[German]Google Pixel smartphone users are complaining of issues after installing a Google Play Security Update (GPSU) for Android from January 2024. There are problems accessing files, which is apparently so serious that Google has suspended this Google Play Security Update.
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I became aware of the problem as early as January 24, 2024 via the following post and this article on Android Police as well as this post.
The issue: In the last few days, several users on Reddit (especially those with Pixel phones) have reported problems accessing files. There is the reddit.com thread U/PixelCommunity Please Help! Internal Storage Access Issue Happening Again With Jan 2024 Google Play System Update! that describes the problem.
The issue is happening again after applying the January 2024 Google Play System Update. The symptoms are all the same that were observed back in October 2023. I reported on this in the blog post Android 14 bug locks out users with multiple profiles, threat of data loss. Users notice that the internal storage is not mounted, the camera crashes, the file manager apps do not show any files, screenshots are not saved, the internal storage is shown as empty in the ADB shell, etc.
In the reddit.com thread mentioned above, numerous affected persons confirm the problem. Analysis has revealed that in some cases the DCLA mainline module is reset to the base or factory version by the GPSU from January 2024. This leads to problems with the dependency on other DCLA-enabled modules. Many users have had to factory reset their phone to fix this issue.
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The above tweet states that Google developers have indicated that "our team is currently investigating the issue". The tweet refers to a source that Google has stopped the rollout of the GPSU for January 2024 while the cause is still being investigated.
DCLA stands for Dynamic Common Library Apex, a mechanism that places shared C++ libraries in a separate apex in order to de-duplicate them. The aim is to reduce the overall size of the loaded components. Google has disabled the DCLA functionality for the time being to investigate the cause of this bug. Disabling the DCLA functionality will increase the size of some modules, but should avoid the dependency issue discovered and hopefully prevent the above bug, according to the above tweet.
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