[Google Pixel 8 Pro] albinoman887:
So there have been some seemingly random bricking of devices just by simply flashing the fastboot update zip and being unlock ever since A14 was released. None of us devs know EXACTLY what the cause is but we know its getting its a/b slots corrupted during the flash process, almost as if it switches slots half way through the flash . So the community is testing a the theory by switching all ROM zips to OTA update zip packages like lineageOS and EvoX have insisted on doing from the get-go.

The reasoning back a couple years ago to switch to flastboot update zips was simply laziness and ease of use as it is literally just a zip archive with multiple file-system .img files ( one for each partition on the device ) and the fastboot update <rom.zip> command simply flashes each partition img to the corresponding partition via Userspace Fastboot (aka fastbootd) the fact that the main real world advantage of a custom recovery is the ability to save full backups of the current installation for restoring later and the convenience of being able to install an update without having access to a PC.

Now, with the development of the OTA Updater having progressed to a stable state, there is a benefit to the custom recovery/OTA update zips again even though nandroid backups are still a no-go. The OTA Updater app utilizes the custom recovery to flash the zip entirely on its own. That added with the possible riskiness of the fastboot update.zips it makes sense to make the switch. Fastboot update zips were never the officially sanctioned way of flashing a ROM anyways. it was just faster

So with that there will be a few changes:

all future releases will be OTA update.zip style packages

The Installation steps and commands have changed slightly (See first post)

If you are installing this on a device currently running the fully Stock ROM Experience you must install the custom recovery first by flashing vendor_boot.img by rebooting device to bootloader and flashing with fastboot flash vendor_boot.img . vendor_boot is the renamed recovery partition. If you fail to do this, the OTA update.zip will fail with a signature verification error after trying to run the adb sideload command. If you are coming from ANY custom rom out there, you shouldn't need to worry about flashing vendor_boot.img since you already flashed it when installing the prior ROM. And the clever thing is, once you have that custom recovery installed once, the OTA update zips can still include updates to vendor_boot.img so once your on any form of custom , you don't need to worry that your recovery or vendor_boot.img is out of date or something. I will be updating the 1st and 2nd post shortly with updated installation instructions and download link to vendor_boot.img

Also, a couple little updates/notices

SigmaDroid for Shiba (Pixel 8) has been released. You can find the thread here: SigmaDroid v4 | Android 14 - The Kitchen Sink ROM | Pixel 8 [Shiba]

SigmaDroid also is available for the Pixel 7 Pro but I'm not the device maintainer and I don't know if he posts it on XDA. just check the Downloads section on our website here: SigmaDroid Downloads

And finally..... I'm gonna go on my soap box for 15secs here. Sorry if i turn some of you off with the following:

I'm gonna say the quiet part out loud here; myself and fellow developers although when we first started this hobby we had expectations of making money or fame, we just wanted aftermarket features on our devices like you guys do, But over the years, Android has become more mature to the point custom ROMs are no longer a nessasity but more of a luxury commodity that is just a nice bonus. Back in the CyanogenMod 10/11/12/13 days a custom ROM was almost a nessasity to get the full use out of your phone. Not the case anymore. On top of that, the source code has grown to become a massive mammoth size of 250 GB (this is TEXT) and google in their infinite wisdom has decided to every 3 months now do a complete rebase of the source code and make seemingly useless filename changes, or even more annoying refactoring a bunch of variable names . An example would be moving the Fingerprint sensor Enrollment source code from SystemUI/src/com/android/systemui/biometrics to Settings/src/com/android/settings/biometrics .

