Information is still very sketchy but it appears the January software update for Samsung phones is causing at least one model to stop working requiring some sort of complex reset procedure and the consequent loss of all data.
-- Edited by Mike Harding on Wednesday 4th of January 2023 08:41:54 AM
JeffRae said
02:39 PM Jan 4, 2023
Performed an additional back-up after reading this article - just in case
Geeco said
03:21 PM Jan 4, 2023
Good reason to buy a fruit phone.
Gundog said
08:07 AM Jan 5, 2023
It appears its only happened in one state, and that's SA.
I have updated both our Samsung phones with no issues, we are currently in NSW.
Mike Harding said
06:40 AM Jan 7, 2023
Gundog wrote:
It appears its only happened in one state, and that's SA.
There are now reports from other states too.
Ivan 01 said
09:31 AM Jan 9, 2023
I have a friend here in Qld and she is having trouble with her relatively new Samsung phone. She only bought it about 12 months ago.
Whenarewethere said
11:03 AM Jan 9, 2023
No issues so far on my Sony phone which uses the basic Android setup.
86GTS said
05:37 AM Jan 10, 2023
Wife's Samsung S9 updated this morning, not a problem. (Victoria).
Dougwe said
07:45 AM Jan 10, 2023
Geeco wrote:
Good reason to buy a fruit phone.
I have a shoe phone like this
Whenarewethere said
07:51 AM Jan 10, 2023
For clear concise communication, the Cones of Silence!
Craig1 said
10:08 AM Jan 10, 2023
Foot and Mouth ?
Mike Harding said
08:54 AM Jan 14, 2023
This is probably a bit technical for most but it's worth making you aware that it may well be possible to save your phone data and giving a little more insight into what's going on.
- the Android 13 update causes some (a very small percentage??) of Galaxy phones to freeze after loading the bootloader
- this Android 13 update also rotates the encryption keys of the /data partition, so flashing back to Android 12 doesn't help, as whilst the phone boots, it can't decrypt the /data partition
- Samsung has pulled Android 13 firmware updates from Australia for phones that were originally released with Android 11, phones that were originally shipped with Android 12 still have the Android 13 firmware available
- if the phone has been affected, then reflashing a 2023 Android 13 firmware (ending in WAx ) using Odin (you have to get the firmware from another region, not Australia) then allows you to boot your affected phone into Safe Mode, which lets you backup what you need from it (it may work with a late 2022 firmware unknown)
- doing a factory reset and reformatting the /data partition gets the phone functional again, after which you can restore your backed up data
Information is still very sketchy but it appears the January software update for Samsung phones is causing at least one model to stop working requiring some sort of complex reset procedure and the consequent loss of all data.
News article
Edit: Link embedded.
-- Edited by Mike Harding on Wednesday 4th of January 2023 08:41:54 AM
It appears its only happened in one state, and that's SA.
I have updated both our Samsung phones with no issues, we are currently in NSW.
There are now reports from other states too.
No issues so far on my Sony phone which uses the basic Android setup.
I have a shoe phone like this
For clear concise communication, the Cones of Silence!
This is probably a bit technical for most but it's worth making you aware that it may well be possible to save your phone data and giving a little more insight into what's going on.
Whirlpool thread
The important bit:
----
- the Android 13 update causes some (a very small percentage??) of Galaxy phones to freeze after loading the bootloader
- this Android 13 update also rotates the encryption keys of the /data partition, so flashing back to Android 12 doesn't help, as whilst the phone boots, it can't decrypt the /data partition
- Samsung has pulled Android 13 firmware updates from Australia for phones that were originally released with Android 11, phones that were originally shipped with Android 12 still have the Android 13 firmware available
- if the phone has been affected, then reflashing a 2023 Android 13 firmware (ending in WAx ) using Odin (you have to get the firmware from another region, not Australia) then allows you to boot your affected phone into Safe Mode, which lets you backup what you need from it (it may work with a late 2022 firmware unknown)
- doing a factory reset and reformatting the /data partition gets the phone functional again, after which you can restore your backed up data
----