I screwed up. "Your device is corrupt." on boot.

ohioDroid

Member
Jun 6, 2010
24
1
0
Pixel 3a. Bootloader unlocked. Stock. Previously have used Magisk although I didn't have it installed or setup at the moment. I was neglectful and hadn't updated OTA or factory images since updating to Android 10. My current boot slot is b. I've tried updating via Magisk OTA or system OTA but they both fail, so I use factory images manually to keep my data partition.

Today I downloaded the sargo November 2019 image. The process I've been using across a few Pixel phones the past few years has been to manually unpack the Factory image ZIP and the update ZIP, then manually fastboot flash bootloader, reboot, radio, reboot, then boot_a and boot_b, system, system_b, vendor, and modem.
It should have been a hint to me that I got an error when I went to flash system. My console told me I need to use fastbootd. So I switched there, flashed the system partitions. Went to reboot and got "Your device is corrupt. It can't be trusted and may not work properly.", which I've never encountered before. Press Power - ignore the device-is-unlocked message, and get to the Google boot screen. And then the device appears to be frozen.

Right now I'm thinking to go back to my first Android 10 factory image and see if I can reverse whatever I did... but figured I should check here to see if I had missed something important. Low and behold this forum says to only flash one slot at a time, to switch and boot into the other slot, etc. Okay, so I messed up. Any good ideas on how to fix what I did?

UPDATE: I don't normally sideload updates, but I got into recovery mode, sideloaded the OTA for November, and I'm back in business. I'll do a few reboots to be sure I'm good but the phone did boot up, my user data is intact. The phone still starts out with a "your phone is corrupt" message, which is then followed by the "you have an unlocked bootloader" message. That second screen has some messed up characters on it.
If anyone has advice on the "right" way to maintain slots A vs. B and how to be careful, how to combine this with Magisk etc and can point me to posts in threads, that'd be helpful for the future. Thanks!
 
Last edited:

sic0048

Senior Member
Jun 25, 2010
910
465
83
I don't understand why so many people even mess with A/B partition commands. If you follow the normal flashing instructions, you don't specify a boot partition. Entering specific boot partition commands will greatly increase the odds that you mess something up.
 
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jmtjr278

Senior Member
Mar 8, 2012
1,005
548
143
Pixel 3a. Bootloader unlocked. Stock. Previously have used Magisk although I didn't have it installed or setup at the moment. I was neglectful and hadn't updated OTA or factory images since updating to Android 10. My current boot slot is b. I've tried updating via Magisk OTA or system OTA but they both fail, so I use factory images manually to keep my data partition.

Today I downloaded the sargo November 2019 image. The process I've been using across a few Pixel phones the past few years has been to manually unpack the Factory image ZIP and the update ZIP, then manually fastboot flash bootloader, reboot, radio, reboot, then boot_a and boot_b, system, system_b, vendor, and modem.
It should have been a hint to me that I got an error when I went to flash system. My console told me I need to use fastbootd. So I switched there, flashed the system partitions. Went to reboot and got "Your device is corrupt. It can't be trusted and may not work properly.", which I've never encountered before. Press Power - ignore the device-is-unlocked message, and get to the Google boot screen. And then the device appears to be frozen.

Right now I'm thinking to go back to my first Android 10 factory image and see if I can reverse whatever I did... but figured I should check here to see if I had missed something important. Low and behold this forum says to only flash one slot at a time, to switch and boot into the other slot, etc. Okay, so I messed up. Any good ideas on how to fix what I did?

UPDATE: I don't normally sideload updates, but I got into recovery mode, sideloaded the OTA for November, and I'm back in business. I'll do a few reboots to be sure I'm good but the phone did boot up, my user data is intact. The phone still starts out with a "your phone is corrupt" message, which is then followed by the "you have an unlocked bootloader" message. That second screen has some messed up characters on it.
If anyone has advice on the "right" way to maintain slots A vs. B and how to be careful, how to combine this with Magisk etc and can point me to posts in threads, that'd be helpful for the future. Thanks!
Just unpack the factory images and remove the -w. Then either do flash-all or open the flash-all and follow the steps inside to see what you need to flash. The portion that says update will fail if you have not followed the initial steps. Don't specify boot partitions the factory images should flash to both slots. That should take care of your corrupted message.

Sent from my Pixel 3a using Tapatalk
 

ohioDroid

Member
Jun 6, 2010
24
1
0
I don't understand why so many people even mess with A/B partition commands. If you follow the normal flashing instructions, you don't specify a boot partition. Entering specific boot partition commands will greatly increase the odds that you mess something up.
Probably because there are references around saying to do so. And the threads have so many posts it can be difficult to read it all and learn something is right or wrong.
3-ish years ago I had come across this post that specifically says to flash A/B both:
https://forum.xda-developers.com/pixel-xl/how-to/guide-update-fastboot-t3498187

I've been following it on Pixel phones every since then. I never gave a second thought to the A/B partitions up until this happened. The main thing that was different now from my perspective was having to use fastbootd to flash the system, which I've never done before.

By manually flashing the bootloader and radio, and then using Recovery to install an OTA update (instead of using the Factory image) I was able to get the phone to boot properly. It still starts up by saying it is corrupt and requiring me to hit the power button to proceed, and then showing the 'phone is unlocked' message with some garbled characters, but then starts up and works fine (as far as I can tell). Maybe I can OTA the future December update and that will fix things? Or is there something I can do now?
 

dunderball

Senior Member
Jul 7, 2012
344
70
0
Just want to try to provide some sound advice, next time maybe look to use the flash-all.sh script. There is absolutely zero reason not to, and going outside of that just means you're just tinkering around way more than necessary.
 

Horgar

Senior Member
Nov 2, 2012
445
200
43
I think you're over complicating things. Just download latest factory image, unzip it, connect the phone to PC and double click the run me bat file. I always clean flash, but if you want to keep data, as others have said, delete the - w .
 

ohioDroid

Member
Jun 6, 2010
24
1
0
Just an update on the status...

I decided to not try to install magisk or anything during November. With the December update I ran it OTA the standard format. The "Corrupt" message is gone. I assume (haven't yet checked) that I've switched over to boot_a.

Okay so going forward if I want to install Factory Images while keeping data just use the flash_all.bat but remove the -w switch. Got it.

Now I just need to get Magisk back on there and figure out the current way to enable WiFi Tether/hotspot.