ota-4 appears to trigger bootloop in some handsets

[John McAleely]

From a customer on ubuntu-phone@

"about 2 hours ago (approx. 6:30 am CEST) I started the installation of OTA4.
However, ever since then my phone is stuck in a bootloop.

...

Anyway, here is what my phone has been doing for the last 2 hours:
-show the BQ-logo on white background at full brightness for some seconds
-show the same screen for another couple of seconds but with dimmed brightness
-sometimes, show the rotating Ubuntu logo on a black background and emmit some
    barely audible white noise from the loudspeaker
- after about 2 seconds, start all over"

[Oliver Grawert (ogra)]

<ogra_> criztovyl, did you tinker in any way with the image via terminal, adb or ssh ... for example make it writable or install deb packages ?
...
<criztovyl> yes, I did, for calendar sync with my owncloud
<criztovyl> the syncevolution package
<criztovyl> I think it was via apt but i also could be it was via dpkg -i ...

[Torsten Sachse (torsten-sachse)]

Hi, I am the one who originally sent the above description to the mailing list. I "tinkered" with the system in the following ways:

-remounted / in rw-mode a couple of times
-set up a cronjob
-ran an apt-get update and apt-get upgrade
-installed debootstrap and screen via apt-get
-installed a debian jessie chroot to /debian via debootstrap

I did this since I found on the internet that apt-get was working on Ubuntu Touch and no warning was posted in that blog. When executing the commands, I did not receive any error message or warning telling me that this command is, in fact, not supported. If running apt-get really caused the phone to get stuck in the bootloop after all, an appropriate warning message should be added to commands that can so easily break the phone. I will open up a bug for this (if there is none up to now)

[John McAleely (john.mcaleely)]

@ogra, I didn't follow all the IRC conversation live, but did user criztovyl report that the issue they saw related to low battery?

[John McAleely (john.mcaleely)]

@torsten-sachse, are you the same person as criztovyl on freenode? I'm curious if we have one or two problems here.

[Christoph Schulz (ch-schulz)]

I'm criztovyl but I needed my phone soon so i wiped my data but it's again in reboot loop (bq - ubuntu rotating icon without bar - black screen - bq - ...)

[John McAleely (john.mcaleely)]

How did you wipe your data? Your current description sounds like
ubuntu-device-flash failing because it's not using the right recovery.

On 16 June 2015 at 16:07, Christoph Schulz <email address hidden> wrote:

> I'm criztovyl but I needed my phone soon so i wiped my data but it's
> again in reboot loop (bq - ubuntu rotating icon without bar - black
> screen - bq - ...)
>
> --
> You received this bug notification because you are subscribed to the bug
> report.
> https://bugs.launchpad.net/bugs/1465660
>
> Title:
> ota-4 appears to trigger bootloop in some handsets
>
> Status in the base for Ubuntu mobile products:
> New
>
> Bug description:
> From a customer on ubuntu-phone@
>
> "about 2 hours ago (approx. 6:30 am CEST) I started the installation of
> OTA4.
> However, ever since then my phone is stuck in a bootloop.
>
> ...
>
> Anyway, here is what my phone has been doing for the last 2 hours:
> -show the BQ-logo on white background at full brightness for some seconds
> -show the same screen for another couple of seconds but with dimmed
> brightness
> -sometimes, show the rotating Ubuntu logo on a black background and
> emmit some
> barely audible white noise from the loudspeaker
> - after about 2 seconds, start all over"
>
> To manage notifications about this bug go to:
>
> https://bugs.launchpad.net/canonical-devices-system-image/+bug/1465660/+subscriptions
>

[Christoph Schulz (ch-schulz)]

Currently I only the wipe data by the standard recovery menu (power + vol up)

[John McAleely (john.mcaleely)]

@ch-schultz. What is the battery status of your device (ie what is the reported charge level/is it plugged in to power?)

[John McAleely (john.mcaleely)]

@torsten-sachse I believe for apt-get to work, you first have to make your device writable. I'm aware of no source of information on making the device writable that does not include the warning 'and now your device may break at future ota's', or the more severe 'this is not supported'.

I don't believe there is a need for an additional warning for apt-get. You're already a long way into potential trouble at that point.

[Christoph Schulz (ch-schulz)]

I now completly reinstalled my Ubuntu Touch, problem is gone. Thx for help.

[Torsten Sachse (torsten-sachse)]

@john.mcaleely #9: the problem is you can't guarantee that everywhere on the internet people include such a warning in their personal blogs etc. The original thread on stackexchage/overflow that I found, in fact, did not include such a warning at the time.

I never received a warning on the phone itself which is the only actual problem I see here. The phone is what I used to run apt-get which then broke my phone, but my phone never issued any warning about this being likely to happen.

For the time being, mount could give a warning if it is being used to mount / in read-write mode. Only, of course, until the move to snappy will remove all such problematic packages as dpkg and apt-get. I don't ask anybody to make apt-get work on the phone, I only ask to issue an appropriate warning to ensure that people know they break over the air updates.

I also reinstalled the device using ubuntu-device-flash but I could keep all personal files. So the problem is gone but the issue that caused it, is not.

[John McAleely (john.mcaleely)]

@torsten-sachse I have some sympathy with the idea that mount should be wrapped in a warning. It's not a trick I've personally ever used - preferring to heed the admonishments of the system-image authors to do it via a specially named file & a reboot.

This is a clear lesson (on many levels) about what happens when people stray into unsupported / undefined behaviour, and I would hope that sophisticated users of the command line (who already have to install terminal from the store) would be able to find, consider and heed such considerations.

That all said, I am sympathetic to the warning idea on mount - it is a gateway after all. Do feel free to raise a bug.

[Victor gonzalez (victor-gonzalez-0)]

Hi all,

Some comments about how this bug has been reproduced in one of our customers at least:

- Device had 90% of battery level when he applied the OTA 4.
- After OTA installation, a message appeared on screen in chinese, english and spanish:
"This device needs restore from a PC or service" it's something like that but it's not possible take a screenshot in that state.
- Device do not enter in boot loop, it just gets stucked on bq splash logo and you can only swith it off by pressing the 3 buttons at the same time for 15 secs.

I have collected the unit but I can not reproduce the message told by the customer.

[Julia Palandri (julia-palandri)]

Victor, can you please ask the customer:

- was the system mounted rw? some people find how to do that on a webpage and just copy the line without even knowing what it means/what it does
- had he/she installed any packages with apt-get? had done any updates of apps
- did he/she interact with the phone through the installation of the OTA? (it takes a long time to boot the first time after the OTA, so maybe he/she got impatient and interrupted something
- the message appeared right after the installation? there was a reboot in the middle?

thanks,

[Victor gonzalez (victor-gonzalez-0)]

I have the unit that really fits this bug after OTA 4. I'm shipping it to you today @john.

[Julia Palandri (julia-palandri)]

More information about this unit: User had performed a hard reset on the phone, so it should be in a read only state

[John McAleely (john.mcaleely)]

I will raise a new bug requesting better behaviour in the face of disk full status. I will report on the handset in #16 tomorrow.

[Victor gonzalez (victor-gonzalez-0)]

@john there are no new cases reported, so I think you can close this =)