How to Prevent Pixel 6A from Battery Downgrade Update

This guide will show you an interesting method to prevent your Pixel 6A from installing the battery downgrade update. If you are living under a rock for the past few weeks, then let allow us to explain to you what has been going on with the Pixel 6A. Google is deliberately downgrading the device’s battery via an OTA update after a few reports of battery overheating issues [and some reports of battery exploding as well].

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Google’s Notice About Pixel 6A Battery Update

On Google part, it is doing so to prevent any further damage to the device and the OEM even went a step ahead and offered the users some goodies as well [either free battery replacement, $100 cash, or $150 Google Store credit]. However, still, this wasn’t enough to justify this action of theirs, atleast this what is echoed by numerous users across the globe .

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On top of that, there’s a separete issue in the form of Anti Rollback Mechanism [which was implemented along with the May 2025 security update] for the Pixel 6 and 8 series. So if you thought that you can easily ditch the ‘battery degradation update’ by downgrading to an older build, then you’re out of luck. Well, at least the official way.

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An XDA user who goes by the name Pixel XDA has found out a rather intruiging but equally risky method using which you can easily downgrade your Pixel 6A from Android 16 to 14, bypassing the Anti Rollback Mechanism and even the dreaded battery downgrade update as well. So without any further ado, let’s show you what exactly is this tweak all about and how can you put it to the test.

How to Prevent Pixel 6A from Battery Downgrade Update

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Before starting, please take a complete device backup. As strange as it may sound, but even after downgrading your Pixel from Android 16 to 14, the bootloader version will stay the same, i.e. version 16.2. With that said, there’s still a major risk involved in carrying out this tweak and it might have some adverse impact on your battery as well [if your device is among the affected ones].

So proceed ahead with utmost caution and at your own risk. Droidwin and its members wouldn’t be held responsible in case of a thermonuclear war, your alarm doesn’t wake you up, or if anything happens to your device, and data by performing the below steps.

  1. To begin with, download & extract Android SDK Platform Tools .
  2. Now enable USB Debugging and OEM Unlocking on your device.
  3. Then unlock the device’s bootloader [take a backup beforehand].
  4. Now download the Android 14 firmware for your Pixel 6A device. Credit: XDA User Pixel XDA
  5. Then extract it and open the android-info.txt file using Notepad.
  6. Now, remove everything from that file except for the below text: require board=bluejay
  7. Then save the file. Finally, launch the flash-all.bat file to flash it.
  8. Once the flashing is complete, the device will boot to Android 14.
  • Fix Anti Rollback on Pixel 6/8 series after May 2025 Update
  • Guide to Flash iodeOS on Pixel and Lock Bootloader [Video]
  • How to Install /e/OS on Pixel 6A/6/6 Pro [De Googled ROM]
  • How to Install Android 16 Custom ROMs on Pixel 6/7/8/9
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  • Shahroz 5 months ago Reply Hey I am also the one affected by the new update on pixel 6a so I tried your method I got an error, Sending ‘bootloader_b’ (13794 KB) OKAY [ 0.332s] Writing ‘bootloader_b’ (bootloader) Flashing pack version bluejay-14.5-12088207 (bootloader) flashing platform gs101 (bootloader) Validating partition ufs (bootloader) Validating partition partition:0 (bootloader) Validating partition partition:1 (bootloader) Validating partition partition:2 (bootloader) Validating partition partition:3 (bootloader) Validating partition bl1_b (bootloader) image (bl1_b): rejected, anti-rollback (bootloader) failed to validate partition (bl1_b) FAILED (remote: ‘failed to flash partition (bootloader_b): -7’) fastboot: error: Command failed Rebooting into bootloader OKAY [ 0.000s] Finished. Total time: 0.002s Sending ‘radio_b’ (95280 KB) OKAY [ 2.333s] Writing ‘radio_b’ (bootloader) Flashing pack version g5123b-135085-240517-M-11857288 (bootloader) Flashing partition modem_b OKAY [ 0.162s] Finished. Total time: 2.530s Rebooting into bootloader OKAY [ 0.000s] Finished. Total time: 0.005s ——————————————– Bootloader Version…: bluejay-16.3-13316909 Baseband Version…..: g5123b-135085-240517-B-11857288 Serial Number……..: 19301FDEE003AS ——————————————– extracting android-info.txt (0 MB) to RAM… Checking ‘version-baseband’ OKAY [ 0.000s] Checking ‘product’ OKAY [ 0.001s] Checking ‘version-bootloader’ FAILED Device version-bootloader is ‘bluejay-16.3-13316909’. Update requires ‘bluejay-14.5-12088207’. fastboot: error: requirements not met! Press any key to exit… can you help me on this thanks.
  • Duwik 6 months ago Reply Can the bootloader be relocked?

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