[Nexus One General] mcloaked:
OTA Update for Nexus Froyo - failed - help!

I am having dreadful problems with the update to 2.1 on my stock unmodified N1 from google direct - I posted to an android forum with no success for how to fix but will repeat here:

I have been battling with the update and having the most torrid time. I was running happily on ERE27 (i.e 2.1 Update 1) until Friday when I had the update offered to me when I went to the phone in the morning.

I am in the UK with a stock N1 bought direct from google in the USA no rooting or messing with bootloader.

I had the same symptoms as others have reported many times in various forum postings. I could not get the phone to boot up at all once the update had apparently unpacked and installed.

I had to return to the dead phone after a day's work without a phone on me.

After doing a lot of reading and seeing if there were any files available for download I eventually came across various files from a number of sites - I tried downloading the update file:

signed-passion-FRF91-from-ERE27.e410116a.zip

on a laptop and then took out the micro sd card and copied the file to the card as update.zip as suggested on other postings, and then went through the rigmarole of trying to hold the trackball and power on, to get to the bootloader and then select recovery - it did not work. I ended up in the dreaded boot loop.

After trying a number of other files I ened up with the "boot loop" problem where the phone buzzes and shows the static coloured cross but then goes blank, buzzes and shows the coloured cross, repeating forever - so I thought that my phone was totally caput.

More reading - eventually I found a site which had what appeared to be an original install file:

PASSIMG_Passion_Google_WWE_1.01.1700.1_ERD79_release_signed.zip

I took out the micro sd card again and in the laptop reformatted the card to FAT32, and then copied this file to the card as PASSIMG.zip

After putting it back into the phone and holding the trackball whilst pressing power on, the phone boots to the booloader and it recognised the install image and proceeded to install the original stock ERD79 eclair. This worked fine and the phone booted up to a stock system.

Then I took out the card, deleted the PASSIMG.zip file and tried the file:

signed-passion-ERE27-from-ERD79.a487b405.zip

named as update.zip on the card, and then selected the bootloader on bootup - this worked - and once the unpack and install had happened booting to the green droid and yellow exclamation mark happens then selecting power on then volume up allows the system to be restarted and the install completes - the phone will now boot to ERE27 (i.e. 2.1 update 1) just fine.

So I then knew that the phone could be brought back into a stock system plus the update to ERE27. Each time the phone booted it would immediately attempt to download the OTA update. I selected not to install the OTA any more but sought to try manually updating to Froyo.

From that point I tried various attempts with various files:

signed-passion-FRF91-from-ERE27.e410116a.zip

This failed and I ended up in the boot loop with no apparent way out but to go back and install the stock image from scratch again, and then the update to ERE27

I tried signed-passion-FRF50-from-ERE27.1e519a24.zip

This failed in the same way.

I also tried signed-passion-ota-43546.cc653ee4.zip

and signed-passion-ota-42745.dc39ca1f.zip

as well as signed-passion-FRF83-from-FRF50.38d66b26.zip

All of these are various update files to go to Froyo and every time I ended up with the dreaded "boot loop" and unable to to anything with the phone. Each time I had to re-install the stock ERD79 and then update to ERE27.

I have now left my phone with ERE27 running perfectly happily but every half hour it tries to get me to run the install of the downloaded OTA file (about which I can find no information from within the phone itself, and the file does not appear to end up on the micro sd card, as I took the card out and looked at it when plugged into a laptop - no update file appears to be on it so I presume that the download file goes to main memory somewhere?)

I would really really appreciate it if google would enter the discussion or provide an official document on the google help area or somewhere that people can go to fix their phones - as this is really very very frustrating for many.

What we need is a step by step set of instructions that will help us get the phone working on Froyo.

For information my phone now has:

Firmware version 2.1-update1

Baseband version 32.24.00.22U_4.03.00.21_2

Kernel Version 2.6.29-01117-gbc62c2 android-build@apa26 #1

I don't know if specific other kernels may have been on different phones when they were receiving the OTA or if radio firmware is different on different phones running apparently the same versions as above and whether or not those version numbers could be relevant to this issue - either way google really ought to step into the fray here and come to our rescue!

Maybe others who have had their phones work fine could quote what they were running when they had successful updates (if possible) and others might quote the detailed version numbers where they have not had successful updates - that way maybe we could find a pattern in where there have been problems?

Another thought - one thing that would be extremely helpful would be if google would provide a single install file for FRF91 that will work from any phone - i.e. put the install file onto the top directory of the micro sd card, named as PASSIMG.zip and then hold the trackball, and power on to get to the bootloader - and then install a working Froyo system without having previous files that may be hindering the updates that people are trying to get to work.

By the way it seemed to me that although 2.1 was working fine - every attempt to update my own Nexus from 2.1 to 2.2 by whichever route I tried always ended up with a phone that was stuck in the boot loop (also apparently known as the BLOD = Boot Loop of Death!)

Every time I was able to return my phone to a working one with Eclair by installing ERD79 followed by the update to ERE27.

Is there any chance that some phones had slightly different hardware (eg the radio chip) compared to others or were all phones manufactured with exactly the same chipsets?? It would be useful to have this information from anyone who might know - or from HTC or from Google. If we could find batches of phones all having the same problems and they have different chipsets than those with successful updates then maybe we could have a route to getting a fix?

Also has anyone actually spoken direct to google engineers about the problem and had good advice on what to do to fix the problems?

In addition to my info above the bootloader screen (with the three droids) comes up with the following at the top:

HBOOT-0b15

TouchPanel-SYNT0103

RADIO-4.06.00.12_7

Dec 17 2009, 13:05:23

Maybe this would be worth comparing on phones that do and don't update correctly as another factor that may be important?

Help appreciated...