Well, I finally got my 6p out of update hell. Talked with several Google support techs, my issue got escalated a couple of times, etc, etc. Yesterday I talked with a rep who insisted that my carrier Verizon was holding up the update. I said that's kinda hard to believe since I've done 3 factory resets since November which was the last time I had a sim card in it. But she was adamant that it was Verizon's fault. So she contacted them and then put me on the line with a Verizon rep and left the call. The Verizon rep was puzzled since she said there was nothing they could do since A. They didn't sell me the phone, B. They don't support the phone, and C. They don't handle updates for unlocked phones, only phones that are carrier locked to Verizon. I laughed and said I know but all of the reps I had been talking to were adamant that updates came from the carriers.
So today I called in again to inform them that no, carriers don't handle the updates for unlocked Google phones. Not to sound racist, but every other time I called in I got someone with a heavy accent (which btw is a bear for me to understand as my hearing isn't the greatest) but this time I got someone with no accent whatsoever. So as per usual, I started explaining everything that had happened to this point, including the call yesterday and Verizon's involvement. She said "Well no, carriers don't have anything to do with the updates we send out on the unlocked Nexus phones. That's why we say updates straight from Google." I just chuckled since that was the opposite of what they have been saying for the last 2 months whenever I called in. She looked over my whole history and said it looks like you've pretty much tried everything, so she was going to escalate my problem a second time. But she also wanted me to enter the beta program and see if it would update. I explained that I had tried that several times with no joy. She said well they're on 7.1.2 now so if it were to update through the beta program and then leave it, it would drop me back to 7.1.1. So we ended the call with her escalating my problem and I would try the beta program one more time. Sure enough, this time it took. It updated me to 7.1.2 and the January security patch.
I think I'll leave it in the beta program until they push a final version of 7.1.2 and then exit the program for good. I'm starting to wonder if entering the beta program to get 7.0 isn't what screwed my 6p up in the first place. After I got the V build of 7.0, they released another version of 7.0 that I never received, and I'm wondering if that didn't detour me off the update path. So once I'm able to leave the beta program I'm staying out of it for good.