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Stuck in fastboot, locked bootloader

In a stupid attempt to try to root my Moto G, I followed the instructions here up to step 6, rebooted, and was greeted in fastboot with a "failed to validate boot image" message. I have tried flashing a new boot image but I get a remote failure saying "Preflash validation failed", presumably because the phone's bootloader is locked.
The phone is from Cricket/AIO/ATT or whatever and does NOT qualify for bootloader unlocking.
Is there any way to fix this, or have I bricked my phone?

If you still have a warranty, USE IT. (Your warranty isnt void until the bootloader is unlocked, and if the warranty period hasnt expired yet)
1. Try to enter stock recovery and Factory Reset the phone.
2. Try to do a tethered root and then try unlocking the bootloader. (This is probally why the root failed) (If it does not qualify, try using sunshine: http://theroot.ninja/)
3. SKIP THIS STEP IF YOU DID AN OTA UPDATE TO 4.4.4 - watch this video: http://youtu.be/laU6NQ0LxR0
4. Try to enter stock recovery and Factory Reset the phone.
5. Flash a custom recovery such as ClockWorkMod
6. Try flashing stock rom with a flashable zip.
7. Try flashing a custom rom such as cyanogenmod
DISCLAIMER: YOU THE USER ARE TO TAKE FULL RESPONSIBILITY FOR ANY OF YOUR ACTIONS. I AM NOT TO BLAME IF YOUR DEVICE DIES.

skyguy126 said:
If you still have a warranty, USE IT. (Your warranty isnt void until the bootloader is unlocked, and if the warranty period hasnt expired yet)
1. Try to enter stock recovery and Factory Reset the phone.
2. Try to do a tethered root and then try unlocking the bootloader. (This is probally why the root failed) (If it does not qualify, try using sunshine)
3. SKIP THIS STEP IF YOU DID AN OTA UPDATE TO 4.4.4 - watch this video
4. Try to enter stock recovery and Factory Reset the phone.
5. Flash a custom recovery such as ClockWorkMod
6. Try flashing stock rom with a flashable zip.
7. Try flashing a custom rom such as cyanogenmod
DISCLAIMER: YOU THE USER ARE TO TAKE FULL RESPONSIBILITY FOR ANY OF YOUR ACTIONS. I AM NOT TO BLAME IF YOUR DEVICE DIES.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Thanks for the reply. Will definitely look into warranty if all else fails, I've only had the device for about a month.
The stock recovery factory reset doesn't fix the boot image. It successfully wipes everything but it still reboots right back to fastboot.
I cannot unlock the bootloader as it has been locked by the carrier and does not qualify for bootloader unlocking according to Motorola, and it looks like sunshine is a paid service, which even if I paid for I would have to be able to get into the phone to install the apk anyway.
It fails flashing any boot images or custom recoveries with a "(bootloader) Preflash validation failed" error.

To do any flashing you need an unlocked bootloader. Sunshine is a bootloader unlocking utility, its a paid app for a reason, the amount of time the devs put into making an app like that requires payment. You do not need root for installing sunshine as the app will root for you. You need to go to settings > security > and check install from unknown sources. Then download the app and run it. You can just download sunshine to check if your bootloader can be unlocked as at first it will not do anything but run a sieres of compatability tests to see if the bootloader is unlockable. Only then will it ask you for payment. But I highly suggest sending it into warranty and then try the rooting process again, but this time with an unlocked bootloader.

skyguy126 said:
To do any flashing you need an unlocked bootloader. Sunshine is a bootloader unlocking utility, its a paid app for a reason, the amount of time the devs put into making an app like that requires payment. You do not need root for installing sunshine as the app will root for you. You need to go to settings > security > and check install from unknown sources. Then download the app and run it. You can just download sunshine to check if your bootloader can be unlocked as at first it will not do anything but run a sieres of compatability tests to see if the bootloader is unlockable. Only then will it ask you for payment. But I highly suggest sending it into warranty and then try the rooting process again, but this time with an unlocked bootloader.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Yes, that's all fine and dandy, but like I said I'm stuck in fastboot so I wouldn't be able to use it anyway. At this point I don't even care about rooting, I'd just like to get my device working.

