61
you are viewing a single comment's thread
view the rest of the comments
view the rest of the comments
this post was submitted on 16 Oct 2026
61 points (100.0% liked)
Android
22235 readers
125 users here now
The new home of /r/Android on Lemmy and the Fediverse!
Android news, reviews, tips, and discussions about rooting, tutorials, and apps.
🔗Universal Link: !android@lemdro.id
💡Content Philosophy:
Content which benefits the community (news, rumours, and discussions) is generally allowed and is valued over content which benefits only the individual (technical questions, help buying/selling, rants, self-promotion, etc.) which will be removed if it's in violation of the rules.
Support, technical, or app related questions belong in: !askandroid@lemdro.id
For fresh communities, lemmy apps, and instance updates: !lemdroid@lemdro.id
📰Our communities below
Rules
-
Stay on topic: All posts should be related to the Android OS or ecosystem.
-
No support questions, recommendation requests, rants, or bug reports: Posts must benefit the community rather than the individual. Please post to !askandroid@lemdro.id.
-
Describe images/videos, no memes: Please include a text description when sharing images or videos. Post memes to !androidmemes@lemdro.id.
-
No self-promotion spam: Active community members can post their apps if they answer any questions in the comments. Please do not post links to your own website, YouTube, blog content, or communities.
-
No reposts or rehosted content: Share only the original source of an article, unless it's not available in English or requires logging in (like Twitter). Avoid reposting the same topic from other sources.
-
No editorializing titles: You can add the author or website's name if helpful, but keep article titles unchanged.
-
No piracy or unverified APKs: Do not share links or direct people to pirated content or unverified APKs, which may contain malicious code.
-
No unauthorized polls, bots, or giveaways: Do not create polls, use bots, or organize giveaways without first contacting mods for approval.
-
No offensive or low-effort content: Don't post offensive or unhelpful content. Keep it civil and friendly!
-
No affiliate links: Posting affiliate links is not allowed.
Quick Links
Our Communities
- !askandroid@lemdro.id
- !androidmemes@lemdro.id
- !techkit@lemdro.id
- !google@lemdro.id
- !nothing@lemdro.id
- !googlepixel@lemdro.id
- !xiaomi@lemdro.id
- !sony@lemdro.id
- !samsung@lemdro.id
- !galaxywatch@lemdro.id
- !oneplus@lemdro.id
- !motorola@lemdro.id
- !meta@lemdro.id
- !apple@lemdro.id
- !microsoft@lemdro.id
- !chatgpt@lemdro.id
- !bing@lemdro.id
- !reddit@lemdro.id
Lemmy App List
Chat and More
founded 3 years ago
MODERATORS
The size of the storage isn't all - it is partitioned so that there is one partition for user data and two partitions for the operating system (+ a lot more, but they're not important for this explanation).
Android updates work by updating the "inactive" system partition, setting it as active and rebooting. If the updated system fails to boot a few times, the bootloader will automatically switch back to the known-working older system and the update will be rejected.
These partitions can be resized, but I assume Sony did something stupid like have the OS assume an exact partition size (for example to check that the system is not tampered with), and something would break if the old OS rebooted with the resized partitions.
Hell, maybe the encryption used doesn't allow them to resize the user data permission without losing all data in it - if the OS doesn't fit then they literally don't have enough space without forcing a factory reset.
None of this is to say that it's not Sony's fault - it is.
But those sound like software problems? Like, yeah, probably pretty tricky, but, it's their source code, so, figure it out?
I guess forcing a factory reset is pretty rough, but, at least give the option.
It's crazy to me that it's considered acceptable to just.. not do anything.
Well, it's more acceptable than offering an update that is known to effectively brick the device if it fails. This device is fucked by poor planning - just avoid Sony in the future, because this is unlikely to change with future devices.
Again, the issue wouldn't be that it's hard to make the new system image work, it would be that the old one will be broken, so if anything goes wrong, it will not be available as a fallback. I think this even goes against Google's requirements for Android - you can prevent the user from booting the older versions after an update, but the updated system must first be confirmed to be working (so the right way to do this is to boot into the new OS, and have it do the compatibility-breaking change - but this order is not possible if Sony doesn't have enough space in the system partition for the new OS).