Nothing Phone (1) OS 1.5.3 freezes and ramdumps during boot after boot.img is patched

[LukeSkyD]

With unlocked bootloader and stock boot the phone works ok; with a patched boot img freezes and/or ramdumps during use are common.
Sometimes they happen right after boot, other times they can take a while.
This happens with and without modules installed, with or without zygisk as users have reported.
In the crashLog file i encountered a freeze, no ramdump.

Device: Nothing Phone (1)
Android version: 13
Nothing OS Version: 1.5.3 and 1.5.3 HOTFIX are affected, both EEA and Global variant of the phone, <= 1.5.2 versions work fine
Magisk version name: 25.2 but also d251c288
Magisk version code: 25205, 25210

crashLog.txt

Photo of a user reported ramdump

EDIT:
Here are some boot images:
1.5.2 stock
1.5.2 magisk
(they are both working)

1.5.3 stock
1.5.3 magisk

1.5.3.hotfix stock
1.5.3.hotfix magisk
(magisk patched boot freezes)

EDIT 2:
In my naivity i thought it was a problem with the ramdisk, so i packed a custom boot img with 1.5.2 magisk patched ramdisk and 1.5.3.hotfix boot and kernel, still crashed.
I've noticed the phone crashing a lot more with app like discord opened in background. Also discord disconnects my client easily if i multitask opening other apps.

Using the phone slowly seems to mitigate the problem, like it seems the phone boots things before it actually loaded them correctly.
Example: the phone crashes a lot faster if at boot i immediately unlock, open discord and join a voice server with a bluetooth headset, exit while still connected and open like a magazine app.

I don't get crashes only at apps' startup, even during normal use, like yt in background with some music at a certain time the music stops like the buffering but without the loading circle, the phone is still usable for 2 seconds and then freeze.

I checked the ram usage and it never goes over 3.5GB or very rarely so it doesn't seem like a memory leak is the cause.

[Whatsek]

I have the same problem, on my nothing phone 1 after the latest 1.5.3 update. Unlocked bootloader, Magisk with 3 modules. I amusing this config on this phone from the beginning, without any problems, so it has something to do with the 1.5.3 update.

[pannal]

Same here, restored original boot imgs, now the phone is stable again. Sadly there's no way to downgrade to 1.5.2 AFAIK.

[yujincheng08]

maybe you trigger a crash without zygisk and any modules and share the bugreport? Cannot see anything useful from the log tho.

[yujincheng08]

BTW, can you adb when the phone freezes? If so, you'd better capture bugreport during freeze.

[pannal]

Just tried that. ADB still works when the whole system is frozen - I managed to start capturing a bugreport, but it stuck at 0%. ADB shell was still possible afterwards, but then the dumpstatez service seems to have crashed:

C:\WINDOWS\system32>adb bugreport F:\__ANDROID\nothing1\bugreports
^C 0%] generating bugreport-SpacewarEEA-TKQ1.220915.002-2023-03-23-14-05-57.zip
C:\WINDOWS\system32>adb devices
List of devices attached
P2126A001028    device


C:\WINDOWS\system32>adb shell
Spacewar:/ $ ls
acct        config         dev              lost+found  oem          second_stage_resources  system_ext
apex        d              etc              metadata    postinstall  storage                 vendor
bin         data           init             mnt         proc         sys                     vendor_dlkm
bugreports  data_mirror    init.environ.rc  odm         product      system
cache       debug_ramdisk  linkerconfig     odm_dlkm    sdcard       system_dlkm
Spacewar:/ $ exit

C:\WINDOWS\system32>adb bugreport F:\__ANDROID\nothing1\bugreports
adb: device failed to take a zipped bugreport: Failed to connect to dumpstatez service: Connection refused

C:\WINDOWS\system32>adb shell
Spacewar:/ $ exit

C:\WINDOWS\system32>adb bugreport F:\__ANDROID\nothing1\bugreports
adb: device failed to take a zipped bugreport: Failed to connect to dumpstatez service: Connection refused

Once a magisk-patched boot img is used, any process that uses a lot of resources seems to crash almost immediately - SystemUI with it. I've triggered the freeze by using ReVanced to patch a YT apk - it froze after about 5 seconds, UI completely stuck and unusable (the above is from that time).

Edit: I'll try once more, but not much hope over here.
Edit 2: No dice. This was with zygisk on and modules active. I'll try with everything off.

