Pixel 4a stuck in bootloop

[bendingunit15]

I have a pixel 4a with stock rom and recovery that is boot looping after an update. The device has a couple pictures I would like to recover and I was hoping I could use adb to pull those files from the device. The device does have a passcode that I know and and I am able to boot into resuce mode and run "abd devices", and it shows the device in rescue.

When I try to run, "adb shell ls, I get "error:closed"

I tried abd pull "/sdcard/DCIM" and received, "adb: error: connect failed: closed"

Any help is greatly appreciated!

 

[EngineerMind]

This might be an obvious question, but have you tried booting up in safe mode?

 

[bendingunit15]

This might be an obvious question, but have you tried booting up in safe mode?

I read holding the power button and tapping the logo was the shortcut but that did not do anything. How do you boot it in safemode?

 

[EngineerMind]

I think these are the steps:

When your phone is off
- Press your phone's power button.
- When the animation starts, press and hold your phone's volume down button. Keep holding it until theanimation ends and your phone starts in safe mode.
- You'll see "Safe mode" at the bottom of your screen.

Edit: Important: Safe mode removes some Home screen widgets.

 

[bendingunit15]

I think these are the steps:

When your phone is off
- Press your phone's power button.
- When the animation starts, press and hold your phone's volume down button. Keep holding it until theanimation ends and your phone starts in safe mode.
- You'll see "Safe mode" at the bottom of your screen.

I found that as well and just tried it a dozen times and I never get any safe mode idication at the bottom the screen. I only get a Google logo with a progress bar that never finishes.

 

[EngineerMind]

What version of android did the phone have, and what type of update did it try to do? (And OS Upgrade, or a security update)

 

[bendingunit15]

What version of android did the phone have, and what type of update did it try to do? (And OS Upgrade, or a security update)

Its running Android 11
It shows 11/RQ2A.210305.006/7119741 in recovery mode. It would have been up update pushed just before 4/4/21. I think it was security updates but I do not know how to verify that. My other Pixel 4a phone updated last around that same time and shows 11/RQ2A.210405.210305.005

 

[EngineerMind]

This unfortunately is now outside of my experience, so I would be just guessing at this point.

 

[bendingunit15]

So I was able to get into fast boot and use the flash utility provided by Google and Google chrome to detect the device, but when I try to flash it with sunfish i get an error about "oem unlocking" but I will have to dig further tomorrow. Hoping that I can get it to do something.

 

[EngineerMind]

That error might be because your bootloader is locked, so it can't flash a new boot image to it.

The only way I know to unlock it is from the developer options in the settings, but that would require the phone to be able to bootup.

 

[Edmontonchef]

Adb sideload the stock OTA in recovery

 

[EngineerMind]

Glad to hear that