[RecklessRaggy]

A few days ago I "upgraded" to Marshmallow on my Moto G3. It's horrible and I can barely use my phone anymore. I tried contacting Motorola for advice on downgrading but they refused to give me any. I was wondering if anyone knew how to do it safely here?

[Ry]

A few days ago I "upgraded" to Marshmallow on my Moto G3. It's horrible and I can barely use my phone anymore. I tried contacting Motorola for advice on downgrading but they refused to give me any. I was wondering if anyone knew how to do it safely here?

I believe the upgrade prompt clearly stated that you can't (officially) downgrade.

But my guess is that downgrading will involve unlocking the bootloader and finding the OEM Lollipop ROM.

[RecklessRaggy]

How would I go about that?

[David Alfredo]

I believe the upgrade prompt clearly stated that you can't (officially) downgrade.

But my guess is that downgrading will involve unlocking the bootloader and finding the OEM Lollipop ROM.

if only the prompt also stated the risks of upgrading... 70+ % of users are clueless about them, not to mention how to get around / solve any of the possible bugs. I say let's keep system updates absolutely manual instead of bombarding users with notifications to upgrade when there's high chance something's going to go wrong and you won't be able to fix it. For 10 smooth upgrades we have 10 buggy upgrades and not everyone knows about "recovery menu", "cache wipe", "factory reset"... specially on popular phones in this price range.

[acejavelin]

If you look on XDA, there are threads about unlocking, downgrading, and flashing stock factory images... Unlocking the bootloader will void your warranty (except in most of the EU), and there potential risks when downgrading of bricking, and potential of not being to upgrade via OTA again. Read carefully, the threads on XDA are in the Moto G 20015 General Discussion area and are not hard to find.

Be warned, any issues you run into *may not* be revertible, we have seen multiple Moto G's hard brick and be useless. I would try standard troubleshooting first, clear cache partition, if that fails, factory default. If you still have issues you should first consider sending it in for repair before unlocking and continuing. I am not telling you what to do, but you should be vary careful and understand all the possible implications before attempting to downgrade.

[David Alfredo]

all this just because a company is almost forcing their clients to "upgrade" without warning them of possible risks and bugs, is there no legal liability here ?

[Ry]

if only the prompt also stated the risks of upgrading... 70+ % of users are clueless about them, not to mention how to get around / solve any of the possible bugs. I say let's keep system updates absolutely manual instead of bombarding users with notifications to upgrade when there's high chance something's going to go wrong and you won't be able to fix it. For 10 smooth upgrades we have 10 buggy upgrades and not everyone knows about "recovery menu", "cache wipe", "factory reset"... specially on popular phones in this price range.

Is this a blanket statement or specific to Android or Motorola upgrades?

There's always a risk.

[David Alfredo]

does the average Joe, the general public, the common user know about the risks ?

[Ry]

does the average Joe, the general public, the common user know about the risks ?

Do they know the risk for updating their computers, their iPhones, their other devices?

[David Alfredo]

Do they know the risk for updating their computers, their iPhones, their other devices?

ah well... I'm pretty sure most devices won't force such important "upgrades" (specially one that removes features as Marshmallow does, forcing you to either chose portable storage and watch your device slow down and a bunch of apps refusing to install outside of the "real" internal storage anyway, or external storage and watch how you cannot move apps to SD Card anymore)

60% of users are bound to face bugs with this Motorola upgrade, but they're bombarded with upgrade notification anyway, I wonder if there's legal liability somewhere since they just warn of the difficulty of reverting to 5.1.1 and ignore the bugs, those that will turn a perfectly stable phone into sometimes an unusable device.

[Ry]

ah well... I'm pretty sure most devices won't force such important "upgrades" (specially one that removes features as Marshmallow does, forcing you to either chose portable storage and watch your device slow down and a bunch of apps refusing to install outside of the "real" internal storage anyway, or external storage and watch how you cannot move apps to SD Card anymore)

60% of users are bound to face bugs with this Motorola upgrade, but they're bombarded with upgrade notification anyway, I wonder if there's legal liability somewhere since they just warn of the difficulty of reverting to 5.1.1 and ignore the bugs, those that will turn a perfectly stable phone into sometimes an unusable device.