Edit 3: With zygisk and modules off, it seems to take a little longer to crash, but still no dice with the bugreport, as the service crashed at 8% (phone freeze):

C:\WINDOWS\system32>adb bugreport F:\__ANDROID\nothing1\bugreports
[  8%] generating bugreport-SpacewarEEA-TKQ1.220915.002-2023-03-23-14-21-51.zip

Edit 4: All those freezes seem to have corrupted my partition slot A (doesn't boot anymore); B works, but I'm not inclined to continue and risk a softbrick tbh.

[LukeSkyD]

Just triggered a crash without zygisk and modules but im at work, as soon as I'm home i'll try to upload an android crash report

To cause a crash
Two phases, divided by a reboot:
Collect a bluetooth headset to the phone
Open discord and connect to a voice channel

REBOOT THE PHONE

As soon as it boots, unlock it, open discord so that it automatically reconnects
Now start opening apps but the phone should crash almost immediatly.

I then rebooted, went to developer option to get a complete bug report.

There could be sensitive data, is there a way i can send it to you privately?

CrashLog.txt was produced by logcat through adb.

EDIT: Producing a log while the phone crashes is impossible because it becomes irresponsive to anything.

[dxdvostfr]

Same problem here.

[LukeSkyD]

On my side I have the bug report from the 1st freeze, the one I've talked before, no zygisk but modules (busybox, systemless host and revanced) on:
bugreport-Spacewar-TKQ1.220915.002-2023-03-23-14-30-22.zip

2nd freeze, 00:14 cest 24/03, no zygisk, no modules, crashreport with adb logcat and bugreport with android
bugreport-Spacewar-TKQ1.220915.002-2023-03-24-00-13-55.zip
crashLog2.txt

Also a user on Telegram shared their logcat which they talked about it having irregularities
2023-03-23-21-39-24.txt

"This is a screenshot of the exact error which I found suspicious"

What I've noticed is that without zygisk the system moves from using around 3.5GB of ram to 4.1 average.
The phone crashes less frequently and more apps started at boot (immediatly after first unlocking the phone) are needed to crash it

EDIT: does magisk change the permission of something/a process in the system?

[canyie]

Since adb is accessible when problem happens, can you get me some logs by adb shell su -c dmesg > kernel.log and adb shell su -c getprop > prop.log when it freezes?

[HE7086]

I have the exact same problem on 1.5.3 with hotfix, and logcat looks exactly the same, so here are my logs attached (without zygisk):

kernel.log
prop.log

The way I trigger this is just randomly open many apps, as the discord method mentioned previously didn't work well for me.

Also I think this is related to memory, since memory usage during freeze is unusually high (normally it's around 4GiB used)

❯ adb shell    
Spacewar:/ $ free -h
                total        used        free      shared     buffers
Mem:              11G         11G        249M         74M        1.0M
-/+ buffers/cache:            11G        250M
Swap:            4.0G        1.1G        2.8G
Spacewar:/ $

It is worth noting that when freezing the device sometimes showed up as offline in adb, and the only way to interact with it is to long press the power button to reboot.

Hope these help.

[LukeSkyD]

Since adb is accessible when problem happens, can you get me some logs by adb shell su -c dmesg > kernel.log and adb shell su -c getprop > prop.log when it freezes?

Even if the device is in the adb devices list, the logs created are empty.
The phone doesn't answer back, it's completely frozen.

EDIT:
The phone lags with magisk
but lags more before crashing
logcatting this last phase does not produce anything because as soon as a log command is sent with adb the phone freezes.

The phone just rebooted on its own after freezing while locked
It's rare but maybe that can log more? i'll try to logcat

[pannal]

I have the exact same problem on 1.5.3 with hotfix, and logcat looks exactly the same, so here are my logs attached (without zygisk):

kernel.log prop.log

The way I trigger this is just randomly open many apps, as the discord method mentioned previously didn't work well for me.

Also I think this is related to memory, since memory usage during freeze is unusually high (normally it's around 4GiB used)

❯ adb shell    
Spacewar:/ $ free -h
                total        used        free      shared     buffers
Mem:              11G         11G        249M         74M        1.0M
-/+ buffers/cache:            11G        250M
Swap:            4.0G        1.1G        2.8G
Spacewar:/ $

It is worth noting that when freezing the device sometimes showed up as offline in adb, and the only way to interact with it is to long press the power button to reboot.

