With Android 13 out of Google’s hands and developers tweaking the OS for their own purposes, it’s going to be a tough road ahead. There are a number of new features that the bump version brings and they need to be tested, but to be able to do that, they will need to make sure of one crucial thing and that is to install Android 13 on both system partitions of their Pixel device . One developer found out what happens when things go wrong without this second updated partition. ANDROIDPOLICE VIDEO OF THE DAY There are two Android concepts at play here regarding what happened: seamless updates and bootloader rollback protection. The concept of A/B system partitions was first introduced with Android 7.1 Nougat in 2016 to allow seamless software updates to be installed in one partition while allowing the device to be used with its current software in the other partition. After the installation is complete, the user will then be able to immediately reboot into the updated partition, saving significant downtime from waiting for the software to install during the reboot process. It also leaves the other partition with the older version of the software. Regarding the idea of rollback protection, Google sometimes updates a device’s bootloader to prevent an older version of Android from being loaded on a device — this is usually in response to known vulnerabilities. Indeed, with the Android 13 update for the Pixel 6, Pixel 6 Pro, and Pixel 6a devices, Google had actually made it so that these phones would not boot if an Android 12 version was later installed on them. A developer fell victim to a clash of these concepts. They were running an Android Open Source Project build of Android 13 on their Pixel 6 when the device failed to boot. It wouldn’t be such a catastrophic failure in most cases because the phone could immediately switch to the working partition B and boot from there. But since the B partition was still on Android 12, the restore protection kicked in and prevented the device from turning on. And with no known way to go back and attempt another boot from the Android 13 partition, this Pixel is as good as a brick. Who is most likely to encounter this type of scenario? We think it’ll be developers firing ADB or fastboot commands that could cause a sixth-gen Pixel running Android 13 to crash and fail — @flawedworlddev notes that the anti-rollback feature only kicks in after an initial successful Android boot 13 — to boot from its A partition. We’d also say that there’s a non-zero chance that consumers are vulnerable to this issue right now, as some sort of freak app crash or system failure could cause it to fail to boot, but the chances are very slim and will disappear entirely if it’s was able to successfully load a future software update. But once the phone is gone, it’s gone. Developers should make sure both partitions on their Pixel devices have successful Android 13 installations before playing with anything else. Thanks: Mishaal
