The January Google Play system update did more harm than good to some Pixel phones. It introduced a storage bug causing devices to misbehave. Users reported problems like app crashes, missing files, screenshots not saving, being unable to access data stored in internal storage, and more. After making users suffer for two weeks, Google has finally provided a fix for the issue. Unfortunately, not everyone might be able to apply this fix on their Pixel.
Google details a rather convoluted fix for the Pixel storage issue
According to Google, the latest Pixel storage issue is “more prevalent in devices with multiple user accounts and/or work profiles.” The company seems to have already determined the root cause of the problem—renowned Android expert Mishaal Rahman says the update inadvertently rolled back the DCLA (Dynamic Common Library Apex) Mainline module to the factory-installed version on some units, causing mismatched dependency issues.
However, Google has yet to devise a fix for the issue. The firm says the concerned team is working on it but we have no word on when a resolution might arrive. In the meantime, it has detailed a workaround that requires a computer and the technical knowledge of USB Debugging and the Android Debug Bridge (ADB) application. If you are familiar with these things, we have detailed the steps below.
Steps to fix the issue using USB Debugging and ADB
Firstly, you have to enable “Developer options” on your Pixel. To do that navigate to Settings > About phone > Build number and repeatedly tap on the Build Number option until you see the message “You are now a developer!” Go back and navigate to Settings > System > Developer options and then enable USB debugging. Now connect your phone to your computer using a USB cable and set the connection to “File Transfer.”
Open a browser on your computer and download Android’s folder of Platform Tools from this link. Unzip the downloaded folder and extract its content. Now copy the directory link you extracted to. Open the command prompt (press the Windows key + R, type cmd, and press Enter), type cd followed by a space, right-click to paste the directory link you just copied, and press Enter.
Within the command prompt, type “adb devices” and press the Enter key. If prompted, tap “Allow” on your phone and repeat this step. Finally, paste the following commands and hit the Enter key after each command:
adb uninstall com.google.android.media.swcodec
adb uninstall com.google.android.media
After this, disconnect your Pixel phone from your computer and restart it. Check if the issues still exist. If not, the fix has worked. You can proceed to turn off Developer Options in Settings. You can also stop ADB on your computer by typing “adb kill-server” in the command prompt and pressing the Enter key. Hopefully, Google won’t take long to roll out a fix for the Pixel storage issue from its side.
2024-02-01 15:04:45