You have to accept an Android update. It is not forcibly installed without your knowledge.

60% of users is something you're making up.

Posted via the Android Central App on the Moto X Pure Edition

[acejavelin]

ah well... I'm pretty sure most devices won't force such important "upgrades" (specially one that removes features as Marshmallow does, forcing you to either chose portable storage and watch your device slow down and a bunch of apps refusing to install outside of the "real" internal storage anyway, or external storage and watch how you cannot move apps to SD Card anymore)

60% of users are bound to face bugs with this Motorola upgrade, but they're bombarded with upgrade notification anyway, I wonder if there's legal liability somewhere since they just warn of the difficulty of reverting to 5.1.1 and ignore the bugs, those that will turn a perfectly stable phone into sometimes an unusable device.

Don't use Windows 10 do you? It doesn't even prompt you or let you know, unless it must reboot. Had to reload more than one computer because of it... I also have an iPhone for work, trust me, that nags way worse, it pretty much forces you without warning of risks, and I know of 2 phones (out of around 100) that got borked due to updates in the last year, and I don't work in the help desk so their could have been more

My point is Moto and Android are not unique, and very much on the lower end of restricting your choices.

I do like the way Huawei handled lollipop on the HAM2, though it's on the other end of extreme... They never pushed an OTA or notification, you had to go looking for it, read and accept a bunch of stuff, download the image, and basically do a factory image flash, guaranteeing a clean environment.

The real problem, and yet a strength, with all these inconsistent implementations and update methods is fragmentation of the Android ecosystem, but that's a completely different topic for another day.

[David Alfredo]

I do like the way Huawei handled lollipop on the HAM2, though it's on the other end of extreme... They never pushed an OTA or notification, you had to go looking for it, read and accept a bunch of stuff, download the image, and basically do a factory image flash, guaranteeing a clean environment.

this is what I meant

[David Alfredo]

You have to accept an Android update. It is not forcibly installed without your knowledge.

60% of users is something you're making up.

Posted via the Android Central App on the Moto X Pure Edition

of course, the real figures are higher than 60%

[RecklessRaggy]

Thank you everyone for your replies. Motorola, no matter how I approach them, seem to refuse to help me and I know why... I've now contacted Carphone Warehouse which is where I bought the phone. Not only am I having memory issues, I can no longer set a lockscreen, receive or view notifications, use the home button or pull out the 'back/home/multitasking' buttons from something that goes fullscreen. Misbehaving software is under their warranty, so they should be obliged to fix it right? I'm firing out all 'official' options before I start dealing with it manually. I've read thoroughly into the risks of flashing etc and it's something I'd much rather avoid doing...I'm not the average joe user, but I'm also not nearly as well versed into that stuff as you guys probably are.

I knew full well that once I upgraded to Marshmallow, I would not be able to roll back easily. All I saw on SD cards for Marshmallow was the adoptable storage option. I decided I wouldn't opt for it in the end and would just keep it portable, so I 'upgraded'. However, something specific to Motorola devices it seems was apps2sd, which is removed in Marshmallow. Now any app data on my SD is stuck in limbo and I can't do anything until this is all solved. If I knew this from the beginning then I would not have upgraded. David is right in that they should've notified users of this on the prompt screen, not buried it in the festering depths of Motorola's website.

So yeah, since I created this thread my poor poor phone that has been TAINTED by this wretched Marshmallow is even more unstable now. Any more tips on what I should do? Beginning to panic...

[Ry]

of course, the real figures are higher than 60%

Source? Lol.

Posted via the Android Central App on the Moto X Pure Edition

[Ry]

Thank you everyone for your replies. Motorola, no matter how I approach them, seem to refuse to help me and I know why... I've now contacted Carphone Warehouse which is where I bought the phone. Not only am I having memory issues, I can no longer set a lockscreen, receive or view notifications, use the home button or pull out the 'back/home/multitasking' buttons from something that goes fullscreen. Misbehaving software is under their warranty, so they should be obliged to fix it right? I'm firing out all 'official' options before I start dealing with it manually. I've read thoroughly into the risks of flashing etc and it's something I'd much rather avoid doing...I'm not the average joe user, but I'm also not nearly as well versed into that stuff as you guys probably are.

