Last update phone stopped working

[irvinewade]

@adel

Totally unresponsive

So to be clear is there anything on the screen at that point? In other words is the screen blank or can you photograph the screen and post it here?

@adel

So is there a possibility to flash through mirroring?

I’m unclear what you mean by this?

Yes, there is a process for reflashing the phone. The upside is that the process should work regardless of the state of the software on the phone at the moment. The downside is that you will lose all content that is currently on the phone.

An alternative is to use Jumpdrive in order to investigate the current state of the software on the phone, and thereby potentially to fix the current state.

However either reflash or Jumpdrive requires you to have a working other Linux computer. Do you have such a computer?

[riabenko]

@irvinewade

So to be clear is there anything on the screen at that point? In other words is the screen blank or can you photograph the screen and post it here?

@adel

Its then on screen (phone) keyboard that is not responding. Stopping at Disk decrytpion password. I cant get into the phone

That is how I see it in my case. I made a photo below. I expect circle symbols to show up when typing. I further expect the phone to boot when hitting OK or Enter. Neither happens.

[FranklyFlawless]

@riabenko

I have read in the forum that Crimson is newer than Byzantium. I replaced all three occurrences of byzantium with crimson in /etc/apt/sources.list and ran:

$ sudo apt update
$ sudo apt dist-upgrade

Yes, but there are technically at least two codenames for Crimson: landing and crimson, used for the Librem 5 and 11, respectively. You used the incorrect codename for your device, assumed you can use dist-upgrade, and also assumed that LUKS encryption/decryption is still supported, when the latest built Crimson images for the Librem 5 on Jenkins use the plain variant.

https://arm01.puri.sm/job/Images/job/Image%20Builds%20landing/

Before you go off making more assumptions and executing commands, answer these questions:

• Do you want to recover your Librem 5 files using Jumpdrive?
• Do you want to use Byzantium or Crimson on your Librem 5?
• What is the codename of your Librem 5 batch?

[irvinewade]

@FranklyFlawless

Do you want to recover your Librem 5 files using Jumpdrive?

… and “do you know how to?”

[riabenko]

@FranklyFlawless

Do you want to recover your Librem 5 files using Jumpdrive?

I do not want to recover any files. I copied all important data from the device before experimenting. However, I may try Jumpdrive to see if it works and report here.

@FranklyFlawless

Do you want to use Byzantium or Crimson on your Librem 5?

If possible, I would like to install a different distribution and see how it goes. However, I need to learn and start with something that is supposed to work. So, reflashing Byzantium seems like an appropriate thing to try first.

@FranklyFlawless

What is the codename of your Librem 5 batch?

Evergreen.

[FranklyFlawless]

Okay, follow these instructions to flash Byzantium.

Reflashing the Phone

Once you are done appreciating the stability of Byzantium, you can use my instructions below to reflash the Librem 5 with Crimson instead.

Gnome Contacts Calling

Okay, let us know if your Contacts app is any different from ours using librem5-goodies. Sure, the rest of the questions I do not have answers to. However, I suggest that you do not use Crimson for anything important, and that you externally backup your files beforehand. Currently, Crimson images are only built using Jenkins on Evergreen with the plain variant. Flash a PureOS 10.3 image on a USB drive, then boot it. Install git, then follow these steps up until you have finished installing …

If you want to get an idea of how Crimson is on the Librem 5, you can check out my most recent thread about it.

Crimson Experience

I recently installed Crimson on my Librem 5 USA, and I have noticed many changes. Here is a list of them, along with photos: WPA3 works. The Settings app is nearly fully adaptive (excluding Displays, File History and Trash, Time Zone, and potentially others). Sometimes the adaptation is not triggered, so a workaround is to drag Quick Settings slightly down to redraw the screen. In Appearance, there is now a Dark style/theme. In Power, there are now Power Modes (Balanced and Power Saver). In A…

[adel]

No i have no computer at all. Was using my librem 5 as main everything. So im waiting patiently for PURISM do come up with a solution. I planned for future to get hands on librem 14 or mini. But that has to wait for now.

