This year’s annual update to Google’s Android 15 operating system will replace a smartphone with a brick for some Pixel 6 users.
Panicked Pixel owners flooded online forums to report that their devices “are now basically weights of paper.” The phone also fails to respond to the standard troubleshooting method of restarting after an update.
Early complaints from people asking for help on social media suggest that using the update’s new Private Spaces feature may increase the risk of being “bricked.”
This feature allows users to isolate sensitive apps (everything from banking services to photo rolls) to a discreet area of the main page and lock them with a pattern code, PIN, password, or fingerprint.
“Total crap,” one Pixel 6 owner warned others on Reddit.
“You cannot turn on or restart your phone using the methods provided by Google.”
The issue echoes complaints received in late spring and early summer last year, when users who downloaded both Beta 2 and Beta 3 versions of the update found that those versions also broke their phones. I reported that I was suffering from a problem.
Panicked users of Google’s Pixel 6 phones (pictured) have flooded online forums to report that their devices are “essentially paper weight now” after updating to Android 15. .
“Just a PSA to anyone who has a Pixel 6: If you upgrade to Android 15, don’t enable the Private Spaces feature,” a user calling himself GegoByte posted on Reddit.
“I unlocked the Private Spaces area, opened an app I installed there, and it blocked my Pixel 6,” GegoByte warned, and others echoed related posts.
“I guess this makes the whole phone private,” one Redditter joked.
While many public complaints link the issue to a similar bug that plagued Private Spaces and a feature called “Multi-Profile” in Android 14, some say their device simply shuts down after installing the update.
Under normal circumstances, connect your Pixel phone to your laptop or PC and press and hold the power button. Press the volume down button to wake up the device.
Google itself has not yet commented on the issue, but tech experts have advised Pixel users to turn off automatic updates in their settings to avoid the early buggy version of Android’s latest version going unnoticed. It is recommended that you do so.
To turn off automatic updates on Pixel 6, users must first do the following To “Enable Developer Options” go to Settings, click “About phone” and tap “Build number” several times until the settings list the phone owner as a developer. Masu.
Once the owner has granted themselves developer permissions, go back to settings,[システム],[開発者向けオプション]Click on[システムの自動更新]You can turn it off by moving the toggle to the left.
This series of issues echoes complaints from several months ago, where Android users who downloaded both Android 15 Beta 2 and Beta 3 reported that even updates to the earlier versions were plagued by glitches that broke their phones. Masu.
This critical bug is an issue that affected users of a similar “silo” or “sandbox” feature in Android 14, namely storage that affected many users who tried to take advantage of “multiple profiles” on their devices. There seems to be some similarities with the bug.
This rarely used feature was intended to allow customers to split their phones and tablets into separate user experiences. This is an ideal scenario for people who use tablets in their families or who want to split their phone into “home” and “work” profiles.
The bug was so nasty that some compared the ordeal to dealing with a “ransomware” attack from cybercriminals.
Similar to the current issue, these reports primarily come from Pixel 6 owners, but multiple models and devices are affected after the broader upgrade to Android 14, including the Pixel 7, 7a, Pixel Fold, and Pixel Tablet. I was influenced by it.
Google’s issue tracker is currently seeing an increasing number of reports about the current device bricking bug in Android 15, but there’s still no word on what’s causing the issue or when a patch will be released.
The September report had the headline, “Entering the Private Spaces feature causes system crash,” with no resolution listed at this time.
Another article titled “Pixel 6 turned into a brick” degenerates into a discussion of online etiquette.
“Your comment has been flagged for review,” a Google representative wrote.
“We understand that you are frustrated, but if you continue to post abusive language on the Google Issue Tracker, we will be forced to take action by removing your ability to comment and make changes on the Google Issue Tracker. “You will no longer be able to get it,” they added.
Independent experts want to remind every Google Pixel 6 owner, or anyone with a computing device of any kind, to make sure that nothing of value is lost to future bugs caused by errors from technology companies large and small. We advise you to back up your data.
