Under normal use, a series of Pixel 3 and Pixel 3 XL suddenly turned into “brick”

For months, Pixel 3 and Pixel 3 XL – two 3-year-old Google phone models have been complained by many users about a common and extremely scary error, causing their device to randomly get stuck. in EDL mode when powered on and becomes a true “paperweight”.

If you don’t know, EDL (or Emergency Download Mode) is a feature developed by Qualcomm that allows users to recover data, flash ROMs and unbrick mobile devices. In EDL mode, the phone’s screen won’t show anything and the physical keys are also completely disabled. In other words, Pixel 3 or Pixel 3 XL stuck in EDL mode will not be able to boot into Android and cannot be used as usual.

Many users reported this issue to Google from last December until most recently yesterday (August 31), not only on Reddit but also on the Google Pixel support forum. According to some users, their Pixel 3 has EDL error after updating the security patch and is running Android 11 operating system.

Affected devices can still charge (both wired and wirelessly), but the screen won’t work, and if plugged into a PC, the computer will recognize it as “QUSB_BULK_CID” and with it a message serial number. This shows that the phone is in EDL mode, a feature that comes with the Qualcomm chipset for data recovery and emergency reset.

The issue above is similar to the source error that occurred with the Pixel 4 XL, so severe that Google had to extend the warranty period to 2 years for affected users. Currently, Google has not given any official response regarding this issue.

Normally, the phone will exit EDL mode if the battery runs out, and at this point, the user can turn it on to reboot into Android. However, it is quite surprising that after plugging in the charger, Pixel 3 is immediately returned to EDL and recognized by the computer with the familiar name “QUSB_BULK_CID”.

Over the past few months, an increasing number of Pixel 3 and Pixel 3 XL users have encountered EDL errors. At the present time, both these phones are out of warranty (discontinued from March 2020), so it remains to be seen how Google will fix the problem.