Updating Pixel 4 To March 2020 OTA w/Magisk

[Gooch4130]

I went to check for system updates today and my pixel initially started to download the latest patch and then after a couple of seconds went straight to telling me that there is no update available. Anyone else have this issue and/or successfully update to the March 2020 OTA via the process below?

Updating Phone Once Rooted:
- Check for device updates, when found:
- Tap uninstall in 'Magisk Manager'
- Tap restore images
- install OTA (do not reboot)
- Back to magisk, tap install > select install to inactive slot
- When magisk installed, press the reboot button in it. It'll force to the other slot AND you'll be updated AND rooted​

I assume I should be able to go under 'System' -> 'Advanced' and get the OTA under 'System Update'. I've already disabled 'Automatic system updates' under 'Developer Options'. Just making sure google is somehow not blocking the update on rooted devices and that the above steps are correct. Thank you in advance!

 

[Gooch4130]

Found similar thing on reddit here.

 

[sic0048]

It's very common for unlocked and rooted Pixel phones to not "find" or complete the monthly OTA updates. There must be some sort of check in the OTA process that fails on rooted phones.

You should get familiar with the "sideloading" process of manually flashing OTA images.

Here is a set of instructions that I wrote in my Pixel 3a rooting guide. The process is exactly the same for the Pixel 4 series.

Taking an OTA update should be as easy as the above instructions. However there is another option available to install an OTA update called sideloading. Sometimes the update doesn't appear on the phone in a timely manner and you may want to manually install the update. Other times the OTA update seems to fail for some reason. In the end, you may decide to sideload the OTA instead of trying get it via the update feature on the phone. Surprisingly, it's actually faster to install the update via sideloading than it will be to take the OTA normally. I'll walk through the sideloading steps.....

Optional Step 1 - Uninstall Magisk (so that it restores the stock boot.img). If you find yourself unable to boot into recovery, you will have to restore the stock boot.img. I've run into this issue on some Android 10 images, but not all.
Step 2 - Download to your computer the correct OTA image from here
Step 3 - Connect to your phone via ADB on your computer. You should see the device listed if you type the command "adb devices".
Step 4 - Boot your phone into recovery (type the command "adb reboot recovery").
Step 5 - The phone will have a green android robot with a red sign over it's open access panel. Press the power button and then the volume up button while still holding down the power button.
Step 6 - Select "Apply update from ADB" using the volume buttons to highlight the choice and the power button to select it to enter the sideload mode.
Step 7 - Using your computer, type "adb sideload ota_file.zip" where ota_file.zip is the name of the OTA file you downloaded in step 2.
Step 8 - Once the update finishes, reboot the phone to complete the update process. (See note below about initial boot times).
Step 9 - To obtain root again, please use one of the two root methods listed above

Please note, the initial boot may take quite a while. I've seen the process take upwards of 20 minutes and longer. I think part of the reason it can take so long is that it optimizes the apps during this boot process. The more apps you have, the longer the process may take. When you take a regular OTA update, the phone will change to a screen where is specifically tells you it is optimizing the apps and counts up as the apps are optimized to give you status updates. When you use the the side-load method, it all happens with just the regular boot animation running and without any status updates. Because of this, it is easy to assume something has gone wrong with the boot process while in fact the phone is working through the process normally. If it isn't boot looping (showing the initial power screen before moving back to the boot animation), everything is fine and you just be patient and let the phone complete the process.

 

[Gooch4130]

It's very common for unlocked and rooted Pixel phones to not "find" or complete the monthly OTA updates. There must be some sort of check in the OTA process that fails on rooted phones.

You should get familiar with the "sideloading" process of manually flashing OTA images.

Here is a set of instructions that I wrote in my Pixel 3a rooting guide. The process is exactly the same for the Pixel 4 series.

Thanks for the reply! I'm very used to sideloading/dirty flashing the updates, was hoping to use the Magisk method . Seems like google is getting smarter with their updates. I am guessing the current inability to see the OTA is due to the updates with google pay and google wanting to ensure banks it is safe.

I just finished sideloading March's OTA and patching the boot.img and everything seems to work, just a bit more effort than leveraging Magisk.

 

[user154]

I went to check for system updates today and my pixel initially started to download the latest patch and then after a couple of seconds went straight to telling me that there is no update available. Anyone else have this issue and/or successfully update to the March 2020 OTA via the process below?

Updating Phone Once Rooted:
- Check for device updates, when found:
- Tap uninstall in 'Magisk Manager'
- Tap restore images
- install OTA (do not reboot)
- Back to magisk, tap install > select install to inactive slot
- When magisk installed, press the reboot button in it. It'll force to the other slot AND you'll be updated AND rooted

I assume I should be able to go under 'System' -> 'Advanced' and get the OTA under 'System Update'. I've already disabled 'Automatic system updates' under 'Developer Options'. Just making sure google is somehow not blocking the update on rooted devices and that the above steps are correct. Thank you in advance!