You do not need an unlocked bootloader to fastboot flash a Motorola firmware image.
You will get a 'Preflash Validation' error when flashing a firmware image older than 4.4.4.
Can you provide more information about your phone. Is it the LTE version? Do you know the exact model number?

lost101 said:
You do not need an unlocked bootloader to fastboot flash a Motorola firmware image.
You will get a 'Preflash Validation' error when flashing a firmware image older than 4.4.4.
Can you provide more information about your phone. Is it the LTE version? Do you know the exact model number?
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
It's an XT1032 and was running on 4.4.2. Maybe I tried with the wrong stock firmware, I used "AIO_XT1032_4.4.2-KXB20.9-1.10-1.9_CFC_1FF.xml", which I found in this thread. The version matched the info I found using "getvar all" in fastboot so I figured it was the correct one. The http://sbf.droid-developers.org site seems to be down at the moment so I guess I can try a few more when it comes back up.

That would appear to be the correct firmware. However it would also appear your bootloader is preventing you from flashing it. As I said, the best solution would be to flash the 4.4.4 firmware image for your carrier, however there isn't one at this time.
You can always try flashing the XT1032 EU Retail 4.4.4 firmware image. It doesn't matter where you are in the world, it will should work fine.
http://forum.xda-developers.com/showpost.php?p=54757500&postcount=348​

B394 update advise

Hi guys
I really need some assistance, just because I received a notification for update my honor 8 L09 from B389 to B394.
I'm not sure because the device has the bootloader unlocked and it is rooted now, so i'm really afraid to mess it up!
Should i do the update?
Thanks for the help in advance.

Crake said:
Hi guys
I really need some assistance, just because I received a notification for update my honor 8 L09 from B389 to B394.
I'm not sure because the device has the bootloader unlocked and it is rooted now, so i'm really afraid to mess it up!
Should i do the update?
Thanks for the help in advance.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Well I'll tell you how I updated my Honor 8 L09 from B389 to B394 and you decide if you wish to proceed. What you get with update is probably new security patch (you are currently on May I assume? And get updated to August 5th) and some minor changes.
So I updated same way as I did the update before (B381 to B389). I was rooted and bootloader unlocked same way as you currently are now, stock EMUI. First what you must do is a full TWRP backup because there is a high chance your bootloader will relock and you will have to restore data partition on your updated device, or at least that's how I had to do it.
To update you need to extract stock recovery.img from B389 and flash it via fastboot. After that you download full update image via
Settings > Update Device and confirm that you want to update. After that device will reboot and you'll be booted to recovery where update will take place. Once that finishes your device should reboot and if you encounter the same scenario as I did you will find yourself with fully locked bootloader. You won't encounter the "Your device is unlocked and bla bla black screen", you will go straight to the system and your device will be unrooted.
What I did after that is go to the fastboot to confirm that my bootloader is locked and indeed it was. I was unable to flash my TWRP recovery again. So my only solution to rooting and having TWRP again was to unlock the bootloader once again. You know the drill for that... Enter "fastboot oem unlock xxxxxxxx" and confirm the dialog. Get full factory reset, and reenter the fastboot to finally reflash TWRP. So assuming that you made the backup now all that has to be done is restore only DATA partition. And not to forget flash latest SuperSU zip. Of course I recommend you wiping dalvik cache or not restoring the data partition at all and starting from the beginning on your new system just so you have a clean start and no unexpected bugs even if I have none personally.
That's it. Some people reported different scenarios while doing this update. This is only how it went for me and your situation might be different so ALWAYS do backups.

