Some context as to how it started: I was in my browser as always, the last significant system-relevant thing I did was deleting telegram storage data, deleting tiktok, deleting instatram, and clearing some storage (about 5h before it happened)
... was in my browser and the grapheneOS logo suddenly appeared as seen on startup. From that moment on it kept rebooting. Things to note:
- The google part of the startup is unusually short
- GrapheneOS part takes just as long
- On startup the backround image is gone (black) and the numbers inside the battery are gone. Phone is in airplane mode (it did that by itself) and after typing in the code it turns black (more on that in the following)
Device: Pixel 6 (Oriole) | GrapheneOS 2025122501 (Security Preview)
Issue: SystemUI crash loop. Phone boots, accepts PIN, then shows black screen (status bar visible) and soft-reboots after 10s.
Troubleshooting Done:
OS Repair: Successfully sideloaded matching OTA (oriole-ota_update-2025122501.zip) via adb rescue. Install finished with Status 0. Crash persists.
Safe Mode: Doesnt work (pressing volume down as soon as any logo appears) and crash loop persists exactly the same way.
ADB: USB Debugging is OFF (output empty). Cannot pull logs.
Diagnostics:
Double-tap Power opens Camera (OS is alive).
Quick Settings panel works via Camera overlay.
New User: Created a generic user via Quick Settings. It boots to desktop but is laggy, and the Settings app opens to a black screen.
Conclusion: OS integrity is fine (reflashed), but User Data/Settings partition seems deeply corrupted. Locked out of ADB. Is there any way to trigger a backup or enable ADB blindly before I factory reset?
The point is, I dont care about the phone but I care about the pictures thats on it. If theres any way to recover them before factory resetting I'd be very glad