How do I stop a system update while downloading?

[miamicuse]

I have an HTC 10. I have heard so many horror stories on significant battery drain issue after the Oreo update so I have not updated to Oreo yet. I have read somewhere the issue has been resolved on Android's end but there is no more update on the HTC end to incorporate this update for the HTC 10. So every time the Oreo system update prompt came up I did not allow to update to proceed. I had it set to update only on WIFI and always ask me prior.

This morning I must have accidentally hit OK when the prompt came up while I was scrolling the screen for something else and it started to update. I immediately turned off WIFI but it continued the download with my mobile data. So I turned off mobile data as well on my phone. Right now I am at:

Software Update: 3.16.617.2 (1.32GB) Download is paused because your data connection was lost.

Shows a status bar at 3%.

I cannot find a way to cancel or stop this download and subsequent update. Is there a way?

I tried long press on the download screen, the Updater only has options of: Block all, Show silently, On the lock screen, Override do not disturb, all having to do with notification presentations but nothing to cancel the download altogether.

I went into Settings > Apps and popped up Device Configuration and did a FORCE STOP. that didn't do anything. There is an option there to UNINSTALL UPDATES but I didn't touch it since the update hasn't started yet and not sure if this app even deal with system updates.

 

[golpe]

I had a similar situation on my Samsung Galaxy Note 5. I took the battery out and the sim card and rebotet. Then I did reset the phone and the phone could be reused. Maybe that works also for you.

golpe

 

[Hadron]

The HTC 10 doesn't have a user-removable battery. But neither does the Note 5, so I don't know how you did what you say yourself.

Yes, I'm sure a factory reset would stop the update, but that's a pain in its own way. I think it will ask you before installing once it downloads, but I've not done an OTA update on a HTC of this generation so don't recall whether it will offer a chance to delete it. I expect the update itself will download to somewhere you'd need root to delete it using a file explorer.

 

[miamicuse]

Just tried a Wipe Cache Partition and rebooted. The system download is still being queued. There is no way to stop this?

I am surprise it will continue to download this huge file even with WIFI off. I had it set to not download any updates unless WIFI, but I guess now I understand it means this is only checked when download started, once it started it will download on my cellular network if WIFI goes out of range? This is a poor design.

Now if I let it download, is there a way to stop the update once the download is completed?

 

[miamicuse]

I went ahead and turned on WIFI to allow the downloading to complete. Once it completed it asked me about installing with two options:

Install Now
Install Later

I selected Install Later and it gave me a choice of being reminded again in:

30 minutes
1 hour
2 hours
4 hours

So I selected 4 hours and dismissed it for now. It will ask again in 4 hours, I assume there is no way to dismiss it for a month or a year.

So now I have two questions:

(1) Is there a way to disable this reminder prompt?
(2) Where is this downloaded file? Can I find it with a file manager and delete it? and if it is deleted will it trigger an auto download again or will it go back to just prompting me to download once in a while like before?

 

[Hadron]

Deleting it should stop the prompts, but I strongly suspect that it will be in the /data/data area, which you won't be able to access without root. Different manufacturers and different software versions store downloads in different places, but as I remember you needed root to copy an OTA file before installing (they can be of interest to modders), so the same will apply to deleting. Can't guarantee that's right, but I'll be surprised if you can access it without root.

 

[miamicuse]

well, now I have done it. LOL.

I didn't want to install the system update, but it happened, accidentally. I was out and about, and was in a middle of texting someone, and for a split second while I typed, the system update screen popped up. Since I was in the middle of typing, it took my typing as a confirmation to "Install Now" and began the update. Never mind I only had 31% of battery left at that time and never mind I was not even home and needed the phone. I just can't imagine Google never even bothered with a "Are you sure you want to update now?" prompt. Incredible.

So after it finished the update, a good 30 minutes later, it rebooted, then did more updates, rebooted, and eventually, it started up again, and a lock screen pattern dialog popped up. I put in my pattern and it says it is not recognized. I am certain the pattern is the one I set. Yet something caused the correct pattern to not be recognized. So now I no longer can access my phone. It says I have 28 more tries before it deletes all phone data.

So now I am totally crippled without a chance to even back up all my data.

Anyone know of a way to bypass the lock screen pattern?

If I have to factory reset in order to access my phone again, will the reset bring back Android 7 (original delivered version of the phone) or will it be Oreo (new updated version)?

 

[KBU2]

First question answer first, It may not have been a good idea to stop that update because it can screw up your device and in some cases brick the device and having you to access it from a computer to get it up and running again. But that depends on the device and the software that was being downloaded. If you got the space on your device I would let it finish out then you try to see if there's a way to remove it without damaging the device. But having a critical update hanging in limbo is not a good idea all together.

 

[Hadron]

A factory reset will not revert the OS. All that a reset does is wipe user data, it doesn't change anything on the system partition.