Issue #1816
open"Encrypt Phone" crashes and sometimes sends the phone into a boot loop
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Description
I'm using Replicant 6.0 on an i9300 with llvmpipe. When I select "Encrypt phone" from settings with a full battery, on my first attempt the phone immediately crashed to a Replicant boot logo and then said encryption failed, and as a result I had to perform a factory reset. This reset worked the first time around, but when I tried to encrypt the phone a 2nd time, it crashed and sent the phone into an infinite boot loop, showing the "Preparing Apps" progress bar and then going back to the Replicant logo over and over again.
Performing a manual "Full factory reset" via recovery mode fixed this issue, but obviously the ideal solution would have the "Encrypt Phone" feature working, or at least grayed out if it never works.
Updated by Wolfgang Wiedmeyer almost 7 years ago
Were you at least greeted with the prompt for your encryption password or was the crash even before that? Did you set a PIN or password before starting the encryption?
My guess is that there is an issue with the media files or the storage formatting. Also because of an unrelated issue I noticed with the gallery app, I'm contemplating to change the installation instructions and require a full factory reset instead of a data wipe. Does it work after you did the full factory reset?
It's also possible that the stack protector in the kernel sometimes triggers a reboot when a buffer overflow happens. Such a buffer overflow may go unnoticed otherwise if the stack protector wouldn't be enabled. If that happens, some data may end up corrupted which could cause the encryption to fail.
Unfortunately, this is an issue that is difficult to debug because of the frequent reboots and some cases are probably hard to reproduce. We should add a note to the instructions that are shown at the beginning of the encryption setup and make it more clear that it can fail and that a backup should be created beforehand.
Updated by Wolfgang Wiedmeyer over 6 years ago
- Status changed from New to Feedback
- Assignee set to Harry Prevor
Updated by Jeremy Rand over 6 years ago
I just ran into this on Replicant 6.0 0003 on an i9300 with libagl renderer (which suggests that llvmpipe isn't to blame).
Were you at least greeted with the prompt for your encryption password or was the crash even before that?
Replicant asked me for the screenlock password (which I entered), it then rebooted and asked me for the encryption password (which it accepted). After that is when it entered the bootloop.
Did you set a PIN or password before starting the encryption?
Password, via the wizard that comes up when Replicant first boots.
Does it work after you did the full factory reset?
I did a full factory reset after installing Replicant 6.0 0003 (and before exiting the Recovery). I did not change any settings between the intro wizard and starting the encryption process. So it seems that the full factory reset is not sufficient to reliably prevent this issue. (I'll try a few more times and see whether it consistently does this or not.)
EDIT: Tried a 2nd time (after doing a full factory reset again, just like the 1st time) and this time it looks like it worked fine. If there's anything else I can do to help narrow down the cause, let me know.