I knew full well that once I upgraded to Marshmallow, I would not be able to roll back easily. All I saw on SD cards for Marshmallow was the adoptable storage option. I decided I wouldn't opt for it in the end and would just keep it portable, so I 'upgraded'. However, something specific to Motorola devices it seems was apps2sd, which is removed in Marshmallow. Now any app data on my SD is stuck in limbo and I can't do anything until this is all solved. If I knew this from the beginning then I would not have upgraded. David is right in that they should've notified users of this on the prompt screen, not buried it in the festering depths of Motorola's website.

So yeah, since I created this thread my poor poor phone that has been TAINTED by this wretched Marshmallow is even more unstable now. Any more tips on what I should do? Beginning to panic...

Start from scratch and do a factory reset.

Posted via the Android Central App on the Moto X Pure Edition

[RecklessRaggy]

Start from scratch and do a factory reset.

Posted via the Android Central App on the Moto X Pure Edition

I'll give it a try. It won't get Lollipop back though will it? :/

[Ry]

I'll give it a try. It won't get Lollipop back though will it? :/

It will not get you back to Lollipop.

Posted via the Android Central App on the Moto X Pure Edition

[RecklessRaggy]

It will get you back to Lollipop.

Posted via the Android Central App on the Moto X Pure Edition

Are you sure? Many other forum posts are saying it doesn't mess with the system partitions. I just want to check because on the off chance Carphone Warehouse do take it in, I'll probably have to make it look bad so that they'll fix it. I have no problem with factory resetting, just... ARE YOU REALLY REALLY SURE?

[I am the Liquor]

A factory reset WILL NOT get you back to Lollipop. All that does is erase your settings and take it back to a fresh Marshmallow install as if the phone were new. You'd have to install all your regular apps, network settings/passwords, etc. Only way to go back to Lollipop is to flash the phone with a factory Lollipop image and hope you get it right. From what I've read, some phones will revert back and some won't. My phone will not revert back, so I'm stuck with it...

[RecklessRaggy]

A factory reset WILL NOT get you back to Lollipop. All that does is erase your settings and take it back to a fresh Marshmallow install as if the phone were new. You'd have to install all your regular apps, network settings/passwords, etc. Only way to go back to Lollipop is to flash the phone with a factory Lollipop image and hope you get it right. From what I've read, some phones will revert back and some won't. My phone will not revert back, so I'm stuck with it...

I'm going to wait and see what the shop can do then. I expect it'll be nothing but hey, we'll see. I

[Ry]

Are you sure? Many other forum posts are saying it doesn't mess with the system partitions. I just want to check because on the off chance Carphone Warehouse do take it in, I'll probably have to make it look bad so that they'll fix it. I have no problem with factory resetting, just... ARE YOU REALLY REALLY SURE?

Fixed. Typed too fast.

Posted via the Android Central App on the Moto X Pure Edition

[Aquila]

Please refrain from trolling. If you are not here to help then there are other threads already devoted to that and it isn't necessarily to derail this one.

[RecklessRaggy]

GrrrrRARAAAGAGAAG

So, interesting update for anyone who may be interested. I took it to Carphone Warehouse, and they said they couldn't do anything and I'll have to send it to Motorola. But the guy there was helpful. I explained the whole situation to him and he said if I send it in for repair, they'll reset and flash lollipop back on it. Now that I wasn't so sure they were allowed to do but I walked away and followed their advice anyway. Upon calling them I am met with the helpline and she runs through the generic stuff that would solve this. Eventually she makes me factory reset. If the problems still persisted after then they would let me send it in, which I was going to do either way since I JUST WANT IT FLASHED FOR THE LOVE OF-... Anyway, I factory reset the phone and am met with a prompt telling me to sign into the Google account that was previously linked. I do, but realize I've forgotten my password. (Oh don't worry, it gets worse.) SO, I go to my PC to use the recovery email to reset it. I eventually get it done and go back to the phone to log in. It didn't recognize me as the owner account.

I've had it. I'M DONE. Through a strange combination of Android's lack of care and my incompetence, I have given up. I've sent an email requesting they give me instructions to send my POOR PHONE in for repair. Until then it's useless...