V0latyle said:

Reboot to bootloader again, then continue updating everything else

"then continue updating everything else", meaning what exactly?
updating the system via fastboot or updating "everything else" via android 12/OTA?

Barrel Titor said:

"then continue updating everything else", meaning what exactly?
updating the system via fastboot or updating "everything else" via android 12/OTA?

Okay, so. Thank you VERY MUCH again @Nergal di Cuthah for the help.
I've (or rather we've) figured out how to proceed..
I must say, this entire process was entirely different to any device i've ever dealt with! Really feeling like a noob again.
But looks like everything is working fine now and i no longer need assistance

Thanks again to everyone who helped

Barrel Titor said:

"then continue updating everything else", meaning what exactly?
updating the system via fastboot or updating "everything else" via android 12/OTA?

Either/or. The most important thing is to ensure you update both bootloader slots at the same time.

Barrel Titor said:

Okay, so. Thank you VERY MUCH again @Nergal di Cuthah for the help.
I've (or rather we've) figured out how to proceed..
I must say, this entire process was entirely different to any device i've ever dealt with! Really feeling like a noob again.
But looks like everything is working fine now and i no longer need assistance

Thanks again to everyone who helped

Totally get it, I came from Samsung to Pixel so it was a learning experience for me, too...but Google actually does things the "right" way by following the AOSP model. A lot of OEMs don't. The "Pixel way" is blessedly simple once you understand how everything works.

TheTrueJayTwenty said:

Oh, this sucks I just got a P6P on A13. But I wanted to run an A12 custom ROM. Oh well hopefully development catches up for A13

This won't prevent you from running a custom ROM.

V0latyle said:

This won't prevent you from running a custom ROM.

I could be mentally slow but would I not have to stick to A13 custom roms?

TheTrueJayTwenty said:

I could be mentally slow but would I not have to stick to A13 custom roms?

Not necessarily.

We have only established that the factory Android 12 image won't run properly on the Android 13 bootloader.

I cannot say for certain whether this would cause problems with aftermarket Android images. I don't think it would, but I could be wrong.

mmddzzjj said:

Hello, moderator, I don’t know what to call you, right? I just bought this phone and it’s already Android 13. I can’t understand your text, so I don’t understand the meaning. I want to ask you if I update Android 14 with ota and then repair the boot to get root Will it cause bricking?

I have a name, just like you.

As long as Android 14 remains in beta, I doubt the bootloader included with it incorporates the anti rollback. Once it's officially released I would imagine the bootloader will incorporate the same anti rollback as the August 2022 update.

If you want to be safe, just sideload the May update twice. No word yet on when the June update is coming.

V0latyle said:

I have a name, just like you.

As long as Android 14 remains in beta, I doubt the bootloader included with it incorporates the anti rollback. Once it's officially released I would imagine the bootloader will incorporate the same anti rollback as the August 2022 update.

If you want to be safe, just sideload the May update twice. No word yet on when the June update is coming.

Thank you I think I understand what you mean Thank you very much!

Lughnasadh said:

I'm of the opinion (purely speculative, of course) that when A14 stable is released it won't include the ARB in the bootloader and that you'll be able to downgrade to A13 if desired (as long as they don't find a vulnerability in the A13 bootloader). The ARB in the A13 bootloader with the Pixel 6 series was a bit of an anomaly as they found a vulnerability in the A12 bootloader so they didn't want people downgrading to A12 after updating to A13. In most past instances when upgrading the OS to a new version you can go back to an earlier OS version.

But I guess we'll see...

I suppose I should clarify.

Every bootloader version after the August 2022 update includes the ARB protection - but it only prevents flashing a bootloader version prior to August 2022. It doesn't prevent flashing any bootloader after that release, AFAIK. So, if you're currently on the June update, you should be able to flash any older version back to Aug '22.

V0latyle said:

I suppose I should clarify.

Every bootloader version after the August 2022 update includes the ARB protection - but it only prevents flashing a bootloader version prior to August 2022. It doesn't prevent flashing any bootloader after that release, AFAIK. So, if you're currently on the June update, you should be able to flash any older version back to Aug '22.

Ah, gotcha. Thought you meant not being able to roll back from A14 to A13

Lughnasadh said:

Ah, gotcha. Thought you meant not being able to roll back from A14 to A13

I mean, feel free to test this theory by flashing the bootloader alone, but anyone who's currently on Android 13 should be able to flash any bootloader version back to August 2022.

V0latyle said:

I mean, feel free to test this theory by flashing the bootloader alone, but anyone who's currently on Android 13 should be able to flash any bootloader version back to August 2022.

Right. I thought you were saying that they were going to implement an ARB in the A14 bootloader so you couldn't go back to A13. But you clarified that you were not talking about that.

Lughnasadh said:

Right. I thought you were saying that they were going to implement an ARB in the A14 bootloader so you couldn't go back to A13. But you clarified that you were not talking about that.

Yeah, nope. This is where things get lost in simplicity.

The bootloader doesn't actually set anti-rollback protection in of itself; the update does. When Android 13 successfully boots, it blows ARB by incrementing a write-once counter in the hardware. It only does this once. So let's say the write once counter is a hex value: 0x0. The ARB in the update "blows" it to 0x1. There's a bit of code in the bootloader itself that corresponds; basically "if ARB ="value", OK to boot". So let's say all bootloader versions prior to August 2022 are set to 0x0; if they see 0x1, they will fail to boot. Meanwhile, the bootloader versions after August 2022 are set to 0x1, so they'll boot on both 0x0 and 0x1.

If they implemented ARB in the Android 14 update, the new bootloader would be set to 0x2, and upon successfull boot the ARB counter would increment to 0x2. The new bootloader should boot on 0x0, 0x1, and 0x2, but the "old" 0x0 and 0x1 bootloaders won't.

V0latyle said:

Yeah, nope. This is where things get lost in simplicity.

The bootloader doesn't actually set anti-rollback protection in of itself; the update does. When Android 13 successfully boots, it blows ARB by incrementing a write-once counter in the hardware. It only does this once. So let's say the write once counter is a hex value: 0x0. The ARB in the update "blows" it to 0x1. There's a bit of code in the bootloader itself that corresponds; basically "if ARB ="value", OK to boot". So let's say all bootloader versions prior to August 2022 are set to 0x0; if they see 0x1, they will fail to boot. Meanwhile, the bootloader versions after August 2022 are set to 0x1, so they'll boot on both 0x0 and 0x1.

If they implemented ARB in the Android 14 update, the new bootloader would be set to 0x2, and upon successfull boot the ARB counter would increment to 0x2. The new bootloader should boot on 0x0, 0x1, and 0x2, but the "old" 0x0 and 0x1 bootloaders won't.

Click to expand...

Yes, I understand all this. Things weren't lost to me in my simplicity. Thought you would understand what I was talking about and that you knew I knew this since we've had many discussions about this previously.