Hope these help.

In my case the freeze is always the whole system. Don't know why, but my apps don't crash - the whole phone freezes when it does.

[HE7086]

In my case the freeze is always the whole system. Don't know why, but my apps don't crash - the whole phone freezes when it does.

Yeah that's also my case, I suspect that the systemui got stuck because of OOM. Tried to restart the systemui from adb but it also stuck.

[LukeSkyD]

Since adb is accessible when problem happens, can you get me some logs by adb shell su -c dmesg > kernel.log and adb shell su -c getprop > prop.log when it freezes?

Nothing
When the phone freezes the phone outputs nothing
I've only have a logcat produced after the phone rebooted itself because before it is not seen.

out2.log

I've tried for three days to get any log but now i need a working phone and to use banking apps.
There are crashes and freezes but no response when adb commands are sent

It's much easier to get a logcat at freeze with zygisk and the log file is filled with super critical pressure event polling check, the "suspicious" error in the screenshot a user provided in one of my previous messages.

[SelfRef]

Two interesting situations I had were when I used Spotify and device froze but music still played via bluetooth speaker and I could change songs via remote device so both bluetooth stack and app still worked.

The second situation was while using camera app - the whole system froze but live preview in camera app was working - this was the only time app was showing some kind of UI update after freeze.

[Niecks90]

Same issue here, version 1.5.3 fresh installed with patched boot.

Multiples freezes (on Camera app, etc...), hard reboot is the only way to get phone works back.

EDIT : as noticed before I have the same issue with last Magisk Canary version

[Niecks90]

There is this in changelog of 1.5.3 maybe it's the cause of the issue
New memory management algorithm that reduces app restart times by over 35% and lowers CPU consumption to improve overall battery life. Improved system stability.

[amit548]

I have facing the same problem and I downgrade the OS 1.5.3 to 1.5.2

[aleqz]

I have facing the same problem and I downgrade the OS 1.5.3 to 1.5.2

Did you lose all your data?
What was the the tutorial you followed?
Thanks

[pannal]

There is this in changelog of 1.5.3 maybe it's the cause of the issue New memory management algorithm that reduces app restart times by over 35% and lowers CPU consumption to improve overall battery life. Improved system stability.

That would make a lot of sense IMHO. Most logs posted here had some kind of OOM issues.

Is anyone actively looking into this ticket? All up-to-date Nothing Phone 1's are affected.

[nomtix]

I have facing the same problem and I downgrade the OS 1.5.3 to 1.5.2

Did you lose all your data? What was the the tutorial you followed? Thanks

You have to flash 1.1.7 stock firmware via fastboot comands and then simply update to 1.5.2 with ota updates.
And yes you lose all your personal data, simply make a back up.

[TheNotOnly]

There is this in changelog of 1.5.3 maybe it's the cause of the issue New memory management algorithm that reduces app restart times by over 35% and lowers CPU consumption to improve overall battery life. Improved system stability.

That would make a lot of sense IMHO. Most logs posted here had some kind of OOM issues.

Is anyone actively looking into this ticket? All up-to-date Nothing Phone 1's are affected.

Might be a memory leak. I remember seeing the ram full and logcat showing lots of processes restarting over and over until the ramdump occurs.

[amit548]

I have facing the same problem and I downgrade the OS 1.5.3 to 1.5.2

Did you lose all your data? What was the the tutorial you followed? Thanks

I just use fastboot to flash full 1.1.7 version

[vvb2060]

If anyone finds the reason, please open a new issue.

[pannal]

If anyone finds the reason, please open a new issue.

Wait, how does closing this issue help here? What info do you need? We've tried to comply with the log requests as well as possible. If it's not enough, please point us in the right direction.

The only thing that'll happen is that people who have the same issue (everyone on Nothing Phone 1 with current firmware who tries to root) comes and creates a new duplicate ticket.

[dxdvostfr]

If anyone finds the reason, please open a new issue.

Wait, how does closing this issue help here? What info do you need? We've tried to comply with the log requests as well as possible. If it's not enough, please point us in the right direction.

The only thing that'll happen is that people who have the same issue (everyone on Nothing Phone 1 who tries to root) comes and creates a new duplicate ticket.

