Failed to install latest GrapheneOS: Checking 'version-baseband' - FAILED

GrapheneOS

headwind-mdm No, you never have to flash the stock OS. You just need to flash the firmware that's normally flashed by installing GrapheneOS via factory images. You're skipping that when using fastboot flashall which only flashes the OS images. You need to flash the firmware images manually when using that development approach to flashing.

GrapheneOS

headwind-mdm That's one way to get the latest firmware but you could have flashed the radio and bootloader firmware from the GrapheneOS tree.

de0u

headwind-mdm I am thoroughlly following the instructions at https://grapheneos.org/build.

Those directions do not contain fastboot flashall -w.

Edit: I feel it is important to point this out for future readers, because there have been other build-problem posts where the key issue has turned out to be somebody who is familiar with building some other Android variant applying "standard procedure" and running into trouble.

headwind-mdm

Unfortunately the latest build (15-qpr2) is not working on my Pixel 8 device.

I'm building the eng build, but after installation the device is stuck in the bootloop (with animated GrapheneOS logo) and there's no logcat output.

I followed the build instruction at https://grapheneos.org/build. This instruction worked perfectly when I built GrapheneOS 15.

Are there any insights on how to debug or understand what I'm going wrong?

I'm using these commands to configure and build:

repo init -u https://github.com/GrapheneOS/platform_manifest.git -b 15-qpr2
repo sync
yarnpkg install --cwd vendor/adevtool/
source build/envsetup.sh
lunch sdk_phone64_x86_64-cur-user
m aapt2
adevtool generate-all -d shiba
lunch shiba-cur-eng
m vendorbootimage vendorkernelbootimage target-files-package
m

Unfortunately I didn't find any clear instruction on how to install the development build (referred in the "Build" instruction as "Faster builds for development use only").

For the GrapheneOS 15, the flashing command

fastboot flashall -w

worked perfectly (despite not being mentioned in the official instruction).

For 15-qpr2, it puts my device in a bootloop.

I would appreciate any hints on building and installing the latest development image of GrapheneOS 15-qpr2 on Pixel 8.

de0u

headwind-mdm I am not a member of the GrapheneOS team, and I don't have a Pixel 8. But based on my experience and my reading of the build instructions, it is not clear to me that what you are trying is the best practice.

repo init -u https://github.com/GrapheneOS/platform_manifest.git -b 15-qpr2

I believe this is officially not recommended. The text in the build instructions says "The 15-qpr2 branch of GrapheneOS should be used for generic builds including the emulator, porting to other devices and for non-legacy officially supported devices". The build instructions say "You likely want to use the most recent stable tag, not the development branch, even for developing a feature", and also says "Pick a specific release for a device from the releases page and download the source tree".

So I think it would be better to try something like:
repo init -u https://github.com/GrapheneOS/platform_manifest.git -b refs/tags/2025040700

lunch shiba-cur-eng

It's not clear to me this is recommended. The sole mention of eng that I see on the build page is "We recommend using the sdk_phone64_x86_64 target in either the userdebug or eng variant for most development work". I see no mention of using eng when building for a device.

headwind-mdm For the GrapheneOS 15, the flashing command

fastboot flashall -w

worked perfectly (despite not being mentioned in the official instruction).

For 15-qpr2, it puts my device in a bootloop.

If it isn't recommended and doesn't work, then maybe it's not the thing to do. The flash-all.sh does a lot of things! As just one example, it flashes the bootloader (twice, into two slots), it erases various partitions, and it flashes various partitions in a specific order.

Overall, I think I see three differences between the official build instructions and the steps that are reported to result in a boot loop for you:

It is recommended to build a tagged (and tested) release, not the branch tip,
It is recommended to build user or userdebug, and eng is not mentioned,
There is no recommendation to use fastboot flashall -w (the build instructions indicate using generate-release.sh to build a factory image, which I expect will contain a flash-all script).

I don't know what might be going wrong for you, but I would suggest trying exactly the recommended steps before trying changes, which I would recommend be tried one-by-one rather than three at the same time.

Can you report what happens after trying exactly the recommended steps?

headwind-mdm

de0u Thank you for hints!

Suffix eng is for Engineering, it turns on logcat and developer mode from the beginning. Since I'm contributing to SetupWizard2, eng is a must for me, otherwise it's impossible to debug the setup wizard app.

As I understood, GrapheneOS officially migrated to 15-qpr2 (and removed branch 15). So it seems I'm very unlucky - our team has implemented MDM support in SetupWizard2 in 15 branch (related thread: https://discuss.grapheneos.org/d/13587-mdm-on-grapheneos), but at the same time things are changed, branch 15 is removed, our code isn't approved, and our test platform doesn't work any more.

Since GrapheneOS 15 branch doesn't exist any more, I believe GrapheneOS 15-qpr2 is now an officially recommended stable branch?

I would acknowledge if GrapheneOS could comment on my issue and advise how to proceed with the development.

Anyway, I will try again with your workarounds, in particular, I'll proceed with a stable tag. We need to test our update to SetupWizard2 on the latest stable GrapheneOS build.

de0u

headwind-mdm Since GrapheneOS 15 branch doesn't exist any more, I believe GrapheneOS 15-qpr2 is now an officially recommended stable branch?

It is not clear that the notion of "stable branch" you are applying is accurate.

headwind-mdm Anyway, I will try again with your workarounds, in particular, I'll proceed with a stable tag.

It is not clear to me that following the documented build instructions qualifies as "workarounds".

headwind-mdm Suffix eng is for Engineering, it turns on logcat and developer mode from the beginning. Since I'm contributing to SetupWizard2, eng is a must for me, otherwise it's impossible to debug the setup wizard app.

If one variance from the directions is required, it would probably be good to:

First build exactly from the directions,
If that works, then change just the one "must-change" thing.

If that one change breaks things, that might well be a productive discussion topic.

de0u

headwind-mdm I again suggest (de0u) first building exactly from the directions, and making changes only after having a successful baseline.

headwind-mdm

Tried option 3: built a release using generate-release.sh, and installed using the batch file (flash-all.bat). BOOTLOOP

headwind-mdm

I removed the whole build directory and began from scratch, exactly following the directions. The built ROM worked well!

Here is the configuration I used:

repo init -u https://github.com/GrapheneOS/platform_manifest.git -b refs/tags/2025040700
lunch shiba-cur-user

de0u

headwind-mdm That's a good start. Then maybe changing nothing except eng might be the next thing to try.

headwind-mdm

de0u I changed nothing but user -> eng, and this ended in a bootloop. So unfortunately debugging on a Pixel 8 is not available now.