Blocked installation

Stewart

Hello,

I'm having a problem installing GraphenOS on my Pixel 7a. The installation has been stuck on Unpacking boot for a while now.

https://www.noelshack.com/2023-30-1-1690230669-img-20230724-222437-666.jpg

spring-onion

Hello and welcome!

Are you using the usb-c cable that came with your device? Also make sure you have at least 32 GB of storage available on the computer you are installing from.

treequell

Stewart Would you mind responding to the two questions that @spring-onion asked? It's most likely the USB comnectivity or lack of storage space that is causing the issue.

spring-onion Are you using the usb-c cable that came with your device? Also make sure you have at least 32 GB of storage available on the computer you are installing from.

Stewart

In fact, it's impossible to launch the installation, it always crashes at some point.

I've tried on Windows 11 and Linux (Ubuntu) on Chrome and Edge and nothing works, it won't install.

Stewart

treequell I'm using the official cable and there's at least 32 GB of storage available on the computer.

treequell

Stewart Do you have another Android device nearby? If it's also got at least 32 GB free storage space, and 2 GB of RAM, open the web installer in Chrome or Vanadium on that and flash GrapheneOS onto your Pixel 7a.

Stewart

With Chrome, I download the Get factory images and after impossible to Flash factory images

And with Edge, when I flash the factory images, I get stuck decompressing bootloader_a...

Stewart

treequell Oh right, I didn't think I could do that with an Android, I'll give it a try.

Stewart

Incredible, it worked, I've been struggling since 6pm (it's 2am), I looked at other procedures and Youtube videos and in 10min with another Android, it's done, I tried switching to Windows, Linux with 3 different browsers and nothing.

Thank you very much, that's something to add to the procedure I think.

treequell

I'm glad that it worked with your other Android device.

I'll mark this now as solved, but if you have any further questions, please don't hesitate to ask.

Stewart

Last question

Is it normal that each time the device is rebooted there is a message indicating that it is loading different system operations?

https://image.noelshack.com/fichiers/2023/30/2/1690303223-img-20230725-180131-416.jpg

[deleted]

Stewart It is. If you're interested what it would take for this warning to go away you can listen to this episode. Starts at 15:19.

treequell

Stewart Yes, that's normal and what you want to see. That's part of verified boot and one of the post-installation steps is checking the boot key hash on that screen. I strongly recommend that you complete all of the post-installation steps: disabling OEM unlocking, disabling developer options, checking the boot key hash, and performing verification with the Auditor app: https://grapheneos.org/install/web#post-installation

Stewart

Okay, so everything's normal, great, that means the installation went well, I'm not going to try and remove it. All I need to do now is check the hash of the boot key and verify it using the Auditor application.

Another question: Google Play Service requires a lot of authorizations. Do we agree that, because it's isolated, nothing communicates with Google, and which ones can be deactivated?

[deleted]

Stewart Google Play Service requires a lot of authorizations.

They are "permissions" and not "authorizations",

Stewart Do we agree that, because it's isolated, nothing communicates with Google, and which ones can be deactivated?

Google Play services will obviously communicate with Google, and any app can also talk to Google Play services If both are in the same user profile.

[deleted]

Stewart Do we agree that, because it's isolated, nothing communicates with Google, and which ones can be deactivated?

Please give this a read through: https://grapheneos.org/usage#sandboxed-google-play. It answers your question.