Google has halted the installation of Android Q Beta 5, just like it did for Beta 4.
The search giant noted on its official r/Android_Beta subreddit today that they are “aware of an issue with Android Q Beta 5 related to installing updates. We’ve temporarily paused Beta 5 OTA updates to all Pixel devices as we investigate the issue. We apologize for any inconvenience, and will provide this post once the issue is resolved.”
This also happened with the fourth beta last month, the day after it started rolling out Google had to halt it because many users were having bootloop issues getting the update installed, unfortunately. This seems to be a different issue, and one that might not be as big of a deal as a bootloop after updating to the latest beta.
While I had a few issues updating my Pixel 3 XL to the fifth beta, other users on the subreddit are reporting some different issues. Including the fact that they are getting frozen phones or prompts to factory reset their device while installing the new beta. Now it’s always a good idea to back up your data before installing a new update, like a beta, for this very reason. But that is still a pretty weird issue to have for some users.
The irony in all of this is the fact that beta five is supposedly a release candidate. Meaning that it is almost fully polished and ready to be pushed out to everyone that owns a Pixel device. But after seeing these issues, it’s pretty clear that it is not anywhere close to being polished enough for everyone to use. There is still one more release candidate coming out before the “stable” version launches in AOSP though, but that means that Google does have a lot of polishing to do between now and then.
These issues are another reason why we always say that it is not a good idea to install a beta version of an operating system on your daily driver smartphone. Imagine your main smartphone freezing while updating to the fifth beta, and now you’re out of a phone today and can’t use a phone at work. It’s never a good idea to install a beta on your main phone, but usually by the fifth beta, things are a lot more polished than this.
Google is still playing around with the gestures in this beta, which shows that it is really not anywhere near ready to be pushed out to everyone.
Those that didn’t get the update yet, you should be pretty happy. Seeing as this is a pretty big issue for those that did get the update for Android Q. Hopefully Google is able to iron out these issues in the next few days, so that those that do have frozen phones can get them fixed and not have to wait too long. This is a pretty rocky release candidate from Google, which means that the software on the Pixel 4 is likely to be pretty rough too, like the Pixel 3’s.