[German]Extremely unpleasant story that threatens users of the new Android 14. Anyone who creates multiple profiles (e.g. professional and private) on a smartphone runs the risk of being locked out by the bug for accessing the device's local memory. Then these users lose the data stored there, as I just read. Fortunately, the suspicion that it was ransomware has not been confirmed. Addendum: Google plans a fix within 2 weeks.
Advertising
Currently, the bug should only affect owners of a Google Pixel smartphone who have already updated to Android 14 (Android 14 has been available since October 4, 2023). On the Google Issues Tracker page, there is this post that describes the problem.
@google please! Fix the Android 14 bug that's kidnapping our data! How are you supposed to offer seven years of updates if you're turning these phones into bricks!? This is affecting Pixel 6, 7, and likely 8! issuetracker.google.com/issues/305766503
The linked page states that the primary user profile can no longer access the memory after updating to Android 14. The secondary profile can still access the memory.
Arstechnica has collected some more information in this post. The Verge wrote in this post in mid-October 2023 that the bug only affects the Pixel 6, 6A and 6 Pro. They also report launcher crashes there. However, Pixel 7 and other Pixel models are also affected when they are updated to Android 14. The Google Issues Tracker linked above already has several hundred entries with corresponding user confirmations that are affected by the bug.
Some affected users are running their devices into a boot loop, while others have devices that are stuck with the "Pixel starts…" message. Some users have uploaded ADB logs that contain more inside information about the problem. So there is an ADB message:
Advertising
Failed to open directory /data/media/0: Structure needs cleaning
which indicates that the structure in /data/media/0 cannot be read. Other users report that the camera app claims that the storage space is exhausted. Then, screenshots cannot be taken anymore because they cannot be saved. The file manager lists 0 bytes for each file type and empty folders for those affected. Then the files can't be viewed from a PC via USB either. The system UI and settings also crash constantly.
Addendum: According to this post, made by a developer, within the Google issues tracker, Google plans to ship a fix within two weeks (amid mid of November 2023).
Advertising
