Having your smartphone stuck in a bootloop is a nasty business, and as we have seen in the past, it could lead to lawsuits. Perhaps having learnt from the lessons of the Nexus 5X and Nexus 6P bootloop problems, it seems that Google will be introducing a new feature to the recently announced Android 8.0 Oreo that will fix it.According to Google, this new feature will be known as Rescue Party, which apparently will help devices stuck in a bootloop to get “un-stuck” from a bootloop. Google writes, “Android 8.0 includes a feature that sends out a “rescue party” when it notices core system components stuck in crash loops. Rescue Party then escalates through a series of actions to recover the device.”
If that fails, “As a last resort, Rescue Party reboots the device into recovery mode and prompts the user to perform a factory reset.” For those unfamiliar, bootloops are sometimes caused by corrupt app files, faulty installs, and broken system files, which is why it is usually advised that you have enough battery in your phone to complete an update, lest the phone shuts down halfway and leads to faulty installs and bad system files.
We’re not sure effective the Rescue Party feature will be yet, but hopefully it will work as advertised. Unfortunately it seems that for now, Rescue Party will be a feature in Android 8.0 Oreo only, so older Android devices that don’t receive the update won’t be able to benefit from it.
Filed in . Read more about Android, Android 8.0 Oreo and Google.