Plenty of problems after unlocking Bootloader (Xperia Z5 Dual)

[Armen Alexnanian]

I have recently moved from iOS to Android, but there are some default stuff that really bother me within the phone, mainly Google's emojis. I read up on it and it turned out I have to root it to change the emojis to Apple's. Ever since unlocking Bootloader, the following things have happened:

• Complete data wipe (even from microSD)
• Fingerprint unlocking not functioning ("hardware not found")
• Camera crashed completely ("hardware not found" once more)
• Audio through headphones are super bass-y

The audio part only happens with certain files. For example, music from Soundcloud sounds totally normal, but on YouTube it is missing most of the audio spectrum. Also, recordings that I send on What'sApp sound normal, but when I receive them, once again the only sound like bass. And this only happens with headphones. I have checked, and my headphones function perfectly well on my laptop. I have even changed the cable and it's still causing the same problem on my phone. At this point all I want to do it lock Bootloader and never touch it again.

It has been a terrible experience with Android so far, just like the first time I tried to switch to Android back in 2011. If anyone has any advice or a solution to these problems, please let me know. I'll just have to suffer until I get my next upgrade. There has been no pull factor to this OS so far, it's difficult to comprehend why people actually like it...

 

[saltire]

I've never had an Xperia Z device, but did look at the Z3C when choosing my last phone. But doing a bit of research revealed that the process of unlocking the bootloader would delete (re-format?) the TA partition that removes some essential DRM keys and hence breaks video/display, audio and camera functions. Owners were desparate to find a solution to root in order to be able to backup the TA partition before then unlocking the bootloader. Unfortunately this is likely to be the same or harder to achieve for the Z5 and I don't think there's a way back either - but a proper search may yield results.

Unfortunately for you the experience has been terrible because you unlocked the bootloader without realising this does break some fairly essential stuff on Sony's Xperia line. If you hadn't taken this step then I'm sure you would have been a lot happier with the whole Android experience. Hard lesson learned I guess, and would say this applies to any Android device but check first what the consequences of unlocking/rooting are before actually doing them.

Both this site and xda are the first places I'd recommend to look for device specific resources.