How common is the Pixel XL 128GB bricking issue? What can be done to avoid it?

[blackroseblade]

Recently purchased two Pixel XLs. Original 2016 ones.

However, reading around on XDA and reddit, there's an awful LOT of bricked/dead Pixel phone reports. Disproportionately more. Considering this phone barely sold 3 million units, that's a scarily high number of bricked phones.

And apparently all of these are being caused by software updates from fricking Google themselves? What gives???

I need to know what steps I can take to ensure I don't brick my phones, and if I do, I can recover them in the future.

Is there anyway to dump their storage images so I can restore if hard bricked? What can I do to make sure if there is a soft/hard brick, I'm ready to tackle it in the future?

 

[pTeronaut]

Based on my experience, I'n not sure that many devices are truly bricked, instead stuck in something like the sleep of the dead.

Yesterday, I put my phone on charge @ 27%, and left it alone for a little less than two hours, to find it with a black screen, not responding to any keypress, incoming calls. Troubleshooting through Google support results in them confirming that it is bricked, but as my warranted ending last November.

Anyway, I left in on charge overnight, and my wife woke me up this morning with my phone at the lockscreen. She held the power and volume down buttons for 30 seconds, and the phone booted up.

Now if after a 12 hour charge, the phone won't boot with a 30 second Power & VOL- combination, then it most probably is bricked.

 

[noidea24]

Based on my experience, I'n not sure that many devices are truly bricked, instead stuck in something like the sleep of the dead.

Yesterday, I put my phone on charge @ 27%, and left it alone for a little less than two hours, to find it with a black screen, not responding to any keypress, incoming calls. Troubleshooting through Google support results in them confirming that it is bricked, but as my warranted ending last November.

Anyway, I left in on charge overnight, and my wife woke me up this morning with my phone at the lockscreen. She held the power and volume down buttons for 30 seconds, and the phone booted up.

Now if after a 12 hour charge, the phone won't boot with a 30 second Power & VOL- combination, then it most probably is bricked.

The volume button doesn't do anything unless your going into the bootloader.
Holding the power button for 30ish seconds on ANY Android device will hard restart the device. I'm only telling you because its more comfortable when you only have to press one button.

That aside, when I got my pixel, I talked friends and family into getting them. A count of 7 got xl/regulars. None of us have any such problem.
I recently-ish got my phone replaced and my old one didn't have this problem.

In a situation like this, it can almost always be solved by flashing stock firmware, which some people are uncomfortable with (leading to them calling the phone bricked). If you were lucky enough to get Google editions, unlock the bootloader now. If they are Verizon versions check the os version and hope it hasn't been updated.

 

[pTeronaut]

Regardless, the night before, it wasn't responding to incoming calls, adb, button presses of any length. It was bricked and meet all of Google's criteria for a warranty replacement (if it was still in the timeframe)

When my wife tried the power button alone for 30 seconds nothing happened, only when she held both the power and volume down for 30 seconds did it come back to life.

And here's the kicker: when you force shutdown (or power on from off) using power and volume down, the phone reboots to the bootloader. In this case, it booted to Android, via the "your device cannot be checked for corruption" screen.

 

[blackroseblade]

So is there any way to recover from these sudden trips? The Pixel is the first 200USD+ phone I've purchased, each phone cost 400 in total, for a grand investment of 800 USD.

I don't want to end up with a paper brick. These phones are purchased in USA but they'll be used outside a warranty coverage zone. It'll be a huge hassle to get them shipped back to the USA.