This results with a LARGE portion of our time (every 3 months it repeats) being spent on taking the newest source update from google and applying our customizations on top of it again, one by one, some commits going back years. This is all to say that times right now are not very fun for us. We continue our work because we have pride in our work and a little OCD maybe , but know that for example. I NEVER get to use my pixel 8 pro. I have to have a separate daily driver phone that i use for regular life, banking app etc. because as a veteran dev, I have shot myself in the foot WAY WAY too many times trying to debug an issue a user is having but not wanting to wipe my userdata and end up wasting hours/days chasing my tail when it turns out I had fixed it already it just required a wipe. Without the ability to do a nand backup/restore it is just too time consuming constantly restoring my personal data on a daily basis. I'm sure other devs are in this boat as well. But we are stubborn butt heads so we continue working. Its a major grind.

With all that out of the way, I can finally say this, guys.....I know it seems silly to donate to something like this and its never required or expected (unlike ProtonAOSP) but it is greatly appreciated, and sadly the amount of people submitting donations has fallen off a cliff in the last couple years. As an example. In XDAs hayday, I worked on CyanogneMod 11 12 and 13 for the Samsung Galaxy S5 (klte) And from the get-go until i dropped support for klte, I would see on average $200~/month in donations, give or take, some times more, sometimes a little less, but around that mark. Which was crazy amazing to me but it seemed to be the norm around the scene. Since then it has fallen off a cliff , which is in itself I guess not a big deal but with all the above circumstances like the constant rebasing, no easy restoring of ROM backups, and just general sacrificing of our free time, Wanna know how much donations SigmaDroid Android 14 has pulled in? since launch ? $23 bucks. That barely covers my hosting costs, let alone the montly sub to ChatGPT Plus and OpenAI's API. I'm not asking for much guys , just a LITTLE guesture of good-will though would really bring some cheer to my/our faces and remodivate me keep diving into source code head first like i have been. Please don't think i'm asking for $200/mo type support, I know those days are long gone, the scene isn't the same, but if it could return to the levels I was seeing back when I worked on SparkOS for the Pixel 6 Pro, which , I didn't keep metrics on but if I had to guess i'd say basically any time I released an update I at least got A donation, say like $15 bucks here, 20 bucks there. Sometimes it was only $5 but It was something and would add up to no less then id say $45 in a 30 day period which was enough to cover expenses. I'm a disabled 35 year old guy who can't hold a regular job due to my vision disability so aside from my monthly government assistance this is my only steady form of income. I can't even afford to live on my own I live with my family, (although now that I'm back together with my Ex-girlfriend of 12 years she wants me to move in with her and I'm losing sleep over trying to figure out how to be able to make things work so I can actually begin my life.

So with all that wall of text I ask from the bottom of my heart..........Please, if you have the means financially , please stop for a moment and consider showing your appreciation and dropping $5 in our donation bucket. Not every time, Not expected, but wholeheartedly appreciated. That $5 is what allows me to surprise my girlfriend with 1 nice smelling candles she likes from the grocery store, or pay for an uber so i can go see my dying father in hos-pis care 65 miles away. I bring this up not just for me, but ALL ROM DEVS! we are all working our asses off and there is a general "burnt-out" vibe taking hold behind the scenes with many developers throughout the scene it seems. It is why for instance UDFPS custom Icons are not a feature in other custom roms since the latest rebase. all cuz google changed the format that the icon image is saved as. (it was expecting .webp filetype, now they are using lottie images which are a images that are generated at runtime by parsing a rather large json schema array that translates to a vector image. Why google is doing this? who knows, i'm sure they have their reasons but I'm not about to learn how to convert the existing .webp images for the custom udfps icons we have been adding since android 11 or 12 into llottie json files and THEN learn how to rewrite source we add to give the rom the functionality to work with .json lottie images instead when there is NO draw back to the old way. it would just be wasted time. Sorry i'm not trying to sound like "Oh you better start pitching in or we are gonna bail on you guys" NOPE, NEVER. But it sure would feel less of a bummer if support increased just a TINY bit.

Here is a nice convenient button for anyone who feels like it

Love you all, Stay safe, New builds are always on the horizon like always,

Albinoman887 (Matt Filetto)

on telegram at: https://t.me/albinoman887