Several reports from Pixel 3 owners have cropped up online about the issue
Several Pixel 3 and 3 XL owners report an issue that renders their phones useless seemingly overnight.
Posts on Google’s Issue Tracker webpage and support forums, as well as on Reddit, describe phones ‘bricking’ overnight and becoming completely unresponsive with little or no warning. Several publications, including Ars Technica and Engadget, have picked up the story, noting that affected Pixel 3 and 3 XL go into a Qualcomm ‘Emergency Download mode’ (EDL).
The EDL mode appears to prevent access to the bootloader, which means users can’t attempt to recover their device by installing new firmware. So far, Google hasn’t offered any sort of solution and, frustratingly for most Pixel 3 owners, most devices are no longer covered by warranty. That’s left several people with a choice between forking out money for an expensive repair or getting a new phone entirely.
Ars speculated that the issue may be hardware-related, potentially like the LG bootlooping issue. However, there isn’t enough evidence yet to definitively say one way or the other. It’s also not entirely clear how widespread the issue is. It seems like quite a few people have taken to the Pixel help forums, Issue Tracker thread and Reddit to complain.
Regardless, waking up to find your phone unresponsive is not fun, and it’s particularly bad news at this point. If your Pixel 3 dies now, you’re frustratingly close to several new phone launches but not close enough to suffer without a phone for several weeks.
Some people have held out hope that Google will offer some kind of coverage for this issue, similar to how the company extended Pixel 4 XL warranties to cover known issues with those devices. Unfortunately, Google has made no sign that it plans to do so any time soon.
Source: Google support, Issue Tracker, Reddit Via: Ars Technica, Engadget