[irvinewade]

@adel

i have no computer at all

That is not good.

Yes, in that case, you will have to contact Purism Support (as you have done) and hope that they can do something.

In theory if the disk contents on your phone are not too badly borked then Purism Support could send you a bootable µSD card. (If you had a computer then you could make your own such card.)

In my opinion everyone with a Librem 5 should have a regular computer as well because you want some way to back up the contents of the phone and, more importantly, some way to restore the contents if something goes wrong.

Of course, you can use the iPhone backup approach and back up your files into the custody of Apple but, well, if you were concerned with privacy in the first place then you wouldn’t do that on an iPhone, since you have no way of auditing anything about that process - and Apple has publicly said that they scan any files that you upload to them.

There are alternative backup models e.g. have no contents on the Librem 5 and access everything on your private cloud (presumed not to be self-hosted at home) - but it would still be desirable to have some way of reflashing the Librem 5, and that requires a regular computer.

I have not tested this but I believe that you can use a Raspberry Pi for the two functions of reflashing and backup/restore - so that is a way of getting those functions at relatively low cost.

[michel_souris]

I got PureOS and it works fine on my PC.

Total Linux noob now taking the baby steps as described here
https://developer.puri.sm/Librem5/Development_Environment/Phone/Troubleshooting/Reflashing_the_Phone.html#download-the-flashing-scripts

And first command get me this:

git clone Librem5 / librem5-flash-image · GitLab
Could not find command-not-found database. Run ‘sudo apt update’ to populate it.

Then I ran sudo apt update. Lots of scrolling text

Get:1 Index of /pureos/ byzantium InRelease [9641 B]
Get:2 Index of /pureos/ byzantium-security InRelease [9650 B]
Get:3 Index of /pureos/ byzantium-updates InRelease [9649 B]
Get:4 Index of /pureos/ byzantium/main amd64 Packages [3743 kB]
Get:5 Index of /pureos/ byzantium/main all Packages [3344 kB]
Ign:6 Index of /pureos/ byzantium/main Translation-en
Ign:7 Index of /pureos/ byzantium/main amd64 DEP-11 Metadata
Ign:8 Index of /pureos/ byzantium/main all DEP-11 Metadata
Ign:9 Index of /pureos/ byzantium/main DEP-11 48x48 Icons
Ign:10 Index of /pureos/ byzantium/main DEP-11 64x64 Icons
Get:11 Index of /pureos/ byzantium-security/main all Packages [52.9 kB]
Get:12 Index of /pureos/ byzantium-security/main amd64 Packages [75.2 kB]
Ign:13 Index of /pureos/ byzantium-security/main Translation-en
Ign:14 Index of /pureos/ byzantium-security/main all DEP-11 Metadata
Ign:15 Index of /pureos/ byzantium-security/main amd64 DEP-11 Metadata
Ign:16 Index of /pureos/ byzantium-security/main DEP-11 48x48 Icons
Ign:17 Index of /pureos/ byzantium-security/main DEP-11 64x64 Icons
Get:18 Index of /pureos/ byzantium-updates/main amd64 Packages [8928 B]
Get:19 Index of /pureos/ byzantium-updates/main all Packages [4636 B]
Ign:20 Index of /pureos/ byzantium-updates/main Translation-en
Ign:21 Index of /pureos/ byzantium-updates/main all DEP-11 Metadata
Ign:22 Index of /pureos/ byzantium-updates/main amd64 DEP-11 Metadata
Ign:23 Index of /pureos/ byzantium-updates/main DEP-11 48x48 Icons
Ign:24 Index of /pureos/ byzantium-updates/main DEP-11 64x64 Icons
Get:6 Index of /pureos/ byzantium/main Translation-en [5684 kB]
Get:7 Index of /pureos/ byzantium/main amd64 DEP-11 Metadata [2708 kB]
Get:8 Index of /pureos/ byzantium/main all DEP-11 Metadata [344 kB]
Get:9 Index of /pureos/ byzantium/main DEP-11 48x48 Icons [3353 kB]
Get:10 Index of /pureos/ byzantium/main DEP-11 64x64 Icons [7024 kB]
Get:13 Index of /pureos/ byzantium-security/main Translation-en [73.3 kB]
Get:14 Index of /pureos/ byzantium-security/main all DEP-11 Metadata [212 B]
Get:15 Index of /pureos/ byzantium-security/main amd64 DEP-11 Metadata [47.6 kB]
Get:16 Index of /pureos/ byzantium-security/main DEP-11 48x48 Icons [20.8 kB]
Get:17 Index of /pureos/ byzantium-security/main DEP-11 64x64 Icons [35.8 kB]
Get:20 Index of /pureos/ byzantium-updates/main Translation-en [8780 B]
Get:21 Index of /pureos/ byzantium-updates/main all DEP-11 Metadata [796 B]
Get:22 Index of /pureos/ byzantium-updates/main amd64 DEP-11 Metadata [2480 B]
Get:23 Index of /pureos/ byzantium-updates/main DEP-11 48x48 Icons [4856 B]
Get:24 Index of /pureos/ byzantium-updates/main DEP-11 64x64 Icons [6083 B]
Fetched 26.6 MB in 3s (8537 kB/s)
Reading package lists… Done
Building dependency tree… Done
Reading state information… Done
173 packages can be upgraded. Run ‘apt list --upgradable’ to see them.

