New P8a crashes after Installation | help pls

Checkerrr

Hello community,

After many weeks of research I decided to jump over to GrapheneOS. Unfortunately there are problems right after the installation.

I got the Pixel Tablet and the P8a. I installed GOS perfectly on the tablet using the web installer on the p8a. I also managed to install it on my p8a from the tablet, but it suffers from crashes directly after the installation and during the setup process. Sometimes it just shutdown, gets a black screen and takes some minutes to turn it on. system_server_crashed, some kind of android audio crashed and an exynos le thing. The phone is basically unusable with GOS installed. I reinstalled to google stock and tried to install GOS again many times but without any success. I hope someone can help, thx!

de0u

Checkerrr I would suggest flashing the phone back to Google's stock OS with Google's flasher and running it that way for at least several days. If there are similar crashes then there might be a problem with the hardware. If not, I guess you might try installing GrapheneOS again to see what happens.

phone-company

How did you install? Over the webinstaller?

Checkerrr

Yes sir.

Checkerrr

To be honest I dont think that the hardware has any problems, since the stock os runs normal as expected.

Checkerrr

Can someone help please?

de0u

Checkerrr

Thanks for replying de0u, I can guarantee that it works with Google stock os. There are no crashes. But I want to have GrapheneOS installed on it. Otherwise the devices dont make any sense for me... :/

de0u

Checkerrr I can guarantee that it works with Google stock os.

For how long did it run on Google's stock OS? Hours, days, weeks, months...?

It's possible that the flash storage was about to fail, and the installation process might have tipped it over the edge. If so, then flashing back to Google's OS might leave it still crashing, in which case there will definitely be a hardware problem. If flashing it back to Google's OS and using it for at least several days results in it being fine, perhaps something odd happened when it was flashed to GrapheneOS, in which case trying again might work.

The described symptoms really sound like a hardware failure. Flashing back to Google's OS is a good way to gather more data.

Checkerrr

The Pixel 8a runs on the Google stock OS for a few hours. It does not crash and runs as expected. I have now installed the Google Stock OS a few times and tried to install GrapheneOS. Every time I have the crashes when I am in the main menu of GOS. It is really strange.

MetropleX

Checkerrr please flash the 8a once more and using the tablet take a video of the device booting into a fresh flashed unaltered default state to demonstrate the issue to help us support you.

If you don't feel comfortable posting a link here or using a video platform to host. Register on Matrix and join our Matrix support room to send it to me there.

If you can grab them sending it along with the crash logs you can save using the notifications that appear will be immensely useful.

Your issue is not common and a cursory search across our community portals will show that your 1 in over 250k+ users is not mentioned where there is no underlying issue be it hardware or user configured especially if all steps of the install process are complete properly with the device locked.

We'll move forward from there and I am more than happy to try facilitate a resolution.

Checkerrr

MetropleX

I tried the steps you mentioned. Here is a link to the video: https://streamable.com/cd8jqv

Thank you all for the assistance in advance!

r134a

Checkerrr
Not sure if u are aware and/or care, but your face is visible a split second in the reflection of the screen.

de0u

Checkerrr https://streamable.com/cd8jqv

At around 24 seconds in, when the bottom of the screen is covered with the card, it appears that the bootloader is showing a red triangle, not a yellow one.

It is ok to show the information on that screen -- the part that says "ID:" and then continues with a long hex string is the hash of the GrapheneOS signing key, and will be the same for all Pixel 8a's (source). It is not a unique identification for your device.

I don't think the red triangle is ok. I think the rest of that screen probably says that the system is corrupt. If so, I suspect that probably means that the flash storage is bad, or maybe that something is wrong with the cable. If the system partition is corrupt then that could very easily result in arbitrary programs crashing in arbitrary ways.

Checkerrr

As you can see, it is impossible for me to collect logs, the device crashes immediately. The only thing I've managed to do so far is to quickly activate OEM unlocking to install Google Stock OS.

DeletedUser87

Okay, this is very weird.
And in full seriousness: have you tried flashing it from a different device and also with a different cable? I can only imagine something going wrong during installation, if it is indeed working fine on Stock.

DeletedUser87

de0u Big no no no! The red triangle is always present on the bootloader screen. You can reboot into bootloader and check yourself. That is definitely not an indicator for any sort of problem.

de0u

DeletedUser87 You can reboot into bootloader and check yourself.

I did. Admittedly on a 6a, but I did.

I get a yellow triangle above a message that says "Your device is loading a different operating system".

Note that this matches the behavior described on the GrapheneOS web site (source):

Verified boot key fingerprint for yellow boot state displayed with a secure hash (non-truncated SHA-256 or better)

If you always get a red triangle, what does it say underneath it?

de0u

DeletedUser87 The red triangle is always present on the bootloader screen.

The red triangle is always present on the fastboot screen. And that may well be what's visible at around 00:25. But then we should see the yellow triangle around 00:56. However, the card is still covering that part of the screen, so we can't see what's going on.

DeletedUser87

de0u the bootloader and fastboot mode are the same thing. You will get to the same screen with adb reboot bootloader and adb reboot fastboot. We never see what triangle is shown on the bootup screen.