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Pixel owners report problems after installing January 2024 Google Play update

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Re: Pixel owners report problems after installing January 2024 Google Play update

#61

Post by jjulius »

lacoolj wrote: post #51

Title is super misleading. I have 3 different pixels, all different versions (4, 5a, 7a) and none of them are "unusable" after the update. I'm sure others are having issues, but this isn't something that's bricking everyone's phones.

FWIW, I'm a Pixel user (who drags his ass installing these updates, so I haven't updated yet) and I naturally assumed reading the headline that this didn't actually impact all Pixel phones. Reason being that we would've obviously heard a loud uproar if every Pixel phone was suddenly bricked.

Re: Pixel owners report problems after installing January 2024 Google Play update

#62

Post by NoZebra120vClip »

jacquesm wrote: post #47

Ah, another case of OTA murder of perfectly good devices. You have to wonder at what point regulators will step in to ensure that companies end up liable for updates that effectively cost consumers money. Updates should be to make devices safer and better, never worse. One of the devices in our house has been nagging me since forever to update and I'm just about 99% sure that if I do allow it to update I'll end up re…

Look at the bright side: a bricked phone won't collect your personal data, you won't be able to fall for phishing scams on it, and its battery should last a really long time!

Hyperbole aside, let's remember that "better" and "safer" exist in dialectic tension. Or, "convenience" vs. "security". Often, functionality or features are removed because they were insecure, so now your device is "safer". If you've got a big feature update pending, consider how many bugs/flaws it may introduce as the software gets "better".

Re: Pixel owners report problems after installing January 2024 Google Play update

#63

Post by csdvrx »

jacquesm wrote: post #47

Ah, another case of OTA murder of perfectly good devices. You have to wonder at what point regulators will step in to ensure that companies end up liable for updates that effectively cost consumers money. Updates should be to make devices safer and better, never worse. One of the devices in our house has been nagging me since forever to update and I'm just about 99% sure that if I do allow it to update I'll end up re…

I've posted a small summary below, with links to consistent reports of this happening + a software course of action to unbrick the phones.

It's totally on google who's refusing to release the QPST files. It's creating ewaste for no acceptable reason.

Hopefully, someone will leak the QPST files to allow a restore from the Qualcomm EDL firehose mode.

Re: Pixel owners report problems after installing January 2024 Google Play update

#64

Post by lnxg33k1 »

jacquesm wrote: post #47

Ah, another case of OTA murder of perfectly good devices. You have to wonder at what point regulators will step in to ensure that companies end up liable for updates that effectively cost consumers money. Updates should be to make devices safer and better, never worse. One of the devices in our house has been nagging me since forever to update and I'm just about 99% sure that if I do allow it to update I'll end up re…

I can already see the storm of people saying that making companies liable for the software that costs consumers money is going to kill hobbyists, because we are just casualties waiting to give everyone money without any expected right

Re: Pixel owners report problems after installing January 2024 Google Play update

#65

Post by kmeisthax »

seatac76 wrote: post #44

It was stuff like this that made me switch to iPhone. The notable ones were the December bug and them breaking SMS. What sort of testing they use is beyond me.

If Apple were to tone down their anticompetitive monopolistic bullshit by like, one notch, I would have bought an iPhone 15 Pro Max instead of the Pixel 8 Pro I would up buying.

Maybe in a few years when the EU has managed to force universal compliance for the DMA...

Re: Pixel owners report problems after installing January 2024 Google Play update

#66

Post by jacquesm »

lnxg33k1 wrote: post #64
jacquesm wrote: post #47

Ah, another case of OTA murder of perfectly good devices. You have to wonder at what point regulators will step in to ensure that companies end up liable for updates that effectively cost consumers money. Updates should be to make devices safer and better, never worse. One of the devices in our house has been nagging me since forever to update and I'm just about 99% sure that if I do allow it to update I'll end up re…

I can already see the storm of people saying that making companies liable for the software that costs consumers money is going to kill hobbyists, because we are just casualties waiting to give everyone money without any expected right

I have a very simple solution for that: you get to choose: you are either the provider of commercial software and accept liability for your product or you have to open source it.

Re: Pixel owners report problems after installing January 2024 Google Play update

#67

Post by csdvrx »

curt15 wrote: post #28

Doesn't Android use A/B updates these days? How hard would it be to revert to the previous working version? https://source.android.com/docs/core/ota/ab

> How hard would it be to revert to the previous working version?

In Qualcomm EDL firehose mode? Super simple if you have the QPST: the phone is waiting for an image to write to the flash. It's actually waiting for the image to immediately reboot once it's written.

But google doesn't release these images, so it's like having computer permanently bricked after the hard drive was corrupted because there's no install media available.

I think we (as people who are on HN and can understand the problem) have a responsibility in not letting such things happen, if only because they hurt the people who don't understand the problem, the simplicity of the solution, and may just have a phone as their only computing device.

Re: Pixel owners report problems after installing January 2024 Google Play update

#68

Post by jacquesm »

NoZebra120vClip wrote: post #62
jacquesm wrote: post #47

Ah, another case of OTA murder of perfectly good devices. You have to wonder at what point regulators will step in to ensure that companies end up liable for updates that effectively cost consumers money. Updates should be to make devices safer and better, never worse. One of the devices in our house has been nagging me since forever to update and I'm just about 99% sure that if I do allow it to update I'll end up re…

Look at the bright side: a bricked phone won't collect your personal data, you won't be able to fall for phishing scams on it, and its battery should last a really long time! Hyperbole aside, let's remember that "better" and "safer" exist in dialectic tension. Or, "convenience" vs. "security". Often, functionality or features are removed because they were insecure, so now your device is "safer". If you've got a big f…

Slim pickings...

Re: Pixel owners report problems after installing January 2024 Google Play update

#69

Post by twisteriffic »

dannyfritz07 wrote: post #36
newprint wrote: post #26

Pixel owner here. Lately my phone been very slow or acting out. That explains it. Last year or few years ago, Google released update that broke Bluetooth on Pixels. Google's team released the update, broke things, went out for extended Christmas break and fixed things a few months later. I'm not fan of the Apple phones and the fact that they cost a fortune, but I don't recall them putting out hardware breaking update…

FYI, my pixel 5a phone has also been really slow and acting out in the last month. Crashes and extreme sluggishness in apps. Sometimes when I pull up the app-switcher, I can't get out of it without rebooting the phone. I however am not on the Jan 2024 Google Play update detailed by this article. I am still on the recommended Nov 2023 one.

If you're low on storage space, try freeing up a few gigs. My pixel 5 was impossibly slow when I let it get under 5 gigs free.

Re: Pixel owners report problems after installing January 2024 Google Play update

#70

Post by Volundr »

nerpderp82 wrote: post #45

E_WONTFIX How many tons of ewaste was just created? Even the core products are hurting. The Boeingification of everything is serious risk for all the civilization.

> E_WONTFIX

Where are you getting this? The article says they are looking into it.

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