Calling any and all Android nerds.

Ive been a long time Android user, especially the vanilla side offered through Google's Nexus line. Right now I'm on a pixel XL, Marlin, and the phone recieved and OTA update. After it had installed I lost all mobile network connectivity. WiFi and BT work fine. And my sim card works in other phones. I have confirmed with T-Mobile that my imei is not blacklisted, and the phone still shows it in the bootloader when I run the fastboot getvar all command.

Like I said, the imei is still shown in the bootloader, but once Android boots it isn't recognized at all.
I haven't tried to downgrade OS from pie back to oreo yet to see if that works, and not sure what else I could try. Pie seems to have broke my phone.

I've reflashed the factory 9.0 image about a few different times now a few different ways with no luck.

Anyone else had this happen or know of a fix?

TIA. Much appreciated.

 

Did you solve this? My Pixel XL died months ago.

 

Unfortunately I did not. I felt like is was so close. I caved and got another one. Ive thought about making a backup of my new one to try and restore my other one. Did your IMEI disappear too?

 

My buddy had the same thing happen with a Nexus 5 OTA update on TMobile. I think he ended up getting a new phone as well

 

I think the storage is what died on my PXL. Had a Google authorized repair place look at it, and they couldn't get it to do anything. Was going to cost $300+ to fix, so I went with a new phone instead. I have the OnePlus 6T now.

Is your old PXL unlocked? A full wipe and a full flash usually fixes most problems.

 

Yeah it was unlocked. It was something deeper than just a factory flash/restore. Apparently I'm not the only one to have that happen. Google said they would replace the phone but since the screen was cracked slightly in one corner, they wouldn't replace it until the screen is fixed. That would have cost me $150 to repair, instead I found another pixel XL for $150 on CL locally.

Now I'm tinkering around and modding my Joying Android headunit. XDA-developers site is a dangerous place if you like to geek out on your Android devices. Almost like Tacomaworld!

 

Have you tried something like this?
https://www.techjunkie.com/how-to-repair-google-pixel-and-pixel-xl-imei-number-problem/

 

Yep, the problem ultimately lied with my phone not having an efs partition or rather it was corrupted, and without the info contained in that partition, it wouldn't include my IMEI when installing the OS. Since the bootloader is a sub OS that doesn't rely on android to work, it would show fine in the bootloader, but when Android installs it couldn't recognize or discover my IMEI leaving it unknown after being installed.

 

Do make a backup of your current phones EFS partition. Do not try and restore that partition to the old phone. Any chance you still have the old phones packaging? On that you'll find it's IMEI. With a lot of research you can edit that new phones EFS partition to use the old phones IMEI. Then you can restore that edited copy to the old phone.

 

I didn't mess with the PXL much in the 6 months I had it. With older HTC phones, usually a full image flash via twrp updated all partitions (Bootloader, radios, Rom, etc...) The pixel was the first phone I had that used the newer A/B partition scheme.

 

The IMEI will be on the SIM tray.

 

Nice. I built Android ROMs for a few years during the Nexus 5 and 6P era and never new that. Thanks man.

 

That's what I was figuring I could do. I definitely wouldn't try to restore my new phones efs to my old phones efs, but rather edit the portion of my new phones backup to enter my old phones imei. I do have a backup of the new phone.

 

Yeah imei is usually always on the Sim tray and I also have the original box with imei on it.

 

If you guys are a fan of the Nexus/Pixel phones, check out OnePlus. OxygenOS is like Android with some minimal, but nice enhancements.

 

It's a good company for sure. I am actually in the process of deciding on what I'm going to replace my Pixel XL with. OnePlus 7 Pro was on that list along with the Pixel 3 XL. After a bit of sole searching I'm pretty sure my next device will be the Pixel 3a XL. It's gimped with 64GB memory and a SD 670 processor but truth be told I don't need the extra power for how I use my phone. It's got the same camera as it's more expensive brother and it has a 3.5 jack. I'm a big fan of that antique feature. lol

It's $479 delivered door from Amazon. I also get 5% cash back through my Amazon card. Gazelle will give me $108 for my old Pixel. All told that puts my price at $347. I'd be hard pressed to want to spend another $300-$400 on a phone that only has better specs that I'll never need to use.

 

When my PXL died, I bought a P3XL. Paid the $999 straight from Google to get the unlocked version. When I received the phone, I found I couldn't unlock it. Seemed there was an issue on Google's end, which they weren't acknowledging yet. I was also feeling that for a $1k phone, 4GB of RAM and 128GB of non-expandable storage wasn't much compared to other phones for a similar price. I was always running out of storage on my PXL. I might have gone with a S9+ if it was rootable.

I happened to hear about the OnePlus 6T. For double the RAM and storage for $630, figured I'd try it out. I was able to unlock it right away. Even after Google refunded $200 for the Black Friday discount, I felt like the OnePlus was a better value and enjoyed using it more. Ended up returning the P3XL.

 

How easy was it to get used to fingerprint unlock being behind the screen? Is it as easy to do one handed as having the sensor on the back?

 

If I'm holding the phone, I use my thumb to unlock, if the phone is on a desk, I'll use my finger. Nice not having to lift the phone to use the sensor. It's a few milliseconds slower (faster on the 7 Pro), but not a big deal. I use face unlock more.

 

I haven't tried that one, but just went back to stock from lineage. I'll have to give that one a try.