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S
Skysurfer
New Member
June 3, 2025
Question

OEM Unlock toggle not available

  • June 3, 2025
  • 3 replies
  • 1 view

Hi all,

 

Recently joined the community, first time poster here.

 

TL;DR at the bottom.

 

Hopefully my question has a simple solution but I've looked everywhere (except here of course).
I'll try to keep this as simple as possible. Everything is in UAT if that matters.

 

The important bits:

  • Pixel 8a
  • Build BP1A.250505.005.B1
  • No SIM or eSIM
  • Android Enterprise registered to my UAT Tenant

I'm testing some scenarios for automating device compliance with Omnissa using Workspace ONE Intelligence. To test this successfully I'm going to need to flash back to an older Build and probably more than once for demo purposes.

 

The OEM Unlock toggle is not available however, and I this is preventing me from doing my testing.
I've read conflicting posts elsewhere regarding carrier unlock, SIM and/or eSIM etc. 

 

ADB is working fine but flashing older images is just not working. 

 

Any help from the community on how to get OEM unlock enabled would be greatly appreciated. 

 

TL;DR: Need to flash a pre 250505 build to my Pixel 8a. Can't toggle OEM unlock as it's greyed out. 

 

3 replies

S
SkysurferAuthor
New Member
June 3, 2025

I think I may have found my own answer here... 

 

According to the official Factory Images page:

 

Warning: The May 2025 update for Pixel 6 (6, 6 Pro, 6a) and Pixel 8 (8, 8 Pro, 8a) devices contains a bootloader update that increments the anti-roll back version for the bootloader. This prevents the device from rolling back to previous vulnerable versions of the bootloader. After flashing the May 2025 update on these devices you won't be able to flash and boot older Android 15 builds.

    M
    Moombas
    Level 4.4: KitKat
    June 3, 2025

    I'm curious now as i never saw it being possible to downgrade Android devices except on enterprise devices like Zebra and also unlocking enterprise (enrolled) devices seem to me somehow weird and wrong. 

    But maybe others can tell here if my personal understanding that this is expected behavior is maybe wrong.

      Lizzie
      Lizzie
      Community Manager
      June 4, 2025

      Welcome @Skysurfer - great to see your post. 

       

      Thanks for the updated to your question here, it's a good spot I hadn't realised that either - sorry it's not quite the information you were looking to hear. Do you have any workaround you can do here? 

       

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