Stuck in "reboot loop" / flashing the lock screen after app optimizations

k77u

Hi everyone,

Having a nightmare time. GrapheneOS has been running smoothly for a couple of months since I've switched over. It's currently in a state where the lock screen (the one with the time in big font in the center of the screen, and the lock you would normally swipe up) is flashing on and off every second or two, and I can't interface with the phone at all, including force rebooting it

It started this morning after my phone ran out of battery. After it powered on, it went through the app optimization process, and essentially got stuck in a "reboot loop" where it would keep bouncing between the GrapheneOS logo and the lock screen. Restarting didn’t fix it. It did this hundreds more times. Even when I would have enough time to unlock the phone, it would kick me out to the GrapheneOS logo and start the loop all over again.

I managed to get it working again by pausing and unpausing the bootloader warning screen during startup. Or at least that was the only thing I did differently. The phone seemed to work fine after that.

Now, after another battery drain and app optimization, I've got a new problem. First, it was that I could get to the lock screen (no "reboot loop") but I couldn't swipe the lock icon up, so couldn't unlock the phone. Couldn't interface with it at all. I couldn't even power it off as holding down the power button didn't show me the on-screen power options (I'm not confident I'd be able to interface with it anyway).

I was able to force reboot it by holding down the power button + volume down, but after doing that a few times to no avail, the phone is stuck in a loop where it is flashing the lock screen on and off (as in, going dark and then flashing the lock screen (or parts of it, anyway) before going dark again) and I can't interface with it at all.

Summary: it's going haywire and I have no way to turn it off, though it will drain through the remaining battery fairly soon

Any idea what could be going on or how I can fix it? I don't believe it has any water damage etc. and I bought it recently

Thanks

de0u

k77u

Press the power button and hold it for a long time -- more than a minute. This should result in the device powering off.
Plug it in to a charger for at least three hours. If it starts to boot when you provide power, pause it in the bootloader.

Overall, right now you should definitely avoid the battery running flat. Depending on what symptoms you have when the battery is well charged, we may recommend various things. But at present each time the battery runs flat the health of the software on the device may degrade further.

de0u

k77u Once you have a really solid charge, if the device enters a boot loop, I suggest one of two options:

Power it off, download an OTA image, and sideload it,
Try one of the interactive chat rooms for real-time advice.

But it is important that the device has a really solid charge before trying anything, because losing power when the system is unhealthy and the OS is running is not supportive of progress.

Which kind of device is this? How old is the battery?