Got a Pixel 6 series device? You may not want to factory reset it (Update: Fix coming)

Update: July 2, 2024 (5:25 PM ET): Google has now acknowledged the issue and has provided advice to prevent the issue from occurring. According to the firm, if you download a system update with your Pixel 6 series device, it’s recommended that you leave the device on and let it stay idle for 15 minutes after it has rebooted. You can perform a factory reset afterward. Or you can do a factory reset before performing a system update.

For anyone with a Pixel 6, Pixel 6 Pro, or Pixel 6a who is experiencing issues, Google says it has found the root cause. It recommends keeping an eye on its support page thread as it works on a solution.

Original article: July 1, 2024 (6:12 PM ET): Several Google Pixel 6 series users have recently reported facing an issue that bricks their device while performing a factory reset. The issue seems to affect all three devices in the lineup irrespective of whether they’re running the latest stable update or an Android 15 beta build.

According to user reports on Reddit and Google’s support forums (via TechIssuesToday), affected Pixel 6, Pixel 6 Pro, and Pixel 6a models fail to boot after attempting a factory reset and show different error messages during boot. While some report seeing an error saying that the device “cannot load Android system,” others have highlighted an error that says the device is “unable to enable ext4 verity” because it’s missing a “tune2fs” file.

Attempts to recover devices using the Android Flash Tool and the Pixel Repair Tool don’t seem to work either, leaving users with no choice but to wait for an official solution from Google. Thankfully, Google seems to be aware of the issue.

According to a comment from a Platinum Product Expert in a related support forum thread, the concerned team at Google has said that “this is a known issue currently under investigation.” But since Google has not released an official statement, we don’t know if a fix is underway. We’ll let you know as soon as we have more details.

It’s worth noting that the issue does not seem to affect all Pixel 6 users, as we were able to successfully factory reset a Pixel 6 on the latest Android 15 beta and had no problems. However, we’d still recommend not performing a factory reset until Google sheds more light on the underlying cause.