With Android 13, Google made it so that the Pixel 6, 6 Pro, and 6a cannot reinstall Android 12 in order to address a security issue. In addressing that vulnerability, another problem might arise, and Google has released instructions on how to avoid bricking your device if you flashed Android 13.
What’s different with the Android 13 update for Pixel 6
A security vulnerability exists with the previous bootloader on the Pixel 6 series, and Android 13 makes it so that the vulnerable version associated with Android 12 cannot be reinstalled.
However, even after flashing an Android 13 factory image – which is different than sideloading an OTA image – on the Pixel 6 series and successfully updating, an Android 12 build remains on your phone. This is due to Android’s A/B (seamless) system updates, which are meant to provide redundancy:
A/B system updates use two sets of partitions referred to as slots (normally slot A and slot B). The system runs from the current slot while the partitions in the unused slot are not accessed by the running system during normal operation. This approach makes updates fault resistant by keeping the unused slot as a fallback: If an error occurs during or immediately after an update, the system can rollback to the old slot and continue to have a working system.
As such, the “inactive slot contains an older bootloader whose anti-rollback version has not been incremented.” That mismatch can cause problems if you flash your device and something fails with the install. By design, Android will try booting from the inactive slot, but that runs afoul of the vulner ..
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