Yeah right

[gwolf2u]

how are you adding script?
personally made magisk module (maybe that's the issue)

[LukeSkyD]

how are you adding script? personally made magisk module (maybe that's the issue)

I created an .sh script on pc, pushed to the phone and then with termux copied it to /data/adb/post-fs-data.d
chmod +x scriptname and rebooted

Then i tried doing a magisk module which didn't set the persist.sys.mglru_enable property to false and now even with the older script resetprops does not set anything

i also tried it with the verbose option but it's not outputting anything. Magisk shows it executing tho

UPDATE: i tried rebooting into bootloader and then into system again, now with only the script in post-fs-data.d i again have the property set to false.

[Niecks90]

how are you adding script? personally made magisk module (maybe that's the issue)

I created an .sh script on pc, pushed to the phone and then with termux copied it to /data/adb/post-fs-data.d chmod +x scriptname and rebooted

Then i tried doing a magisk module which didn't set the persist.sys.mglru_enable property to false and now even with the older script resetprops does not set anything

i also tried it with the verbose option but it's not outputting anything. Magisk shows it executing tho

UPDATE: i tried rebooting into bootloader and then into system again, now with only the script in post-fs-data.d i again have the property set to false.

You don't have freeze anymore with this workaround?
Can you share your script pls?

[LukeSkyD]

how are you adding script? personally made magisk module (maybe that's the issue)

I created an .sh script on pc, pushed to the phone and then with termux copied it to /data/adb/post-fs-data.d chmod +x scriptname and rebooted
Then i tried doing a magisk module which didn't set the persist.sys.mglru_enable property to false and now even with the older script resetprops does not set anything
i also tried it with the verbose option but it's not outputting anything. Magisk shows it executing tho
UPDATE: i tried rebooting into bootloader and then into system again, now with only the script in post-fs-data.d i again have the property set to false.

You don't have freeze anymore with this workaround? Can you share your script pls?

Here's my Magisk module, it's working (at least for me).
Follow the guide in the readme

https://github.com/LukeSkyD/NP1-MGLRU-FIX

[gwolf2u]

how are you adding script? personally made magisk module (maybe that's the issue)

I created an .sh script on pc, pushed to the phone and then with termux copied it to /data/adb/post-fs-data.d chmod +x scriptname and rebooted
Then i tried doing a magisk module which didn't set the persist.sys.mglru_enable property to false and now even with the older script resetprops does not set anything
i also tried it with the verbose option but it's not outputting anything. Magisk shows it executing tho
UPDATE: i tried rebooting into bootloader and then into system again, now with only the script in post-fs-data.d i again have the property set to false.

You don't have freeze anymore with this workaround? Can you share your script pls?

Here's my Magisk module, it's working (at least for me). Follow the guide in the readme

https://github.com/LukeSkyD/NP1-MGLRU-FIX

your module acts exactly as mine
rebooting
cat /sys/kernel/mm/lru_gen/enabled -> 0x0000
entered pin / fingerprint
cat /sys/kernel/mm/lru_gen/enabled -> 0x0001 for split second then 0x0003

so for me doesn't work
however, entering command resetprop persist.sys.mglru_enable false seems to make system run fine without issues
so as far as I can tell @aviraxp was right

now all rest is for magisk "experts" to find a good way to fix this

[LukeSkyD]

how are you adding script? personally made magisk module (maybe that's the issue)

I created an .sh script on pc, pushed to the phone and then with termux copied it to /data/adb/post-fs-data.d chmod +x scriptname and rebooted
Then i tried doing a magisk module which didn't set the persist.sys.mglru_enable property to false and now even with the older script resetprops does not set anything
i also tried it with the verbose option but it's not outputting anything. Magisk shows it executing tho
UPDATE: i tried rebooting into bootloader and then into system again, now with only the script in post-fs-data.d i again have the property set to false.

You don't have freeze anymore with this workaround? Can you share your script pls?

Here's my Magisk module, it's working (at least for me). Follow the guide in the readme
https://github.com/LukeSkyD/NP1-MGLRU-FIX

your module acts exactly as mine rebooting cat /sys/kernel/mm/lru_gen/enabled -> 0x0000 entered pin / fingerprint cat /sys/kernel/mm/lru_gen/enabled -> 0x0001 for split second then 0x0003

so for me doesn't work however, entering command resetprop persist.sys.mglru_enable false seems to make system run fine without issues so as far as I can tell @aviraxp was right

now all rest is for magisk "experts" to find a good way to fix this

We are gettin off topic with this but mine stays at zero, try to check for other modules or settings in your phone.

