I preordered the Jolla phone 2026 and, having to wait for it to be released, I wanted to tinker with SailfishOS on a Sony Xperia 10 III in the meantime.
That Sony phone runs Android 13 and I don’t have a Windows PC (Linux only) which means I cannot use the Windows-only EMMA tool to revert to Android 11 for the available SailfishOS image to be flashed.
Are there other ways to flash SailfishOS onto my Sony phone with Android 13 or to revert back to Android 11?
Any help would be greatly appreciated as I am new to this community and need your support.
Thanks in advance!
jwalesch
EDIT:
I’ve read in other posts on this forum that flashing SailfishOS (intended for Android 11) onto Android 13 can be done. But trying that I’ve run into another problem:
When trying to flash the SW_binaries_for_Xperia_Android_11_4.19_v9a_lena.img my computer says it cannot find the needed img file in the directory. But I’m certain everything needed (flashing tools and the Android_11-img) are in the correct same directory.
This is the output of my terminal when I try to flash the SailfishOS image:
~/Handy/JOLLA/Sailfish_OS-Jolla-5.0.0.72-xqbt52-1.0.1.48$ sudo ./flash.sh
Legen Sie Ihren Finger auf den Fingerabdruckleser
Flash utility v1.2
Detected Linux
Searching device to flash..
Found XQ-BT52, serial:HQ619U1DAB, baseband:62.2.A.0.533, bootloader:1322-1665_X_Boot_SM6350_LA2.0.2_T_205
Found matching device with serial HQ619U1DAB
Fastboot command: fastboot -s HQ619U1DAB
So, I had another idea: What if my USB cable was defective? I tried a rater new one, one that is designed for high capacity up- and downloads. This is what happened:
So, hooray, we got to the binary img file, the one for Android 11 as intended by Jolla!
But what does “Requested download size is more than max allowed” mean???
I had downloaded that image afresh just before my flashing attempts.
Or does that error mean that “userdata” uses up too much space for the whole flashing process to go through all the way? (userdata partition size: 112111374336, userdata image size: 140728838122184)
The problem doesn’t seem to be a faulty USB connection or a faulty cable but the size of the needed userdata image. As I’m not sure what that image actually is I just presume the error (see above) means the SO image cannot be flashed onto the phone because it is larger than the partition it needs to be flashed to.
Correct?
Whenever I tried a different binary image (Android 12 and 13 I tested) it gave me the error “The supported Sony Vendor partition image wasn’t found in the current directory.” Only when I used “SW_binaries_for_Xperia_Android_12_4.19_v2a_lena.img” did I get as far with the flashing process as reported.
If you search this forum for the error message, you’ll probably find others who have come across the same issue and also a solution to it. I think it was option -S in the flashing command for setting larger maximum file size or something like that.
I did this with Windows PC, following the instructions exactly. I didn’t have any problems when flashing over Android 13. But as I have learned after is that flashing over A12 is better option as I have lost audio bug present. At least one user has experimented and Android 12 fixed that bug
Sorry but you really need to walk us through the process with all commands & output and any other relevant info. It does not enable us to help you if you guess what could be wrong.
I read somewhere that when flashing a large img file (the SO image I’m trying to flash is about 1.9 GB) I might have to add a flag that allows the large img file to be accepted.
Not sure if you could resolve these two points, so I’ll add my two cents.
This should work if you run the script from the correct directory. However, if you try flashing something else than the recommended binaries you will need to edit the file that lists accepted versions. You will also have to update checksums to pass the integrity check made by the flashing script.
When I experience this error it helps running the fastboot flash command with -S 512K. Again, if you modify the script, you will need to update the checksum file.
Only thing I did differently was to run sudo ./flash.sh --extra-opts “-S 512K” to get around this error: " FAILED (remote: Requested download size is more than max allowed)"