[Google Pixel 5 Questions & Answers] leveleyed:
A few days ago, I was trying to launch an app from my phone's home screen when it suddenly rebooted itself and downloaded/installed an OTA update, removing root in the process. So it looks like Google just force-restarted it and updated it without my consent!

Or, if not that, then I truly must have the worst luck imaginable - like astronomically, unbelievably bad; so bad it could be legendary - almost as if I were cursed by some mythical, malevolent creature with magical powers.

For what I'm about to assume might have happened to be what actually happened, the odds are probably astronomically against it occurring, or nearing the realm of quantum impossibility (or, at the very least, it would be extremely-improbable and highly-unlikely, statistically speaking).

There have been a handful of times (3-5, but I haven't kept count) in the few months I've had this phone that, after unlocking the screen, I see a window drawn over my phone's home screen: a notification dialog with info about downloading/installing a security update for the OS. At the bottom of the window I recall there being two buttons: one to confirm, reboot my phone, and download/install the update, and the other to postpone the update until some later time at night.

Since there was no button for the polite, socially-acceptable equivalent to responding, "NO, **** YOU! STOP ANNOYING ME WITH THIS PROMPT TO UPDATE! I

NEVER

WANT TO DOWNLOAD AND INSTALL AN UPDATE, OR SEE THIS POP UP

EVER AGAIN!

", I've just used the "back" button on my phone to dismiss this notification/prompt rather than accepting one of the two equally-unacceptable choices it offered me and being forced into downloading and updating my phone.

So, in theory, it's possible that, at the same exact moment as my phone's screen refreshed to draw this update notification/prompt again, I just happened to also click in exactly the wrong place - the place where that dreaded "reboot" button was drawn - thereby selecting the option to immediately reboot my phone, downloading and installing the update in the process. It would've had to have happened so quickly - literally, within the same 1/90th of a second - that the screen was drawn so that I didn't even see the notification appear before clicking the option to accept and reboot/install the update immediately.

1/90th of a second: that's just a hair over 11 milliseconds, or a hundredth of a second. And I just happened to click in exactly the wrong spot at exactly that moment?

Utterly, unimaginably, and even ridiculously bad luck if this is what actually happened. But aside from Google simply forcing a reboot/update remotely while I was using my phone, it's the only other thing I can think of that might've caused this.

Whoever programmed this functionality should at the very least be publicly shamed and insulted for it, but possibly also dragged out of their bed in the middle of the night into the street and beaten mercilessly. I don't know the law well enough to be aware of the name of the crime for such a thing (annoying millions of people with this almost-unavoidable and heinously-obnoxious nag to update their phone's OS, and causing maybe thousands of them to suffer some sort of financial loss, pain & suffering, or tragic inconvenience by accidentally accepting and applying the update - especially if they happened to be on a limited mobile data plan, or were roaming at the time). However, I'm fairly certain that most people who have experienced something like what I've been through and am forced to deal with now as a result of an OTA update being applied against their will would be fine with either or both of these things being administered as the just and appropriate form of punishment for such a crime.

So, all that being said, what are my odds that I'll be able to not only restore root to my phone without wiping it and losing all the sensitive data I had saved with root access but hadn't had the time to back up yet during one of the most difficult and tragic weeks of my life (I can't even begin to explain all of the other **** that has gone horribly wrong recently), but to also recover compensation for the cost of exceeding my data plan while visiting another country due to the update being downloaded at an EXTREMELY inopportune time? My guess: probably worse than the odds of accidentally clicking to accept and immediately download and apply an OS update within the same ≈11 milliseconds the nag for it was drawn on my phone's screen while also in the middle of giving a presentation in a super-important, multinational business meeting.

But hey, I figured I would share this post here anyway in the hopes of maybe learning that Google force-pushed an OTA update and pissed off millions of people who then filed a class action lawsuit because of it, and I just hadn't heard the news about it yet, but it was also recent enough that I could still get in on that action and recover at least some part of what I've lost in the past week.

And if not that, maybe I'll at least somehow get confirmation of having some of the worst luck imaginable, or validation that I'm not crazy, or just some sympathy and comfort from the community during a very dark time in my life when I sorely need it.

And I guess if there's even a modicum of hope I'll discover that I'm not completely alone in this world of **** that I now find myself in, and that there are others who have suffered a similar fate or misfortune as a result of either unbelievably bad luck with their phone, or Google forcibly cramming something very large and uncomfortable into an extremely sensitive area against their will - maybe even at one of the worst possible times of their life - then maybe there's even some hope left for my life; some point to even continuing it and trying to get out of the horribly-****ty, godforsaken nightmare I'm stuck in right now.

Or maybe I'll just learn that it is actually somehow possible to restore root to my phone without needing to wipe it first so I'm at least not quite as completely screwed as it looks like I am right now.

≈-∞

Google Pixel 5, OS 11

rooted with Magisk, no TWRP/recovery

recently forcibly OTA-updated to build RQ1A.201205.011