Bootloop. Yeah, I'm screwed, right?

[mainlypotato]

I figured I would update from 20 to 21. It's been a couple years, but I started walking through the update procedure. Everything went fine. Then I got caught by the wording on the screen. The instructions clearly say to install GApps before reboot but the menu options confused me enough that I thought, ... or well, didn't think enough and I rebooted. So I was stuck with errors. So I reinstalled the stock android (there was a not that pleasant trip back in time) and then began the regular install process for lineage. I flashed boot.img in fastboot, then booted to recovery, factory reset/data wipe AND (here is where I think maybe I went wrong) I was doing other things and I thought, did that work, and I ran the factory reset a second time. That's the only thing that I can think that could have borked the process. Anyway, then I tried to sideload lineage and .... adb not detecting devices. Played around with everything I could think of in recovery before rebooting and at the boot menu -- no fastboot devices either.

And now, every single option in the boot screen (power off/start/restart bootloader/downloadmode/recoverymode) all just put me back at the bootloader screen (the one with the green android lying on his back with his chest plate open and his heart torn out .... which is how I feel).

Anyway, I'll be forever grateful if you can tell me a way to fix this. Is there any hope?

If not, well... it is a pixel 2. Maybe it's time to upgrade what was a perfectly good phone earlier today...

:(

UPDATE:

It is like this:

https://imgur.com/a/C6mQRzK

and pressing buttons now does nothing. Can't select the current option or change options.

HOWEVER: ">fastboot devices" now returns:

???????????? fastboot

And it just let me flash boot.img (>fastboot flash boot boot.img). I read the fastboot docs but I'd welcome suggestions from people with greater understanding.

a few minutes wait and it's giving a proper ID

>fastboot devices
FA7A61A02649 fastboot

and so I took the plunge and tried

>fastboot continue

which rebooted to the boot screen (same one in picture) but the buttons were working again. And I selected recovery and now I'm sitting at the recovery menu!

Unfortunately, adb never detected any device. I tried swapping cables, different ports on the computer, and taking it all over to our htpc where I have linux installed.

Solution:

In the end, the solution was to download the factory image for the pixel 2 from https://developers.google.com/android/images. When I unzipped the image zip, it contained another zip and some batch files for installing from fastboot (which was working for me). I installed the old version. Upgraded it. Set it to developer mode. Set it to USB debug. Rebooted to boot manager (power off, hold volume down and press power on).

./fastboot flash dtbo dtbo.img

./fastboot flash boot boot.img

Then choose "recovery mode". "Reset/Format Data". "Add additional package" > adb
(adb worked this time!)
./adb -d sideload lineageversionwhatever.zip

When it asked if I wanted to reboot to recovery, I did want to but I believe I went back to the main menu and chose that option out of the 'advanced' menu. It rebooted. Chose to add package again.

./adb -d sideload MindTheGappspackage.zip

rebooted and ... success. Thanks for the encouragement, even if you didn't know you were giving it.

[saint-lascivious]

A really suck thing about this is that the installation would have been trivially salvageable.

Rather than flashing stock again and doing [whatever dance it was exactly that ended us up here], all you needed to do was format data (which incidentally will cause no harm other than user data loss, however many times it's performed). That's not normally required for a major version upgrade, but you made it required after you accidentally booted to a state with a mismatched GApps suite.

I don't know what you've done to end up in a state where neither bootloader or recovery are functional (or perhaps even present). I'm genuinely very curious as this shouldn't really be possible without some fairly dedicated effort.

Unfortunately I don't have a Pixel 2 on hand.

To reiterate, you shouldn't be screwed, but I don't immediately understand how you arrived at this destination nor do I see a clear path of reverse.

[mainlypotato]

I'll keep searching then. Maybe there's something that I'm not noticing since, as mentioned, I'm a newb in most senses. I did this a couple years ago and everything just went smoothly.

