Kind of serious, needs to be a way to hard shutdown phone

graphy00

I had an issue today where my phone suddenly blackscreened while I was doing banking in a User. I posted details in another post (which I made basically as a bug report), but upon further consideration, this seems a somewhat serious issue.

Not only did my phone blackscreen suddenly, there was no way to turn it off. I tried all the methods many, many times, including holding the power button for 30 seconds (I did 2 minutes a couple times), holding the Volume Up plus Power, holding Volume Down plus power, etc.

I could tell my phone was still on because every once in a while it would vibrate when I held down a button (not always). After a while, it stopped vibrating, I assume maybe if the thing was overloaded it might have gone past the point where it could process even power button, but it is conceivable that if the phone had been hacked, the hacker could have shut off vibrate or something.

Interestingly, a couple days ago a similar thing happened to a contact of mine who also uses a GrapheneOS pixel. His phone froze and he had to wait until the battery died. He couldn't shut it off even with the regular hard boot off measures. After a day or so, it just turned on for him with the power button. He is using it again.

Mine remained on (I could tell because it was mildly warm) until several hours later the battery died. I have it plugged in but it will not accept charge (plugging it in does nothing).

(Don't bother commenting about banking security I obviously used a different device and changed my password immediately, but I have several messenger apps with non serious but private (friends and family) messages, things like that, on the phone in other containers).

The thing is, if there is no way to hard turn off a phone, if you guys's phones are hacked and blackscreened, there is nothing you can do, since the battery is not removable or disconectable (another thing the GrapheneOS team might want to talk about with whoever is going to manufacture their possibly upcoming OEM phone). Your hacker basically just has your full battery to hack your device.

Should be addressed by GrapheneOS.

Tandara

graphy00 There is nothing to address here. What you are describing are frequent launcher crashes. You are correct about the system being overwhelmed with unprocessed actions when you panicking and try clicking everything, though the 40 seconds (just power button) most always work.

If it doesn't work, then it indicates a hardware failure and not 'virus' or some app as they don't have control over the restart mechanics.

Then, by choosing to fully drain the battery you make it even worse due to the 0% startup bug (you can check millions of threads on this forum regarding this issue and how to solve it).

graphy00

Tandara

Most likely my case was overwhelmed device. I think the tone of my post reflects this.

It wasn't panicingly trying everything. It was holding down the power for over 30 seconds to turn off, and that not seeming to work, so trying again, then drying 2 minutes, then trying power plus volume, etc. If 40 seconds had worked that would have been the solution.

It is pretty possible if a phone was hacked (remote access) the screen could be disabled or something, although I don't know how to perform this.

I'm not sure what you mean by making the situation worse. I had no option but to drain the battery since nothing could be done with the phone. What is your suggestion for 'not making it worse by draining the battery'?

Tandara

Just tried to restart, it took 50 seconds of me continuously holding the power button to finally see the "your device is booting a different os"

Tandara

graphy00 By panicking I meant touching the screen/swiping in any way as soon as it stopped responding. Any gesture or updated element basically crashes the whole system.

For a malware to freeze the screen like that it would require 'show over other apps' permission, 'Home app' permission, and accessibility permissions granted at the same time.

I fixed the issue by switching to Lawnchair instead of built-in Launcher3.

Sometimes people just don't hold the power button long enough (even if takes 40+ seconds). I learned from myself when GOS crashed and thought it's a dead end. Then I chose to sit and hold the power button like an idiot until something happens...and it happened :)

Again, apps will not have control over restart mechanics, it's literally a hardware function that will work unless that hardware is broken.

Edit: if you are using Pixel 6, there were lots of incidents reported on this forum with power-ups-and-downs bc of fried motherboard.

Novalissoide

graphy00 Have you enabled Developer options, or used Adb or Shizuku?