Question Stuck in fastboot mode which cannot access to recovery/ rescue mode

[tonydigimon]

My phone just got into fastboot mode this morning which I cannot access to recovery/ rescue mode. Everytime I choose the option it will bring me back to the fastboot screen.

I havn't unlocked the bootloader/ OEM previously. Anything I can do to make the phone start working again?

 

[5.1]

Hi,

What did you do to end up in this situation?

Good luck,

Sébastien.

 

[tonydigimon]

Hi,

What did you do to end up in this situation?

Good luck,

Sébastien.

Nothing! all I did was normal usage and it became bricked over the night. Onlything I did was leaving the phone being charged.

 

[jons99]

Nothing! all I did was normal usage and it became bricked over the night. Onlything I did was leaving the phone being charged.

Android Flash Tool

flash.android.com

do this

 

[tonydigimon]

Android Flash Tool

flash.android.com

do this

Tried but it said the phone is not unlocked and therefore cannot be flash.

 

[tonydigimon]

Tried but it said the phone is not unlocked and therefore cannot be flash.

to supplement, it shows as below:

Device Unlock Disabled​

For security reasons, you need to enable "OEM unlocking" in order to flash your device. See the device preparation instructions for more information.

 

[sawdoctor]

Tried but it said the phone is not unlocked and therefore cannot be flash.

Can you boot into safe mode?

 

[tonydigimon]

Can you boot into safe mode?

No. I can't even see the google logo. It directly jumped to the fastboot page.

 

[simplepinoi177]

Supposedly, when I've seen instances like this before (stuck in fastboot mode, can't access recovery mode, locked bootloader, no oem unlock ticked), you might be able to forcibly change slots to the other one. There are 2 slots for this very reason -- supposedly to have a working one when things go to crap (but primarily for OTA and when that doesn't work out right).
IIRC, you don't need an unlocked bootloader to change slots...
If that doesn't work, I'm curious if you'd be able to get into recovery mode using the button combination vs. selecting it from fastboot mode......

 

[Lughnasadh]

Supposedly, when I've seen instances like this before (stuck in fastboot mode, can't access recovery mode, locked bootloader, no oem unlock ticked), you might be able to forcibly change slots to the other one. There are 2 slots for this very reason -- supposedly to have a working one when things go to crap (but primarily for OTA and when that doesn't work out right).
IIRC, you don't need an unlocked bootloader to change slots...
If that doesn't work, I'm curious if you'd be able to get into recovery mode using the button combination vs. selecting it from fastboot mode......

You can't use fastboot commands to change slots when your bootloader is locked. And even if you could, the slot would not be bootable until you flashed the firmware onto it since these aren't dual boot devices. Only the last slot on which you flashed the firmware on will boot.

 

[simplepinoi177]

You can't use fastboot commands to change slots when your bootloader is locked. And even if you could, the slot would not be bootable until you flashed the firmware onto it since these aren't dual boot devices. Only the last slot on which you flashed the firmware on will boot.

I don't see why one would need an unlocked bootloader to change slots (especially considering it can happen on a locked bootloader when OTA's fail)...but I'll take your word for it.

But I understand things differently as @badabing2003 explained the two slot device aspect on these devices that, for the most part, the partitions are intact and accessible when either slot is active -- things depend differently on whether a slot can boot on them or not. If I understood correctly, one doesn't necessarily need to flash the firmware to make a particular slot to become bootable...
But I understood badabing2003's explanation in a very rudimentary sense so....I acknowledge I could very easily be under the wrong impression.....

 

[krakout]

Wouldn't slots change automatically upon boot failure? Isn't that the point?

 

[Lughnasadh]

I don't see why one would need an unlocked bootloader to change slots (especially considering it can happen on a locked bootloader when OTA's fail)...but I'll take your word for it.

But I understand things differently as @badabing2003 explained the two slot device aspect on these devices that, for the most part, the partitions are intact and accessible when either slot is active -- things depend differently on whether a slot can boot on them or not. If I understood correctly, one doesn't necessarily need to flash the firmware to make a particular slot to become bootable...
But I understood badabing2003's explanation in a very rudimentary sense so....I acknowledge I could very easily be under the wrong impression.....

When you flash the factory image the system_other.img gets moved to the inactive slot, basically making that slot unbootable until you flash the firmware onto that slot.

 

[Lughnasadh]

Wouldn't slots change automatically upon boot failure? Isn't that the point?

The main point for having 2 slots (A/B partitions) is for seamless OTA updates.

 

[badabing2003]

I don't see why one would need an unlocked bootloader to change slots (especially considering it can happen on a locked bootloader when OTA's fail)...but I'll take your word for it.

But I understand things differently as @badabing2003 explained the two slot device aspect on these devices that, for the most part, the partitions are intact and accessible when either slot is active -- things depend differently on whether a slot can boot on them or not. If I understood correctly, one doesn't necessarily need to flash the firmware to make a particular slot to become bootable...
But I understood badabing2003's explanation in a very rudimentary sense so....I acknowledge I could very easily be under the wrong impression.....

As @Lughnasadh says, only one slot is bootable, so switching even if it was possible don't help.
System of the inactive slot gets overwritten with optimized Dex files to be copied on first boot.
And even if one manually skips the system_other partition, avb doesn't allow you to boot on newer devices.
I managed to make it work on Pixel XL, but couldn't on newer devices.

 

[Bryanx86]

My phone just got into fastboot mode this morning which I cannot access to recovery/ rescue mode. Everytime I choose the option it will bring me back to the fastboot screen.

I havn't unlocked the bootloader/ OEM previously. Anything I can do to make the phone start working again?

if you cant use the volume buttons to access recovery from the bootloader, and you did nothing to the device, you should be able to return to google and get a new one depending on where you bought it

 

[Donkeykong307]

I got the same thing on my Pixel 7 Pro. Nothing would flash and my bootloader was unlocked. I just sent mine to Google last week and I'm currently waiting for them to send a replacement back.

 

[Pain-N-Panic]

Very weird. Wish I had a solution for you OP. Just goes to show an unlocked bootloader is a great fail safe to have in resurrecting a bricked device

 

[WoKoschekk]

And even if you could, the slot would not be bootable until you flashed the firmware onto it

The inactive slot holds the previous firmware build. In theory that shouldn't be a problem to switch the slots. But in most cases it ends up in a bootloop until you wipe /data because that partition has no slot.

 

[WoKoschekk]

Wouldn't slots change automatically upon boot failure? Isn't that the point?

Only right after an update. If the updated slot once is marked as "boot successfully" than the bootloader won't change to the inactive slot in case the active one is unbootable. It's only a rollback option for corrupted updates. But not a rollback for corrupted devices.