Some Pixel 6 owners say factory resets have bricked their phones

Pixel help forum members say Google support has told them it’s aware and investigating the issue.

By Wes Davis, a weekend editor who covers the latest in tech and entertainment. He has written news, reviews, and more as a tech journalist since 2020.

Jul 1, 2024, 6:04 PM UTC

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Some folks are reporting being left with bricked Pixel 6, 6 Pro, and 6A phones after they factory reset them. Google is aware of the issue and is investigating, according to a comment from a member of the Pixel support forums’ product expert program.

Users in the forum thread, which was spotted by Indian tech outlet Tech-Issues Today, say that after attempting to reset their phone, the phone doesn’t boot, throwing up an error message:

“Cannot load Android system. Your data may be corrupt. If you continue to get this message, you may need to perform a factory data reset and erase all user data stored on this device.”

The phone offers the option to try again, which reportedly fails, or try a factory reset again, but during the wipe, a separate error says the phone is missing a file called tune2fs, which appears to refer to a Unix command line tool used to set file system parameters.

A picture of a Pixel phone with red lettering indicating that the OS cannot load.

A picture of the error message from the Pixel help forums.

Image: Pixel Help forum

Some people reported seeing the issue after updating their phones, but the complaints seem to stem from a factory reset, not a specific software update. One Reddit member cobbled together complaints about the issue across all three Pixel 6 phones, and some of those who have experienced it say they can’t recover the phone using Google’s official tools for doing so.

Google did not immediately respond to our request for comment.

[ For more curated Samsung news, check out the main news page here]

The post Some Pixel 6 owners say factory resets have bricked their phones first appeared on www.theverge.com

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