Every three months, Google releases what’s called the Quarterly Platform Release, delivering new features and bug fixes to Google Pixel phones. The latest version due to reach general release is QPR2, out next week (Monday, March 11 in the United States). However, the next update, QPR3, which will become the June Pixel Feature Drop, has already reached beta 2 and is causing big problems, so proceed with care.
The problem is that it can brick your Pixel phone if it’s installed in a particular way: by sideloading it. According to 9to5Google, which has sideloaded the beta on three different Pixel phones, including a Pixel 8 Pro and a Pixel Fold. Each one seemed to proceed normally but when it came to restarting them, each got stuck on the Pixel logo. The website was able to sideload the new software on to a Pixel 8.
Well, that’s all a bit annoying, though the site found a way round the problem by putting the Pixel into Recovery mode and sideloading the Beta 1 OTA version. There are links to each of these betas in the article.
There’s good news as well, though. You can install this update successfully providing you don’t sideload. Of course, this can take longer to download than sideloading a file, which is one of the reason
Instead, if you’re eager to try the beta at this stage, go to Settings, then System, then Software Updates and choose System Update. Using this route, it should install smoothly enough.
It seems that if you are determined to sideload, you should enable OEM Unlock before you do. Personally, I’d choose OTA instead.
The software, which is for Pixels from the Pixel 5a and later, is almost exclusively about correcting mistakes, squishing bugs and preventing device crashes, issues that had arisen in the previous beta, which was released in February. These include fixing an issue causing the device to crash, display a blank, black screen and other issues that impact system stability. You don’t want any of those.
If you want to sign up for the beta on your Pixel, you have to enroll in the Android Beta Program: details of how to do that are here. Once in, you’ll find an Android Beta Feedback app where you can submit problems.
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