(Credit: Eric Zemen)
Google's November update for its Pixel phones resolves a local storage issue that affected devices using multiple user accounts, among other bug fixes.
The storage glitch essentially locked affected Pixel owners out of local storage if they had multiple users, including guests, restricted profiles, and child users (but not if they just had more than one Google account on the device). At worst, the bug caused boot loops that made the phone totally inoperable without a factory reset, which erased data that had not been backed up.
After releasing a Google Play system update to patch it temporarily, Google this week launched its monthly software update for November 2023, which should fix the issue on the Pixel 6, Pixel 6a, 6 Pro, 7, 7 Pro, 7a, Tablet, Fold, Pixel 8, and Pixel 8 Pro.
As The Verge notes, this update may not let people recover data they lost from the boot-loop issue. In an Oct. 29 update to its IssueTracker website, Google said it was "investigating methods that may be able to recover some data [and would] provide more information as soon as it is available."
The update, meanwhile, also fixes a bug that was "occasionally causing a green flash when the display is turning off" on the Pixel 7 Pro (though it does not seem to address an Always On Display problem that turns text pink), an NFC instability issue, and an issue on the Pixel 8 and Pixel 8 Pro that resulted in occasional screen jerkiness. There are also fixes for misaligned wallpapers and missing desktop icons.
According to Google, the update should take about a week to hit everybody's devices depending on their phone model and mobile carrier.