Anyway if freezes or crashes are encountered i will update this thread.

If 24h passes without issue i'll also let you know

[Nixola]

Hi, I just wanted to mention disabling mglru seems to work on my phone, though the Magisk module doesn't (same issue as gwolf2u). It's only been a few hours without crashes, but since the longest I've went with Magisk on the latest firmware was about 5 minutes before having to force a reboot, I'd at the very least call it an improvement.

[LukeSkyD]

Hi, I just wanted to mention disabling mglru seems to work on my phone, though the Magisk module doesn't (same issue as gwolf2u). It's only been a few hours without crashes, but since the longest I've went with Magisk on the latest firmware was about 5 minutes before having to force a reboot, I'd at the very least call it an improvement.

Try this new version if it keeps changing maybe magisk is logging something about it

https://github.com/LukeSkyD/NP1-MGLRU-FIX/releases/tag/V2

Remember to perform a cold boot

Still no crashes for now, I've rebooted the phone one time for the module's update, seems like MGLRU is the culprit.

[aviraxp]

Multiple devices and kernel have ported mglru but unlike np1, most of them are 5.10 kernel devices. Not sure if Nothing ported it right, or it is a real compality issue.

I would suspect it is actually related to some weird cgroup issue as magiskd switched cgroup to prevent itself from being killed.

[LukeSkyD]

Multiple devices and kernel have ported mglru but unlike np1, most of them are 5.10 kernel devices. Not sure if Nothing ported it right, or it is a real compality issue.

I would suspect it is actually related to some weird cgroup issue as magiskd switched cgroup to prevent itself from being killed.

uname -r returns 5.4.197-qgki-g2efe4411886f

/sys/kernel/debug does not exists tho, is there another way to find any useful log about mglru or cgroup?

[yujincheng08]

Based on the current investigation, I wonder if there's something Magisk should do about it. For NP users, maybe a custom module for this is more helpful. 🤔

[LukeSkyD]

So far only two people out of around 50 reported freezes with mglru disabled
One was running an emulator app and got multiple freezes but i don't expected a system with a key feature disabled to be 100% stable in all environments.
The other opened the camera and froze.

The module only mitigates the problem.

So Nothing's implementation of mglru is the problem.
But i don't know if its a problem of the boot img or magisk not handling memory correctly
Should i test something else?

[aviraxp]

Multiple custom kernels with MGLRU does not have issues (mostly 5.10+ kernel). So I will suggest that Nothing did sth wrong. Actually Nothing gets patches from a Google port of MGLRU (https://android-review.googlesource.com/c/kernel/common/+/2324610/5). MGLRU is new and many fixes are not ported in this chain.

[Bert-Proesmans]

I installed a magisk module to disable the lru feature yesterday. I'm 100% sure getprop persist.sys.mglru_enable said false, and /sys/kernel/mm/lru_gen/enabled said 0, after pin-entry. This morning my phone froze after 20 minutes of Android Auto usage, and I rebooted.
I check just now and getprop persist.sys.mglru_enable says true. No new freezes since this morning though, and I used Android Auto again for ~25 minutes.

LukeSkyD's module is installed at this moment and I'll triple check if mglru stays disabled tonight.

[gwolf2u]

there seems to be some trigger in the system that sets the prop to true again resulting in a crash
I've made a different magisk module that checkes for prop status every 30 seconds (because sometimes the crash occurs after a minute, so let's be safe) and resets back to false
feel free to use it guys if interested
https://github.com/gwolf2u/MGLRU-Disabler/releases/tag/4.0

[aviraxp]

there seems to be some trigger in the system that sets the prop to true again resulting in a crash
I've made a different magisk module that checkes for prop status every 30 seconds (because sometimes the crash occurs after a minute, so let's be safe) and resets back to false
feel free to use it guys if interested
https://github.com/gwolf2u/MGLRU-Disabler/releases/tag/4.0

How about chown/chmod that 'enabled' node...

[yujincheng08]

1.5.4 should have fixed this issue.

[LukeSkyD]

Lru_gen/enabled is set to 1, not 3 anymore

I've been using .4 for around 18h and no crashes or freezes so far, no crashes reported by the community either