NatusVincere said:
Well I'll tell you how I updated my Honor 8 L09 from B389 to B394 and you decide if you wish to proceed. What you get with update is probably new security patch (you are currently on May I assume? And get updated to August 5th) and some minor changes.
So I updated same way as I did the update before (B381 to B389). I was rooted and bootloader unlocked same way as you currently are now, stock EMUI. First what you must do is a full TWRP backup because there is a high chance your bootloader will relock and you will have to restore data partition on your updated device, or at least that's how I had to do it.
To update you need to extract stock recovery.img from B389 and flash it via fastboot. After that you download full update image via
Settings > Update Device and confirm that you want to update. After that device will reboot and you'll be booted to recovery where update will take place. Once that finishes your device should reboot and if you encounter the same scenario as I did you will find yourself with fully locked bootloader. You won't encounter the "Your device is unlocked and bla bla black screen", you will go straight to the system and your device will be unrooted.
What I did after that is go to the fastboot to confirm that my bootloader is locked and indeed it was. I was unable to flash my TWRP recovery again. So my only solution to rooting and having TWRP again was to unlock the bootloader once again. You know the drill for that... Enter "fastboot oem unlock xxxxxxxx" and confirm the dialog. Get full factory reset, and reenter the fastboot to finally reflash TWRP. So assuming that you made the backup now all that has to be done is restore only DATA partition. And not to forget flash latest SuperSU zip. Of course I recommend you wiping dalvik cache or not restoring the data partition at all and starting from the beginning on your new system just so you have a clean start and no unexpected bugs even if I have none personally.
That's it. Some people reported different scenarios while doing this update. This is only how it went for me and your situation might be different so ALWAYS do backups.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
First of all thanks very much.
I'm really confident that is too much work for so few improvements.
I guess i will wait for Oreo update and the corresponding Emui version, and at that time i will get my hands busy!

I updated from B392SP02 super-easily via ota without losing root or my bootloader0unlock but beforehand I flashed the modified recovery that doesn't verify update files. (available in one of the threads here) Give that a try.

Downgrade to Android 9 with pending update on 10?

I'm currently on stock Android 10, unlocked bootloader, rooted with Magisk. There's an available update (12.7 MB) but it always gives an error message of "Couldn't update / Installation problem". Uninstalling Magisk didn't fix the issue, so I'm assuming it's due to unlocked bootloader.
If I want to downgrade to 9, is it a simple case of flashing the factory image of Android 9, or does Android 10 need to be fully up to date first? Do I need to re-lock the bootloader?
Any advice much appreciated!

ichigodango said:
I'm currently on stock Android 10, unlocked bootloader, rooted with Magisk. There's an available update (12.7 MB) but it always gives an error message of "Couldn't update / Installation problem". Uninstalling Magisk didn't fix the issue, so I'm assuming it's due to unlocked bootloader.
If I want to downgrade to 9, is it a simple case of flashing the factory image of Android 9, or does Android 10 need to be fully up to date first? Do I need to re-lock the bootloader?
Any advice much appreciated!
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
You can downgrade to 9 but you'll need to do a full wipe. Instead download the full factory image for the latest update and edit the flash-all batch file you'll find in it to remove the -w. Then run the batch file. You'll need to copy the boot.img file in the factory image to your device and then patch it with magisk to root. That patched image will need to be flashed to your device using fastboot from your pc.
I ran into the same issue as you when trying to update with the ota.

ichigodango said:
I'm currently on stock Android 10, unlocked bootloader, rooted with Magisk. There's an available update (12.7 MB) but it always gives an error message of "Couldn't update / Installation problem". Uninstalling Magisk didn't fix the issue, so I'm assuming it's due to unlocked bootloader.
If I want to downgrade to 9, is it a simple case of flashing the factory image of Android 9, or does Android 10 need to be fully up to date first? Do I need to re-lock the bootloader?
Any advice much appreciated!
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Your problem is not due to an unlocked bootloader. I had no problems with that update following this procedure. https://github.com/topjohnwu/Magisk/blob/master/docs/tutorials.md
You would have to reinstall Magisk to follow that procedure.
You should be able to flash the full factory image of either 9 or 10, but that will wipe your phone. Here is a link to a thread regarding downgrading from 10 to 9. That thread is for an XL, but it is still applicable.
https://forum.xda-developers.com/showpost.php?p=80206785&postcount=31
Complete flashing instructions are here: https://developers.google.com/android/images#instructions
You can flash the factory image without wiping your phone by editing flash-all.bat, and removing -w from the last line. That may not fix your problem, though. You may need a wipe to fix it.
Make sure to download the latest platform tools if you decide to flash. https://developer.android.com/studio/releases/platform-tools
I would not relock the bootloader. It may be impossible to recover from a bricked phone with a locked bootloader, and the relocking process may brick the phone. You must be on a stock image to relock the bootloader.

jd1639 said:
You can downgrade to 9 but you'll need to do a full wipe. Instead download the full factory image for the latest update and edit the flash-all batch file you'll find in it to remove the -w. Then run the batch file. You'll need to copy the boot.img file in the factory image to your device and then patch it with magisk to root. That patched image will need to be flashed to your device using fastboot from your pc.
I ran into the same issue as you when trying to update with the ota.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
I managed to figure it out, updated ota and am now back on 9 with no problems I used flash-all without removing -w but didn't lose anything important so it's all good!

dcarvil said:
Your problem is not due to an unlocked bootloader. I had no problems with that update following this procedure. https://github.com/topjohnwu/Magisk/blob/master/docs/tutorials.md
You would have to reinstall Magisk to follow that procedure.
You should be able to flash the full factory image of either 9 or 10, but that will wipe your phone. Here is a link to a thread regarding downgrading from 10 to 9. That thread is for an XL, but it is still applicable.
https://forum.xda-developers.com/showpost.php?p=80206785&postcount=31
Complete flashing instructions are here: https://developers.google.com/android/images#instructions
You can flash the factory image without wiping your phone by editing flash-all.bat, and removing -w from the last line. That may not fix your problem, though. You may need a wipe to fix it.
Make sure to download the latest platform tools if you decide to flash. https://developer.android.com/studio/releases/platform-tools
I would not relock the bootloader. It may be impossible to recover from a bricked phone with a locked bootloader, and the relocking process may brick the phone. You must be on a stock image to relock the bootloader.
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Click to collapse
You're totally right that my problem had nothing to do with bootloader. I realised that by rooting with Magisk, the boot.img was modified, so I downloaded the image of the version that I had, extracted boot.img, flashed it to my phone, which got ota working.
I then updated ota to the latest Android 10 just in case, before flashing Android 9 followed by root - this was probabaly more complicated than necessary and I probabaly could have skipped the ota update, but everything is working as intended

dcarvil said:
Your problem is not due to an unlocked bootloader. I had no problems with that update following this procedure. https://github.com/topjohnwu/Magisk/blob/master/docs/tutorials.md
You would have to reinstall Magisk to follow that procedure.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
What's the difference between this method and simply flashing the phone with the stock boot.img? I just flashed stock boot.img, got ota working on 10, updated, before downgrading to 9. Will I run into any issues because I didn't use Magisk's restore image?

ichigodango said:
What's the difference between this method and simply flashing the phone with the stock boot.img? I just flashed stock boot.img, got ota working on 10, updated, before downgrading to 9. Will I run into any issues because I didn't use Magisk's restore image?
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Flashing the stock boot image removes root, so you must re-root the phone after updating. This method removes root from the active slot, but preserves it on the alternate slot. After the OTA root is restored from the alternate slot.
The end result is the same for both cases, but following the OTA procedure is simpler and faster.

