[Nexus 7 (2013) Q&A] peteroxman:
Hi,

I am going to describe my experience in hopes that it might help anybody. Also, the result at the end is not consistent with the Lollipop build info I have seen on multiple sites, so I am looking for any comments that experts might have. I am not an expert.

I accepted the Lollipop update (foolishly without looking at others' experiences) and I ended up experiencing the boot loop with the 3 circles flying around endlessly (or at least for multiple hours).

I looked at the various forums of people experiencing problems and learned how to enter the bootloader mode and the screen with the android on his back with red triangle & exclamation point coming out of his chest (can't recall the name of that screen). {apologies that I am in Montreal and I don't have my device so I can't reproduce this to be 100% precise with all statements}

Via these screens I tried:

1-resetting the cache with seemingly no impact ... still had endless boot load screen

2-wipe data/ factory reset with seemingly no impact

Interestingly, both options appeared to complete successfully based on the messages displayed

The forums at this point stated that the only way to get the device working was to flash the factory image, so I spent a while to get ADB and fastboot and the factory image and watched a bunch of youtube videos and got my ducks in a row. I got to the bootloader screen and realized that I didn't have the driver loaded, so took care of that.

For various reasons I re-started the device in order to get back to the boot loader screen. But, I had a brain fart and couldn't remember the sequence to press on the buttons to get there. I got to the first screen with the android on his back (red triangle w/ exclamation point) and the prompt "no command" (or something like that), and I started searching online for the button sequence. Then I got distracted with a phone call for like 15 or 20 minutes, but I am still sitting there with the device in front of me showing the same screen.

THEN, for some unknown reason, the device re-booted itself as it was lying untouched on my table, booted into the started screen and then the setup screen for Lollipop showed up. I was in shock. I set the tablet up without any issues. All the data and all apps were gone (but it seems to not have reverted to factory condition b/c it wasn't setting up KitKat). At any rate, I haven't found any bizarre/bad behavior, though I also had to leave it at home for my wife whilst I went on a business trip.

The one strange thing I noticed was that the versions didn't seem accurate as I compared them to some of the sites I was researching in my prep for flashing to Lollipop.

These 2 looked correct:

build number

LRX22G

Android version

5.0.2

but not in conjunction with this:

Baseband version

DEB-G00_2.42.0_1204

-because this should be for 4.4.3 or 4.4.4 as indicated on these websites

I restarted the device in the event something just wasn't refreshed properly, but all of those still showed the same after the restart. So, this is where things stand. Hopefully there isn't a problem with this combination, but please advise if you think there is. Also, please provide any insight as to how the machine can reboot itself in that mode and suddenly start working. I'm thankful, but befuddled.

Thanks, Peter