shift6mq bricked / stuck in boot fastboot mode screen.

[Jan Wagemakers]

Hello,

My shift6mq is stuck in the boot fastboot mode screen. Trying to get to recovery or fastbootd mode doesn't work, whatever I try. I'm stuck in the screen below. More info in what I've tried so far at https://www.janwagemakers.be/jekyll/postmarketos/sxmo/mutt/2025/08/04/broken_shift6mq.html . Any ideas what I can do to fix this problem?

 

[@Lhotze]

Send in your smartphone. I think EDL is the only and correct way here after all you have tried. However, the problem here is that I am not (yet) aware of any published compatible firmware package. However, according to other forum participants, a new flash should not be that expensive. I think I remember €26, correct me if I'm wrong...

Greetz

 

[NoG....eFan]

Hast du OEM-Entsperrung geschlossen??? Dann geht nichts mehr und du solltest dem Rat von @@Lhotze folgen.

 

[amartinz]

Did you also try to use the ShiftOS-L 7 Fastboot package?

https://downloads.shiftphones.com/public/SHIFT6mq/release-light/SHIFT6MQ.SOS.7.0.L.20250612/SHIFT6MQ.SOS.7.0.L-RELEASE-LIGHT-20250612-FASTBOOT.tar.gz

This one contains a full super image, which is flashable via Bootloader, as it does not need access to logical partitions.

 

[Jan Wagemakers]

Did you also try to use the ShiftOS-L 7 Fastboot package?

I've not tried that one. Thanks for the tip. Just tested it. It installs without errors, but after a reboot, my phone returns to this fast boot mode boot screen.

 

[amartinz]

I've not tried that one. Thanks for the tip. Just tested it. It installs without errors, but after a reboot, my phone returns to this fast boot mode boot screen.

Could you please get me the output of the following?

fastboot oem device-info
fastboot getvar all

 

[Jan Wagemakers]

Could you please get me the output of the following?


fastboot oem device-info
fastboot getvar all

Output is available at https://www.janwagemakers.be/tmp/shift6mq.txt .

 

[amartinz]

Output is available at https://www.janwagemakers.be/tmp/shift6mq.txt .

Thank you, it still says:

(bootloader) slot-retry-count:a:7
(bootloader) slot-unbootable:a:no
(bootloader) slot-successful:a:no

Usually after switching slots, slot-successful should be yes so it attempts booting it.

Could you please fastboot --set-active=a and try if it boots now?

 

[Jan Wagemakers]

Could you please fastboot --set-active=a and try if it boots now?

Done. Still brings me back to this 'fastboot mode boot' screen.

(bootloader) current-slot:a
(bootloader) has-slot:boot:yes
(bootloader) slot-retry-count:b:7
(bootloader) slot-unbootable:b:no
(bootloader) slot-successful:b:no
(bootloader) slot-retry-count:a:7
(bootloader) slot-unbootable:a:no
(bootloader) slot-successful:a:no

 

[amartinz]

The weird thing about this is also, that your fastboot version claims it is: version-bootloader:5.0.20221224, whereas after flashing ShiftOS 7 it should be 20250528.

So it seems that flashing does not really flash anything at all.

Without EDL/QFIL this seems to be a bit hard to work on but maybe what you could try is booting the recovery image directly and see if that boots up, via fastboot boot recovery.img and then install the system via OTA.

If that does not work, you could also boot into fastbootd from within that recovery (it will not reboot but start fastbootd, which is included in the recovery) and flash there again.

Otherwise if all fails, maybe trying to live boot into pmOS and manually flash partitions there via dd.

 

[Jan Wagemakers]

you could try is booting the recovery image directly and see if that boots up, via fastboot boot recovery.img and then install the system via OTA.

This also fails.

$ fastboot boot recovery.img
Sending 'boot.img' (98304 KB)                      OKAY [  2.379s]
Booting                                            FAILED (remote: 'Failed to load/authenticate boot image: Device Error')
fastboot: error: Command failed

I really appreciate your help. Thanks!
Maybe it's time to think about plan B and just send in my shift6mq to fix it...

 

[Jan Wagemakers]

To complete the story. I've downloaded the iso from https://github.com/bkerler/edl to test edl. In EDL mode i've flashed manually the .img-files, but the problem persists.
So today I went to the post office and my shift6mq is on its way to SHIFT GmbH Support/Reparatur.

 

[Jan Wagemakers]

Send in your smartphone. I think EDL is the only and correct way here after all you have tried. However, the problem here is that I am not (yet) aware of any published compatible firmware package. However, according to other forum participants, a new flash should not be that expensive. I think I remember €26, correct me if I'm wrong...

I've just payed 16€ to flash the software.

 

[Dwain Zwerg]

Yes, this is the standard price from Shift for flashing software.