Missing and/or unclear steps in easy-installer, and installation failure
- easy-installer version: snap 0.8.3-beta
- operating system: Kubuntu 18.04 LTS
- Device model: Samsung Galaxy S7 "herolte" (SM-G930F, Android 8.0.0, Baseband G930FXXS6ESI6, Build R16NW.G930FXXS6ESI4)
Summary
To reach the "installation" stage in the easy-installer, I had to take steps that did not appear in the instructions and/or were not clear (at least to me).
Once these steps had been taken, the installation launched fine but got stuck when interacting with the screen asking for e.email account credentials.
All was left possible was to interact with the TeamWin menu on the phone.
Trying "install" in the TeamWin menu showed no zip image to install
For details and screenshots, see
https://community.e.foundation/t/the-e-os-installer-arrives/12883/80?u=antoineguichard https://community.e.foundation/t/the-e-os-installer-arrives/12883/83?u=antoineguichard https://community.e.foundation/t/the-e-os-installer-arrives/12883/85?u=antoineguichard https://community.e.foundation/t/the-e-os-installer-arrives/12883/90?u=antoineguichard
I can provide more details and screenshots.
-
The device is unusable -
The bug is the source of a data loss or a big waste of time -
The bug concerns a third party app -
The bug concerns security -
The bug concerns privacy
The problem
Preparations needed
To manage to get the phone detected by the easy-installer and start installation, I had to:
- on the desktop, after installing the easy-installer and before running it, I had to enable the two plugs "easy-installer:raw-usb" and "easy-installer:adb-support" (and reboot Ubuntu).
$ sudo snap connect easy-installer:raw-usb
$ sudo snap connect easy-installer:adb-support
$ sudo reboot- on the phone, after enabling Developer mode, I had to enable USB debugging
Enable USB debugging
The action “Enable the Developer mode (Part 1)”, with its 3 steps, worked fine and resulted in the Developer mode being enabled (or rather, actually, in my case, telling me that it was already enabled).
The action “Enable the Developer mode (Part 2)”, again with 3 steps, I found a bit confusing. First about what it was meant to do, since the Developer mode had already been enabled by the previous action. So I understood the objective of the action being to do whatever would be the result of performing the action’s third and last step “Tapping on Android debugging”. First problem, searching for “debug” did not return any “Android debugging” entry I could tap. It did return a “USB debugging” entry, but tapping it was only taking me to the list of “Developer options” settings and showing me the current setting for “USB debugging”, but not actually changing any settings.
What I actually ended up doing in lieu of this “Enable the Developer mode (Part 2)” is more like:
Enable USB debugging Open the settings menu again Type “Debug” in search bar Tap on “USB debugging” search result Enable/allow “USB debugging”
- Allow USB debugging access between the desktop and the phone
When the easy-installer launched “Looking for your device”, a pop-up appeared on the phone, but I had missed it because it did not stay very long. It asked to confirm that I allowed USB debugging from the specific desktop the easy-installer was “calling from”. I needed to see it and to tap OK for the easy-installer to find and recognise the phone.
If the pop-up had disappeared, I could make it reappear by disabling and re-enabling USB debugging in “Developer options” settings.
Maybe some we could have some warning about this step on the “Looking for your device” screen?
Question about OEM unlock
All manual installation details I had seen instructed to enable OEM unlock on the phone in "Developer options".
The easy-installer does not instruct to do that, but as there is a screen later that announces it is performing OEM unlock, and then proceeds to the next step, I assume that it is the easy-installer that somehow finds a way to enable OEM unlock?
Problem during installation
Actual installation went smoothly until it paused to ask if I wanted to create an e.email account or if I already had one.
I selected “I already have an e.email account”.
The screen did not have any “Continue” button, so I clicked on the “OK” button next to the “Create my e.email personal account”, thinking that had to be what acted as the “Continue” button for that screen.
It did nothing but unselect the “I already have an e.email account” option. But when I re-selected it, a “Continue” button appeared.
I clicked on “Continue”, expecting to next see a form asking for my e.email account details.
Instead, the installation progress screen came back, and was frozen (progress bar no longer moving, showing something like 90% progress) for an hour or so.
While the installation screen was frozen, the console on the desktop (in the console window I had used to launch the easy-installer with the command line $ easy-installer) was spurting out every second or so a new line with the text "recovery".
After an hour or so, the easy-installer screen changed to "installation over. Installation is over. While your phone is booting, you should see the logo below..."
Well after that (about another hour), the phone was showing the TeamWin menu screen (with its options: Install, Wipe, Backup, Restore, Mount, Settings, Advanced and Reboot).
Choosing install did not show any zip image available to install.
I then decided to resort to trying to finish the process through manual installation and proceeded to follow instructions shown at https://community.e.foundation/t/howto-install-e-on-a-samsung-smartphone-with-windows-easily/3186?u=antoineguichard (in English) and https://community.e.foundation/t/howto-installer-e-sur-un-smartphone-samsung-avec-windows-facilement/3184?u=antoineguichard (in French). I followed step 8)A. Red error messages appeared (Failed to mount data, etc.) so I went to change filesystem to exFAT. It failed. Since then the phone is stuck and will only reboot into a TeamWin welcome screen without any menu options.