I had this problem with the february update, I worked out that I had to uninstall magisk first, then check for updates.
This month I waited untill the factory images were up, uninstalled magisk, then checked for updates and everything went smoothly.

 

[Spookymyo]

I had something funny happen. I was rooted in the January update. I just decided to check for updates. It always shows there's an update but always fails to download it. This time it downloaded and installed it. All the way to the March update. This unrooted me. I still had Magisk and all my modules but it was disabled.

I've tried the usual methods to reroot it. I downloaded the March update. Extracted the boot image. Patched it in Magisk. Put it on my PC and flashed it. The phone restarted and displayed the Google start up screen and a waiting bar like it was optimizing apps. But when that was done it went to a black screen and never left it. I put the phone down and came back to it over an hour later and it was still black. I had to reflash the stock OTA update.

Anyone know why that happened?

 

[JJT211]

I experienced same exact thing. Looks like it saw the update at first then after a few seconds reverted to No updates available. About to try uninstalling Magisk, if no bueno, then gonna just sideload.

 

[Gooch4130]

I had something funny happen. I was rooted in the January update. I just decided to check for updates. It always shows there's an update but always fails to download it. This time it downloaded and installed it. All the way to the March update. This unrooted me. I still had Magisk and all my modules but it was disabled.

I've tried the usual methods to reroot it. I downloaded the March update. Extracted the boot image. Patched it in Magisk. Put it on my PC and flashed it. The phone restarted and displayed the Google start up screen and a waiting bar like it was optimizing apps. But when that was done it went to a black screen and never left it. I put the phone down and came back to it over an hour later and it was still black. I had to reflash the stock OTA update.

Anyone know why that happened?

Did you disable 'Automatic system updates' on the phone? That should still allow the download to occur just not the install. It seems like google got smarter with this update to detect rooted phones.

 

[Spookymyo]

Did you disable 'Automatic system updates' on the phone? That should still allow the download to occur just not the install. It seems like google got smarter with this update to detect rooted phones.

Yes I disabled automatic updates. It didn't do it automatically, I clicked the check for update button. Normally when I do that it says there's a download available and then I know to check online for the flash file. This time it updated without stopping.

 

[Danieldergrosse]

FAILED (remote: Failed to write to partition Not Found)

what i am doing wrong ????

---------- Post added at 12:21 PM ---------- Previous post was at 12:17 PM ----------

Boot loader is unlocked...
10.0.0 (QQ2A.200305.003, Mar 2020, All carriers except AT&T)
this version i did ota update
i am from germany.

 

[Danieldergrosse]

okay, i found a way to root, but how is it with safety net fix ???
anyone an idea ???

 

[Chris.C]

Deleted

 

[mattcoz]

I had something funny happen. I was rooted in the January update. I just decided to check for updates. It always shows there's an update but always fails to download it. This time it downloaded and installed it. All the way to the March update. This unrooted me. I still had Magisk and all my modules but it was disabled.

I've tried the usual methods to reroot it. I downloaded the March update. Extracted the boot image. Patched it in Magisk. Put it on my PC and flashed it. The phone restarted and displayed the Google start up screen and a waiting bar like it was optimizing apps. But when that was done it went to a black screen and never left it. I put the phone down and came back to it over an hour later and it was still black. I had to reflash the stock OTA update.

Anyone know why that happened?

It installed the OTA for me too, now I'm afraid to restart my phone.

 

[Spookymyo]

It installed the OTA for me too, now I'm afraid to restart my phone.

I would flash Magisk again before you restart.

I still can't get my phone rooted. I'm not sure what's going on. I wonder if other people have been able to successfully root the March update.

 

[AdriK]

I successfully rooted the March update, using the boot.img method.

 

[sruel3216]

I would flash Magisk again before you restart.

I still can't get my phone rooted. I'm not sure what's going on. I wonder if other people have been able to successfully root the March update.

I rooted with boot.img method, as well

 

[Chris.C]

I rooted with boot.img method, as well[/QUOTE

I ended up following this
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kZY8qiz2SZ0

 

[Spookymyo]

I got it rooted. It ended up taking a factory reset. It must have been some file interfering with the process. Once I reset my phone the rooting process went without incident.

 

[SolarPlexus]

As I'm searching for a more Phone based update wy, I'm thinking about to use maybe the Implemented OTA Process, but download the OTA-File manually... But for that We must know,how the OTA process is working. Did someone know:
- Where the update stores the download fine (I found a OTA and a OTA_Packge directory in the /Data/ folder)
- is there maybe a setting or information which must be injected somewhere (maybe a txt file)
- after that the ota update could then maybe started by hand

Has someone informations on that? If maybe someone where the ota still works and stil has root could check the files and places?

 

[onlyguynamedniles]

I rooted with boot.img method, as well[/QUOTE

I ended up following this
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kZY8qiz2SZ0

Worked like charm!! Thanks!! :good: