Google Offers Additional Instructions to Pixel 6 Users Who Have Flashed Android 13.

The “inactive” slot is a bootloader that has been rolled back. This can cause issues if your flash fails or you have to reinstall the device. Android will attempt to boot from the inactive slots by design. However, this is against vulnerability protection. Your phone won’t turn on if it is Android 12 (or the older bootloader).

If you flashed Android 13

Google provided instructions Thursday afternoon on how to prevent this particular issue from ever arising. This involves changing the inactive slot on Android 12 to Android 13 Sideloading an OTA file – which updates your inactive slot – is the easiest option. However, there are steps to using factory images.

This process is intended primarily for those (i.e. Tinkerers who want to flash their devices with a factory image or a custom image (built using AOSP).

Google will soon update the Android FlashTool, which flashes active slots, such as fast boot, and prompts to flash inactive slots with the Android 13 bootloader.

If you have used the Android 13 OTA

Sideloaded users — a process without device/data wiping — received an Android 13 OTA Image or the on-device OTA (which Google recommends) and don’t intend to flash (again different from sideloading). They “don’t need to take any actions for now.”

We were also told by the company that the problem is very unlikely to affect the vast majority of locked bootloaders users. The inactive slot will be updated by the next OTA (probably the September security patch or sideload).

Kyle Bradshaw and Dylan Roussel both contributed to this article.