If someone please could tell me what went wrong and what to do next? Seems I Really need step by step guidance here

[FranklyFlawless]

You are doing fine. The documentation is lacking a very simple step:

sudo apt install git

[michel_souris]

Well that worked, I now have a working albeit clean Librem5 again. Now time to reconfigure and make a backup, because thats something I learned the hard way.

Thanks for all your help.

Adel, if I can do this, so can you

[amarok]

@michel_souris and @adel
Here’s a good command line guide for beginners. You can actually download an entire book about it as a pdf from the Conclusion section:
https://ubuntu.com/tutorials/command-line-for-beginners#1-overview

[michel_souris]

@amarok

Here’s a good command line guide for beginners.

lol just 247 pages for beginners, I don’t want to see the Advanced User guide… Thanks anyway, downloaded and kept for reference!

[amarok]

That’s the idea.
Not to read it in one sitting.

[irvinewade]

@michel_souris

Now time to […] make a backup, because that’s something I learned the hard way.

I use Jumpdrive for that. Boot Jumpdrive on your phone (again using the uuu that you used, under the hood, to reflash the phone). That exposes the one or two disks of your phone as USB disks on your host computer. Then backup in whatever way you see fit. (I use dd piped through gzip.)

[irvinewade]

@FranklyFlawless

The documentation is lacking a very simple step

I’ve edited the documentation and raised a Merge Request. Here’s hoping …

(Best case, I expect it will be some days before the update appears, particularly at this time of year where people are rightfully taking a break.)

[adel]

Sounds great! But how did you get inside the locked unresponsive Librem 5? And what tools did you use? I mean what tools do I need to get the brick alive again? Im happy for you!
Hence, im not a tech linux dude.

[michel_souris]

I found out my battery was the problem. I replaced it with my second battery and then the phone went back to the unresponsive state where it started but I could not enter the decryption password on the frozen screen.

From there I did the reflashing as decribed above.

So you might want to check your battery or use a spare if you ordered one (always have spare batteries, I have a spare and an extra spare so three in total of which one is now defect, pending Purism support instructions on how to proceed)

[adel]

Im the wise and ordered an extra battery. But as long as librem 5 was working there seemed to be no problems at all with battery. Except for overheating with blinking light some times. But then I put the librem on my ice cold floor and temp went quickly down.

[adel]

How do you connect the jumpdrive to the librem? Any computer, may it be macbook or windows whre i connected my librem was never shown as usb disk avalaible. Only charging.