Phone crashed hard and is now resetting every few minutes

ve3jlg

I've been running GrapheneOS for almost one year on a P7P reliably.

I just picked up my phone to discover this on the screen:

GrapheneOS Recovery
google/cheetah/cheetah
13/TQ3A.230901.001/2023100300
user/release-keys
Use volume up/down and power. [IN YELLOW]

Cannot load Android system. Your data may be corrupt. If you continue to get this message, you may need to perform a factory data reset and erase all user data stored on the device. [IN RED]

Try again
Factory data reset [IN CYAN]

I selected "Try again". The phone rebooted and is now rebooting every few minutes, but comes back to a BFU PIN entry screen, not the earlier warning.

Is this a GrapheneOS message? If so, what does it happening mean?

Nice. NOT. Especially as GrapheneOS still does not have reliable working backup software.

Anyway, I have maybe only once encountered a crash this hard in my year of using GrapheneOS.

Could the Vanadium update be the cause? I have not updated anything else recently. Anyway, apps should be isolated and not crash the whole OS. Perhaps the webview component could cause this reset?

Could this be caused by failing HW? I have just a few weeks to my use of my warranty if so. Are there any tools to test it?

Are there any persistent logs around which I could get via ADB, etc. and provide to the devs?

(Yes, I am using Android 13 still. I normally do not update until I see that a new release is truly stable. I disable the updater until I feel that point has been reached or my phone is truly at risk of an easily and widely exploited vulnerability, and yes I monitor the updates and CVEs etc. I've see more reports about software defects and instability this past month than I have since I installed GrapheneOS in January - which I wished to avoid. For that reason I am never eager to run a new major release of any software.

I've been running publicly-facing Linux servers for 25 years, which have been very stable and never been exploited.

It is unfortunate that GrapheneOS still does not offer an LTS version which only includes security fixes.)

ve3jlg

ve3jlg To update myself because post messages aren't editable:

I noticed that Bluetooth was on so I disabled it. I usually try to keep it off to save power and for privacy. It may be coincidental but GrapheneOS is not rebooting every few minutes at this time. More to come after I backup everything in case the phone crashes hard and I need to erase and reinstall.

de0u

ve3jlg If it crashes hard a lot but without any visible pattern that could be hardware (for example, DRAM).

Something not very likely to help, but easy to try, would be chilling the device a bit to see if you get more run time between crashes. Don't go so far as to encourage condensation or risk screen problems, though.

Note that if there is a bad (physical) spot in the flash storage then rewriting that (logical) part, as in a reinstall, may well cause the flash management to take that spot out of circulation, and the device might work fine for a good while. If it's DRAM that's bad, a reinstall is unlikely to help.

de0u

ve3jlg Have you tried a safe-mode boot?

ve3jlg

de0u chilling the device a bit to see if you get more run time between crashes.
Note that if there is a bad (physical) spot in the flash storage then rewriting that (logical) part, as in a reinstall, may well cause the flash management to take that spot out of circulation, and the device might work fine for a good while. If it's DRAM that's bad, a reinstall is unlikely to help.

Excellent ideas both, thanks.

I managed to back up all my most valuable data now (in general I assume I could drop or lose the phone anytime so try not to keep much valuable data on it) - and at least for now the phone is not resetting. But I will definitely try a chill and/or reflash and/or safe reboot if I need to.

weasel It was the SIM card that's corrupted, try removing it.

Thanks. I don't think it was that because I was in airplane mode, but I appreciate the suggestion and will try it the phone fails again.

Also for anyone reading this I discovered two approaches to getting logs that may be helpful for diagnosing reboots:
adb logcat -v time > logcat.txt (before the reboot)
and
adb bugreport
https://stackoverflow.com/questions/3469016/can-i-get-logcat-logs-after-phone-reboots
https://developer.android.com/tools/logcat

weasel

Hi, happened to me some time ago. It was the SIM card that's corrupted, try removing it.