks a lot for taking off workload from the paid support personnel …
Really.

[Docnux]

Well, here are the facts.
Please accept the bad photo quality. The laptop camera is not really good at close-ups. Tried to enhance the pictures a bit.
Due to forum limitations I have to put some pictures into separate messages.

First message:

As stated somewhere this message is probably a false alert.
But wrong footer?

Second message:

(Picture follows in separate message.)

Here, it gets interesting: The recovery procedure can’t change owner settings and has no right to create mount points.

And, finally, here is what the recovery screen shows:

(Picture follows in separate message.)

So, secure boot is enabled and device state is “locked”.

[Docnux]

Picture 2:

Can’t send another message due to forum limitations. May not be necessary as I wrote the important textual content in my previous message.

[aibd]

The method suggested at the top of the thread was intended originally for upgrade of Android version, on many devices with similar characteristics.

The locked Fairphone with an official=stable build and many /e/OS versions behind … I am beginning to reflect is less suitable.

There is also the thought that the Lineage installer which /e/ inherits requires some magic to do the Android version upgrade, maybe that magic does not extend over a wide number of builds, idk.

Previously, I would have suggested a historic build to address the “wrong footer” but these are not available (temporarily) due to the servers outage.

I think you should concentrate on your backup strategy while you wait for a reply from Murena support.

Do you know for certain that your SD card was installed as External storage, also known as Portable storage? The “unable to mount” type error could possibly be due to the SD card being formatted as Internal or adopted storage. ✏ A little guide to... using SD cards - Guides - Fairphone Community Forum.

Edit How did you transfer the ROM to the SD card? Did you download the ROM with the phone to the SD card in one step? I wonder what appears to have unmounted the card, unless you removed it in a non standard way.

[Mr_Teatime]

Yes!
I think you hit on something relevant there: I have so far only tried to download the installation .zip file because all other links I found were direct download links to some file on some server, posted on some forum.
Now, that happened to be this very forum, so it’s probably fine, but I’ve made a habit out of trying to independently verify where I’m downloading critical pieces of software from, and I expect that by the time I found those links, there was probably a more recent version available, which makes it a good idea in any case to go and download that one instead – but I have not been able to find a download page for these files so far, nor another way to figure out where the latest version can be obtained, except finding them randomly-distributed across the forum here.

So:

• Thanks a lot for noticing. I had not realized there were two different types of downloads
• I would really appreciate if there was a “Download” section somewhere on the https://e.foundation , which provides links to download the most relevant versions of the install ROM and the last few OTA ROMS as well. I’ve been all over the website a few times and … I’m either too old to know where too look, or it’s not there. Even the install ROMs are already hard to find, for my tastes, since they seem to only live somewhere in the text of the installation manuals, and nowhere else.
• This seems to be just one more thing that a lot of the experts around here just take for granted and don’t realize are not at all self-explanatory. Please make sure it’s explicitly stated somewhere.
• Oh… that trick I used to update my Shiftphone 6mq was probably only necessary because I had the wrong ROM, and I got pretty lucky that it worked. Might explain some funny behaviour after the update, though (like some apps asking for permissions again…

[Mr_Teatime]

Piero, please stop posting these things all over again.

If you’ve posted the same thing for the 100th time, I really recommend to ask yourself what it is that people don’t understand about it. If the only answer you can come up with is that they either can’t read, are stupid or haven’t seen the same information repeated often enough, my strong recommendation is to ask those people because you have no idea what’s going on in my head, nor what background knowledge I already have, which of your explanations may be deceptively easy to misinterpret and a lot of other things.

You don’t have an idea about these things because you were yourself stupid, but simply because you don’t have read access to my brain. That’s not your fault. To be honest, I struggle with read access to my own brain sometimes, so I don’t blame anyone else.

