It’s the beginning of November, and which means a brand new Android safety patch. Google claims this one is fixing a high-profile Android 14 storage bug that was locking some individuals out of their units. The November Security Bulletin comprises the standard pile of safety fixes, whereas consumer-oriented Pixel patch notes listing a couple of user-facing modifications. The necessary line is “Fix for concern sometimes inflicting units with a number of customers enabled to point out out of house or be in a reboot loop.” A footnote factors out that that is for the “Pixel 6, Pixel 6a, 6 Pro, 7, 7 Pro, 7a, Tablet, Fold, Pixel 8, Pixel 8 Pro.”
We’re on about day 33 of the Android 14 storage bug. For units with a number of customers arrange, there may be some sort of storage concern that’s locking customers out of their gadget. Some are utterly unusable, with the cellphone bootlooping consistently and by no means reaching the house display. Others are in a position to boot up the gadget but do not have entry to lock storage, which causes an enormous quantity of points. Some customers likened the bug to “ransomware,” a sort of malware that encrypts your native storage after which calls for cash for your data. One repair is to utterly erase your gadget with a manufacturing unit reset, but numerous customers do not need to try this.
The earliest experiences of this began simply days after the October 4 launch date. Google normally rolls updates out slowly so it could actually pull them if points like this pop as much as decrease injury. That did not occur right here, although. Google failed to reply shortly to preliminary experiences and simply let the bug roll out to everybody. Some individuals even report being freshly hit with the bug simply 4 days in the past as a result of Google 1) let the replace roll out with out stopping it and a couple of) cannot patch its software program shortly sufficient. The largest concern tracker thread on this bug is as much as 1,000-plus likes and 850 feedback of individuals locked out of their units, and it took two separate rounds of reports protection for Google to acknowledge the bug after about 20 days.
Google promised a rescue patch, which is now arriving, although the corporate mentioned solely “some” data would be recoverable and that “this replace could not allow data to be recovered for units which can be repeatedly rebooting.” That appears to line up with what individuals are experiencing now that the OTA is out. People who can boot up report mounted units, whereas bootloopers do not get anyplace. Some customers are nonetheless within the assist thread hoping for some sort of data restoration for bootlooping units, but it would not look like that’s going to occur.
This complete fiasco has been a whole failure of many of the controls and protections Google has in place in Android. The firm slowly rolls out updates to cease issues earlier than it hits a large variety of customers, but it failed to drag the replace when issues arose. Android has twin system partitions so that you just all the time have a backup if the gadget fails besides after an replace, but that system did not work right here as a result of Google’s “boot failure” detection is not correct sufficient. The firm shipped a quick-fix patch through Google Play System Updates within the Play Store, but as a result of these passively wait round for a reboot to get utilized, customers nonetheless bought hit by the bug days after that patch got here out. Android is meant to have a data backup system for apps, but as a result of that does not work effectively and is not compelled on each app, many customers don’t have any backups in any respect.
We get offered technical explainers for all these options, but once they have been actually wanted, none of those poorly thought-out, half-baked programs labored. This disaster is a whole technical failure of a number of Android programs, and plenty of modifications have to occur.