dcarvil said:
Flashing the stock boot image removes root, so you must re-root the phone after updating. This method removes root from the active slot, but preserves it on the alternate slot. After the OTA root is restored from the alternate slot.
The end result is the same for both cases, but following the OTA procedure is simpler and faster.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
That makes sense, thanks!

unlocked bootloader and ota update to Android 12

Hi,
My Pixel 3a as an unlocked bootloader and is rooted.
Usually, when I update my system every month, I get the OTA update zip on google website to do the update and only patches the boot.img from the factory image with magisk to keep the root.
But this month, we get Android 12 and I saw on this thread : https://www.xda-developers.com/how-to-install-android-12/ that it was recommended not to use the OTA update for updating to Android 12 on unlocked bootloader.
As I don't know why, can you explain me if it is or not dangerous or impossible, and eventually why I have to use the factory image to install this new system ?
I know that every time i made a wipe data (even if i know there's a way to delete the -w in the bat file but it's not recommended) it made me a day to restore all my apps and configurations... So if i can avoid this, I'd prefer.
Thanks in advance

oldbear3 said:
But this month, we get Android 12 and I saw on this thread : https://www.xda-developers.com/how-to-install-android-12/ that it was recommended not to use the OTA update for updating to Android 12 on unlocked bootloader.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
I don't see this warning on that page?
The point of the full OTA sideload is that works with both locked and unlocked bootloaders.
The factory image only works with unlocked bootloaders.
I have a 4a with unlocked bootloader and just upgraded using the OTA and it was fine. I normally use the factory image (removing the -w arg) but found warnings on the internet that this would break when upgrading to Android 12 so I did the OTA instead.
I was even able to re-root with Magisk 23 as normal, which is apparently not possible for newer devices (eg. Pixel 5 guide: https://forum.xda-developers.com/t/guide-update-to-and-re-root-android-12.4345627/).

a1291762 said:
I don't see this warning on that page?
The point of the full OTA sideload is that works with both locked and unlocked bootloaders.
The factory image only works with unlocked bootloaders.
I have a 4a with unlocked bootloader and just upgraded using the OTA and it was fine. I normally use the factory image (removing the -w arg) but found warnings on the internet that this would break when upgrading to Android 12 so I did the OTA instead.
I was even able to re-root with Magisk 23 as normal, which is apparently not possible for newer devices (eg. Pixel 5 guide: https://forum.xda-developers.com/t/guide-update-to-and-re-root-android-12.4345627/).
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Great, thanks a lot. Made just right now and it works perfectly. The root also worked for me.

a1291762 said:
I don't see this warning on that page?
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
About this question, it's written for OTA Updates :
"To install the stable build, you need to sideload the appropriate OTA package for your device from Recovery through ADB. This method will also work for Google Pixel devices with a locked bootloader"(but as I re-read it, I see that it's written that it "also work" with locked bootloader"). For the full update, it's written "If you have an unlocked bootloader on a Google Pixel device, you need to flash the full factory image of the Android 12 via Fastboot"...so I thought it was the only option.
But you're right, it's not exactly what's written.

Question Can I unroot Pixel 7 Pro via Android Flash Tool?

Hello, Pixel 7 Pro user here with unlocked bootloader and rooted on December Update.
Is it safe to wipe my device and Re-lock bootloader with a patched init_boot.img via Android Flash Tool? Or should I perform any actions before wiping my device? I am trying to unroot so i can send my device to google as it has a defective screen.
Thank you for any inputs

NIKOST said:
Hello, Pixel 7 Pro user here with unlocked bootloader and rooted on December Update.
Is it safe to wipe my device and Re-lock bootloader with a patched init_boot.img via Android Flash Tool? Or should I perform any actions before wiping my device? I am trying to unroot so i can send my device to google as it has a defective screen.
Thank you for any inputs
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Yes. Android Flash Tool will overwrite everything, including init_boot. Just to be safe, check the Force flash all partitions box as well as Wipe device and Lock bootloader.