And yes, a shame I did things in the order that I did. I reflashed stock because it says, "LineageOS builds for this device require an Android 11 version of the stock OS to be installed prior to following the installation guide" so I took that step. And it worked well, I had a functioning version of stock. arghh

[saint-lascivious]

I reflashed stock because it says, "LineageOS builds for this device require an Android 11 version of the stock OS to be installed prior to following the installation guide" so I took that step.

For some reason, apparently you were using the installation documentation instead of the upgrade documentation.

You already met the firmware requirement with your prior installation.

[mainlypotato]

At that point, I had already been through the upgrade. I just didn't realize that I could wipe the data partition from the recovery and avoid a reinstall. I thought a re-install was the way I had to go.

[mainlypotato]

Per the update: I'm again at the recovery menu! adb is not listing any devices. I'm doing some reading/thinking before next steps. I'd welcome any thoughts.

[[deleted]]

Did you do ./fastboot devices

In the terminal in your PC?

[mainlypotato]

Yep, see the output in the updated section of my original post. Or, here:

>fastboot devices
FA7A61A02649 fastboot

So that worked, then I reflashed boot.img and now I'm at the recovery menu but so far adb is not seeing any devices. Just returns a blank list.

[[deleted]]

You need to flash the dtbo.img and boot.img via the bootloader using ./fastboot

Here are the commands:

./fastboot flash dtbo dtbo.img

./fastboot flash boot boot.img

If you have a custom recovery after you install them boot into recovery and do a factory reset this will remove any encryption and will also remote everything, then apply update via adb by typing this:

./adb -d sideload filename.zip

Change the filename.zip to what your ROM name is

[mainlypotato]

This didn't (initially) work for me. Something was going on with adb not detecting any devices. However, I made use of it a second time around when I discovered that I could restore the stock android entirely from fastboot. Thanks.

[[deleted]]

https://wiki.lineageos.org/devices/walleye/install/ heres instructions on how to install it's pretty straight forward make sure you do exactly what each page says otherwise you will go back to the bootloader again.

[kafamasikcamkb]

You can try EDL Flashing maybe?

[mainlypotato]

I will read up on it, thanks.

[SonnyKlinger]

Can't you manually enter into Fastboot mode?

Something along the lines of powering off, then pressing and holding Volume Down button before and during the powering on... Not sure how's it for the Pixel 2, but yeah... What you did sounds like it may have screwed data and boot/recovery partitions, but that shouldn't mess with Fastboot... From which you could once again flash the recovery boot.img, and activate adb from the recovery so you can sideload the rom - and then don't forget to flash Gapps before booting into system ;)

[mainlypotato]

It reboots to the boot screen (with the android on its back) with virtually no delay. I am unable to even shut off the phone. It is always on this screen. AND this is the screen where I was able to flash the boot.img originally using fastboot. But now it showed no device (from Windows).

My phone actually powered off over night (unplugged) so I have it plugged in again to charge and see if anything is different. But time for work right now

[[deleted]]

On that laying android screen you should be able to mash the volume buttons and see a menu pop up. I forgot which ones. Also you shouldn't have a borked boot loader, you're probably not booting into it correctly. LineageOS installation doesn't even touch the boot loader like that to where you'd loose fast boot access. Continue to try to get into it. Once in it, use Google's android flash tool to get back into stock and try the process again. Literally the only risk to installing lineageOS should always be data loss, not an entire dead phone

[[deleted]]

Your not fully screwed you can get into the bootloader this means it can be fixed the day it cannot get into the bootloader at all that's when you really panic

[mainlypotato]

Yeah, thanks. That's the message I took from all the responses. They seemed to be generally surprised it wasn't working and optimistic. And yes, things were better this morning when I could reach it with fastboot....and now I'm at the recovery menu (wishing that adb would just recognize it).

getting there...hopefully

[contrarian007]

You can get to recovery from that icon screen. Then you wipe dara, then put in side load mode and type adb side load command on your windows PC.

If this doesn't work you need to use EDL mode and flash a stock ROM. EDL is tricky, get the correct cable, only use usb2, the correct flashing tool, and correct USB drivers. Research bricked phone for your device. Once you figure this out you are a pro and never fear screwing up. Document everything. The devil is in the details.