Google’s Android 14 Storage Bug Gets Patched With New November Security Update, but There’s a Catch

The storage-related issue that initially seemed to affect only Pixel 6 and Pixel 6 Pro owners, turned out to be a massive one with disastrous consequences indeed. Triggered after updating to the latest Android 14 software, which was released early October for Pixel phones, the software seemed to lock users out of their phone’s local storage, rendering them unusable. While some users could still get to their homescreens, others weren’t as lucky, as the Android 14 update put their phones into a constant reboot loop (commonly known as a bootloop). Now, more than a month later, Google has started rolling out a patch that it claims will fix the issue, but it’s not as easy as it seems.

As per ArsTechnica, the bug which can almost be termed as ‘ransomware’ will only save the first set of users who can still turn on and access their smartphones. Such users will at least be able to download and install the latest security patch and be able to recover the local data stored on their phones, which until now was not accessible thanks to the bug. However, this is not the case for those whose handsets are in a bootloop as such a device will need to be erased completely and updated with the latest firmware to avoid going back into such a state once again. This also means that users suffering from the bootloop will not be able to recover their local data, which will be lost forever.

The security update patch notes that the storage bug issue affects a number of phones including the Pixel 6, Pixel 6a, Pixel 6 Pro, Pixel 7, Pixel 7 Pro, Pixel 7a, Pixel Tablet, Pixel Fold, and even Google’s latest Pixel 8, Pixel 8 Pro smartphones.

As per the report, the same bug-ridden Android 14 update was still being seeded by Google until a few days ago, which is strange because Google usually pulls the plug on problematic updates. And this is usually the reason for staggered roll out for all updates.

The storage bug indeed will leave a lot of Pixel owners furious about how the brand has left them stranded, with Google themselves unable to find a viable solution to the problem they helped create. And it all points to the fact that smartphone data backups are important especially if you happen to store a lot of data off the cloud and physically on your smartphone or even if you just prefer to have things that way.