[Google Pixel XL Questions & Answers] Corey5Star:
Preface: I am an Android app developer who has had an Apple phone for quite some time, but recently made the switch to stop using work devices.

So I recently purchased my Pixel XL, and tried to run the iPhone transfer thing upon first start. Unfortunately, I was met with a terrible fate of the Pixel dying! Now, with a dead Pixel, I was able to charge it and run it again. I ran the transfer, it worked, great!. Now, all was well and dandy until I restarted the device. After restarting the device, my phone was stuck in a boot loop, bummer. I researched it and found something along the lines of unlocking the phone or something of that nature in order to fix my problem, so I followed the steps. Then it says to run "fastboot continue." Would have been great if that worked, but it didn't. So then I resorted to entering the recovery mode and choosing to factory reset the device, as per advice from another source. Now, by resetting the device, it removed developer options, so I am no longer able to sideload the OTA file AND the phone still won't boot! I waited for 30 minutes praying it would boot, but alas, no results. I'm thinking about taking the phone back to Verizon and seeing what I can get done. I would like to avoid this if at all possible, but if I don't have a solution within 12 or so hours, I'm going to be forced to consulting with Verizon. Any advice is greatly appreciated.

Attempting to sideload the device...

adb sideload '/home/caw0086/Downloads/marlin-ota-nde63x-3c8add4e.zip'

loading: '/home/caw0086/Downloads/marlin-ota-nde63x-3c8add4e.zip'

error: insufficient permissions for device

Further Attempts:

adb kill-server

sudo adb start-server

NICE

sudo adb sideload '/home/caw0086/Downloads/marlin-ota-nde63x-3c8add4e.zip'

serving: '/home/caw0086/Downloads/marlin-ota-nde63x-3c8add4e.zip' (~7%)

....

It stopped.

I think the phone legitimately died during the sideload..

Turns out it did......

WE HAVE LIFE, MAYBE.

sudo adb sideload '/home/caw0086/Downloads/marlin-ota-nde63x-3c8add4e.zip'

Total xfer: 2.00x

It sideloaded, apparently. And now we wait.

AAAAAND dots.

Just going to reiterate, I have no idea what the hell I'm doing, but there's a solid effort being made here.

The dots seem to be endless... I really wish this wasn't happening right now. I tried so hard. I got so far.

But in the end,

It doesn't even matter. :'(

HOLY **** I FIXED IT.

Thanks to anyone who read this. I fixed my problem without you guys. When Google doesn't help, **** with it until it works. That's my motto now.

Solution:

Recovery mode, get into the options, adb update, then pop open your terminal of choice, kill the current adb service (adb kill-server), then run adb as root (sudo adb start-server), then run adb sideload {PATH_TO_OTA_FILE}. Then you wait for what seems like 5-10 minutes for the dots to stop being indecisive and finally decide to become the Google 'G'. When that happens, you're golden. If you have a similar problem, you're in luck, because I just figured this **** out for you. Otherwise, just keep screwing with the options in Recovery mode until something just works. That's what I did. Now I have a phone again.