The thing is just: If you posted the same content more multiple times to the same discussion thread, and people even respond to it, you have pretty good evidence that something is either missing or otherwise not doing it. If you keep re-posting, you’re like that terribly-embarrassing German tourist I saw in Belgium, talking to a Chinese waitress who spoke Flemish, French, English and Chinese, but whose German was a little weak, and kept repeating the same sentence, in a broad South German accent, all over again, only increasingly louder, until concluding that the waitress was just too dense to get it.

…please don’t be like that. You clearly know stuff that can be useful to a lot of us others here, including myself.

[Mr_Teatime]

@Docnux

Until now I was impressed of the Murena package “FP4 and /e/os” and recommended it everyone.
Presently my blood pressure rises and I understand Mr_Teatime’s anger.

I would not describe myself as “angry”, and if I was it would be with Murena Customer service, and not with people on the forum here.

@aibd has solved my problem (thanks a lot for paying attention!): The zip file I had was the install ROM, not the Update ROM. With the correct file (the one from Piero’s repeat-post), I was able to do a dirty update with no issue.

What I still wish worked better is kind of the same issue that a lot of fora with sufficiently nerdy topics have: The nerds realizing how much of what they say is actually implicitly assuming a lot of nerd background knowledge, and having a hard time asking the non-nerds what that missing piece might be, while the non-nerds have no idea where to start looking.
Simultaneously, some things are just really hard to find. In this case, that would be the update ROM files. There should really be a page in the device description or the device compatibility list which provides download links to all relevant ROMs.

I realize myself that I just missed the opportunity to create some screenshots during the procedure to make the whole process a little more explicit … sorry, I was in a hurry here
Will try and check back soon and see if I can help out.

[piero]

@Mr_Teatime, please excuse me for my poor english, but i think the photos are explicite

Anxious, and hurry, many new users are creating new topics for the same issue without checking if the subject has already been aborded in the forum, asking what can i do ?
i’d better just link to existing thread, but i choosed this times to answer to each with a copy/paste of the step by step process personnalised with a link to the right file when it is about Fairphone 3, 4, 5, because it is hiden on /e/ servers and the correct URL is not easy to devine.

https://e.foundation
.
https://doc.e.foundation/devices
.
https://doc.e.foundation/devices/FP4/official
.
https://doc.e.foundation/devices/FP4/install
.
https://images.ecloud.global/stable/FP4/
.
https://ota.ecloud.global/stable/FP4/

Fairphone device and few other devices with "IMG-e-xxxxxxx.zip" for fastboot-script-installation are exceptions in the android galaxy, adb-sideloading-installation via recovery is the most common method…

Dirty upgrade to /e/OS-T is possible ! (But not for all devices)

I just successfully upgraded my Fairphone 3 from e/OS 1.17 to 2.5 and this was the missing piece. Thank you! Where did you find the link to that file? I was only finding the IMG-* files on the official download pages, and those were not working with the adb sideload.

Dirty upgrade to /e/OS-T is possible ! (But not for all devices)

Hi @lubosak, welcome to this forum. There are no problem for traditionnal devices, because first installation, updates and upgrades follow the same process and use the same files… Only few phones included Fairphone since the model 3 are using a fastboot install script and an IMG.zip folder for new installation, i don’t understand why the recovery-compatible file needed for updating or upgrading is simply hiden on the servers https://images.ecloud.global/stable/FP3/ https://ota.ecloud.global…

[Mr_Teatime]

Okay, I think I get it.
Suggestion: Create one post for the instructions and put the link at the top, so that it can be updated when needed, and then link everyone there – because that way all discussions/clarifications of the method itself land in the same place instead of being scattered all over.

Also: Thank you. The method actually worked. I had asked Murena tech support whether I could update without losing the data on the phone, and they took longer to reply than it took me to figure out how to apply your method – and warned me that my /e/OS version was outdated, recommending I should really update (oh, really?).
They also did not even consider whether I could keep the data on the phone, and said I had to back up, install /e/OS from scratch and copy the data back – your method saved me from that.