Pixel Fold 9 Pro unbootable past Google logo

b0nfire

A few weeks ago immediately after doing a routine device update my phone started saying there no was physical SIM when there was. Rebooting solved this issue. However, I found a thread reporting a similar issue. I crossed my fingers this wasn't the start of a hardware failure🤞

A week later my device was unable to boot past the Google logo. Following the logic in the thread, I assumed I had a bad flex cable. However, after my trusted hardware guy investigated, he said the flex cables all seem to be in order and this is more likely a corrupt bootloader. The first time my SIM "disappeared" was right after an update 🤔

So I found more boot loop issues like Pixel 8 Pro stuck in boot loop or Sudden boot loop, what to do?, but unlike the later thread I do not even get to Graphene Logo, only the Google logo. Perhaps my issue is similar due to (buggy) language option, as I have multiple languages in each profile- but my device ran pretty stable with this configuration since May.

After finding this article, I inspected my device and see some things are different wrt to the "slots" but I am unable to get to Recovery Mode to perform a fastboot snapshot-update merge as my device just hangs on the Google logo for ages, reboots, then goes dark. Booting in Rescue Mode also does the same.

Since my device is locked, i'm not sure what to do. Any help would be very much appreciated 🙏 Here is the relevant output of fastboot getvar all if that is helpful

...
(bootloader) slot-count:2
(bootloader) slot-fastboot-ok:a:no
(bootloader) slot-fastboot-ok:b:yes
(bootloader) slot-retry-count:a:0
(bootloader) slot-retry-count:b:2
(bootloader) slot-successful:a:no
(bootloader) slot-successful:b:yes
(bootloader) slot-suffixes:_a,_b
(bootloader) slot-unbootable:a:no
(bootloader) slot-unbootable:b:no
(bootloader) snapshot-update-status:none
(bootloader) soc-id:000011XXXXXXXXXX
(bootloader) storage-capacity:256 GB
(bootloader) storage-model:THGXXXXXXXXXXXXXX
(bootloader) storage-phy-date:N/A
(bootloader) storage-phy-version:N/A
(bootloader) storage-power-mode:lanes=2 gear=4 mode=FAST hs_series=SERIES_B
(bootloader) storage-protocol:3.1
(bootloader) storage-rev:0100
(bootloader) storage-serialno:XXXXXXXXXXXX
(bootloader) storage-temperature:33 degrees celsius
(bootloader) storage-ufs-provisioning:Legacy
(bootloader) storage-vendor:KIOXIA
(bootloader) unlocked:no
(bootloader) variant:N/A
(bootloader) version:0.4
(bootloader) version-baseband:g5400c-250605-250730-B-XXXXXXXX
(bootloader) version-bootloader:ripcurrentpro-16.3-13642544

I am really really hoping there is some way to not have to do a factory reset (if that's even possible) as there is some really precious data on the device.

Aeleon

b0nfire

I had a similar problem with my device not getting past the logo, I did a few forced resets (holding the power button for 30 seconds), charged it some more. No luck. Same thing next day, and it booted up. Give that a go to see if you can recover your data, then factory reset and maybe revert to PixelOS to confirm if it's a hardware issue.

If you browse Reddit forums you'll find a lot of people blaming the 9 pro fold hardware issues on an update (on stock OS). Updates are regular so it's easy to link the two unrelated events. The pixel fold 9 was a prototype device for Google, I don't trust their engineers yet in that space.

de0u

b0nfire Does the device show the yellow "another OS" screen, or the red "corrupt" screen?

b0nfire

@Aeleon thanks for the response and input- that hard reboot approach worked for a couple days, then my device just never made it past the Google logo.

If it is in fact a Fold specific hardware issue, does anyone understand why the device can print to display during Fastboot and Google logo just fine if it is a hardware failure?

The fact that I my device shows slot-fastboot-ok:a:no and slot-retry-count:a:0 while slot b attempts, but fails to boot makes me think it was a failure during multiple OTA updates and I can't recover now, but this is an area beyond my knowledge.

b0nfire

@de0u it shows the yellow "another OS" screen!

de0u

b0nfire it shows the yellow "another OS" screen!

I believe that means that the bootloader signed off on the contents of "small" partitions and also signed off on the root of the hash tree for the system partition (source). But the user data partition might still be broken, and it is also possible that part of the system partition is broken -- where "broken" could mean corrupted, or could mean a flash-storage error.

If the bootloader is sufficiently confident about the system partition to try to boot it, but it isn't possible to enter recovery, this suggests that something has gone very wrong with the system partition. In theory that could be the result of an update, but I think it's much more likely to be the result of a hardware failure, especially since the device seems to have had something that sounds like a SIM problem and something that sounds like a flash storage problem.

b0nfire

@de0u thank you for this detailed explanation about these low level processes

...it's much more likely to be the result of a hardware failure, especially since the device seems to have had something that sounds like a SIM problem...

This sounds plausible. I suppose before I give up and send it back for a replacement device I'll take it to a Google Certified repair tech and see if they can better find something amiss with the hardware.

Your help is very much appreciated 🙏