Talk:Pixel 4a Battery Performance Program: Difference between revisions

:since the article states "While there is widespread speculation about a battery manufacturing fault", I suggest adding pics from "https://old.reddit.com/r/Pixel4a/comments/1hxyp6z/certainly_seems_battery_defectrelated_vs_planned/" as further motivation for such speculation.

:Google doesn't normally require such special "box for defective lithium ion batteries" to mail-in phones for repairs (some users said in the comments this might just be good practice and business as usual when sending phones for repair but it's really not), so the reasoning for doing it this time around seems clear enough to me and would add very strong evidence to this speculation.

:Samsung sent out a very similar box (https://www.cultofmac.com/wp-content/uploads/2016/10/Note-7-return-kit.png) when the note 7 thing happened.

:Thank you for your suggestions, I'll get to editing soon. [[User:ZenithHelix|ZenithHelix]] ([[User talk:ZenithHelix|talk]]) 18:32, 19 January 2025 (UTC)

:On another note, I wish there was a wiki-appropriate way to talk about how weird Google Support has been throughout this, but none of those things were said "officially" and many reports just come from users recounting what they talked about (I feel like I'm already on thin ice with all the Reddit posts I'm sourcing from). There was that one post that asked Google Support about turning in their phone for cash and them saying that the phone would be worth *less money* if they installed the new software update (again, unconfirmed, someone just said this). I also talked to them at one point and they told me my device would be considered impacted if it had worse battery performance AFTER the update, despite the compensation form being live based on the IMEI before the update was ever rolled out. It is probably just that the Support Team doesn't have a very clear understanding of the issue, but it's interesting that if that is the case, a lot of the misinformation has been coming directly from Google. [[User:ZenithHelix|ZenithHelix]] ([[User talk:ZenithHelix|talk]]) 19:59, 19 January 2025 (UTC)

::Maybe you could ask those users to provide a copy of the support conversation? Google support gives you the option to send you a copy of the whole chat log at the end of each support request

10 days ago, I asked iFixit support whether the batteries they are currently selling are some sort of newer batch that isn't affected by this problem or not<br>

their response: sorry for the late reply, it took us a while to figure this one out, "The issue is with the device itself and not the batteries, We suggest you go through Google to see if your device is impacted"<br>

this whole situation keeps getting more and more absurd

::::> I think this is worth adding to the article, if you can source it somehow.

::::maybe I should've asked if he was okay with this in the reply I sent him hours ago, but it's too late now I think, let me know if I'm just overthinking this and providing a copy of the email isn't that big of a deal

I wasn't aware of the "Frequently asked questions" at the bottom of "https://support.google.com/pixelphone/answer/15701861", actually, I'm pretty sure it wasn't there at first but looking at the internet archive page of the 7th january, it has always been there, you also mentioned missing it in a reddit comment (in fact, that's how I found out about it), very very odd.<br>

Anyways, I found a couple of things here interesting<br>

well, at least one thing is clear: the situation is really messed up in both cases.

Google seems to have quietly removed all previous pixel 4a software builds from their developer portal (initial source: https://www.reddit.com/r/Pixel4a/comments/1i7tmmb/cannot_locate_tq3a230805001s1_build_for_update/)<br>

1. https://files.catbox.moe/t5kvmh.png as you can see here, phones before and after the 4a have all sorts of builds of all versions of android (going back as far as android 2.3.6 for the original Nexus S), but the 4a only has the latest a13 update, archive.org doesn't seem to work as the list is loaded dynamically via javascript or something so the available builds don't display there.<br>

<b>Factory/OTA images before the battery killer update are still available in the first post of this XDA thread</b>: https://xdaforums.com/t/changes-coming-to-your-pixel-4a.4712085/<br>

full list of builds that were removed: https://pastebin.com/0Cw8iDUf, you can still find one or two download sources for each one by googling it, but be careful, I couldn't find the hashes of the original files so there's no way of knowing if there's malware or else embedded into these random downloads scattered around the web, plus all of these are one site closure (or DMCA takedown from google) away from being lost media, those that have the possibility of making an archive, backups, maybe a torrent file or else: please do (by making them available in the previously linked xda thread). Preserving the latest A10/A11/A12/A13S1 builds should take priority (imo), keep in mind older custom roms also need these factory images to work in most cases.<br>

::Reply:

::sorry for that, I should've cleared up where I sourced that stuff from.<br>

:::I've asked the mods about this, they say they're not interested in verifying contents of torrent links. Feel free to link to XDA. [[User:Karar|Karar]] ([[User talk:Karar|talk]]) 21:58, 23 January 2025 (UTC)

:::Hey, just to verify Karars claim, we would appreciate it if you refrain from posting direct magnet links. Links to xda or even an article/section on this issue sources would be fine. Its less the fear of dmca and more the issue of verification of downloads we don't want to deal with. [[User:Kostas|Kostas]] ([[User talk:Kostas|talk]]) 22:03, 23 January 2025 (UTC)