Anyone Know How To Unbrick A Google Nexus Tablet?

@Bingo - Particularly, look at videos from RootJunky.

@PlacidPenguin Thank you. I’ll check those out.

@Bingo

So… I’ve been doing some more searching. Unfortunately (well for you in this case), these exploits have been patched monthly.

I looked on XDA and didn’t see anything helpful (since exploits for Samsung devices wouldn’t help you).

Your best bet would probably be to contact Amazon (since HTC would just direct you to speak to Google, and Google may tell you to speak to wherever you bought it from) and hope they can help in some way (unlikely though).

I suppose you could try what @f00l suggested down below, but again, it all comes down to how much that would cost vs buying a replacement tablet etc.

@ACraigL @Bingo

That would normally help… If the Gmail account was removed first.

However, when it’s reset while attached to a Gmail account, FRP takes effect.

@PlacidPenguin @Bingo If you can prove ownership, I can’t believe google couldn’t assist. Not that they have an accessible phone number or anything.

@ACraigL

Nexus and Pixel devices have a support thing built-in, but it wouldn’t help @Bingo much.

@Bingo

I suppose if you have another Nexus device lying around you could set up a call through that device about this issue.

I’d set it up for you, but even though they allow a different phone, they still will use the main email address tied to the phone which means I’d get any correspondence about this issue sent to me, unless that’s not a big concern…

@medz

So not only will @Bingo be left with a Nexus 9 which can’t be unlocked, but it will have a cracked screen (and maybe a dent) as well.

@PlacidPenguin @medz Hey if I can’t get past the google account, it certainly wouldn’t make it any less useful to me lol

@alphapeaches

Not really sure iFixit would be much use anyways. This is a software thing, not a hardware thing.

(Unless @Bingo decides to follow the advice of @medz and throw the Nexus 9 on the ground.)

@PlacidPenguin which is why I’d reccommend taking it to the Answers forum. It’s a pretty big community, but not 100% chance of getting an answer.

@jbartus

Does one?

@djslack
How would one “Call Google”?

Go outside and yell? Fly a megaphone drone past the Corp HQ?

@f00l @djslack

One does not call the Google. The Google calls the one.

@f00l Just type your question into a search box, or utter it aloud in the presence of a a Google Home Shrine. I think that gets word to them directly.

@djslack @f00l @PlacidPenguin I speak to Google relatively often as regards Google Apps accounts because as awesome as they are they screw things up from time to time.

@Bingo (855) 836-3987 – Option 2 then Option 1. I dared not go any further for fear of wasting somebody’s time as I didn’t have the actual issue but that’ll get you into Technical Support -> Phone / Tablet which would be your best bet, I think, for finding what, if any, options exist for your company. Make sure to let them know you can provide proof of sale and whatnot.

@jbartus

I constantly forget about GetHuman.

Meanwhile, I just remembered why I don’t like 800notes. (On the bright side, the default dialer for Nexus/Pixel has a built in spam detector, so I generally avoid 800notes.)

@jbartus Learn something new every day. I honestly did not believe it was possible to call google in any kind of support capacity.

@djslack
I know a small co who does email calendar and other services thru Google. Pays per employee per year for 800# priority support

/giphy I’ll see you in court!

@f00l even if they’re on retainer a retainer is often representative of a certain number of billable hours at the usual or discounted rate so, unless such hours lapse or their retainer agreement is structured differently the effective cost it probably effectively the same considering lawyers’ rates and the cost of a tablet.

¯\_(ツ)_/¯

@f00l
/youtube Weird Al I’ll sue ya!

@jbartus
Not so expensive around here. (Assume prestige law firm). If you have a lawyer on retainer, such a letter ought to be less than $100-$150 I would think. That’s because the lawyer will discuss w the client for perhaps 5 min and a paralegal will do the rest, and the lawyer’s office already has on hand, and helped draft, all the relevant policies.

There are reasons to send a letter, beyond the immediate goal of unlocking the tablet. Such as setting certain precedents in corporate conduct. Or being able to prove someone was formally put on notice and create a paper trail.

That’s assuming a lawyer charges $300-400/hr or so.

Large corps often have much of this in-house.

So sez my bro. Who is a lawyer in a prestigious firm and bills out at a nice rate.

@f00l if they’re doing well enough to hire such a prestige firm and have them on retainer I’d be surprised that they’re fussing over a $400-500 tablet that has often sold for far far less.

@jbartus
The point I intended was that even with a prestige firm, the legal cost of such a letter would be quite limited. With a cheaper lawyer, the cost ought to be even less.

As for what corps spend money on: the only way to be truly efficient will small one-time costs is to be a very small company, so small that every expense can be weighed and measured against alternatives. If you’re in a small co, the cost of the letter might or might not be intrinsically worthwhile. If you’re in a larger co, the employees of a given dept might have considerable latitude to choose what to spend one-time small money on, depending on the dept.

In a biz big enough to have even a few employees, likely a one-time $500 tablet write-off is not economically a big deal no matter what. It’s just irritating not to be able to recover the tablet easily, and sometimes companies will choose to spend for expenses that might not make sense to someone specializing in financial efficiency. Companies handle stuff like this in individual ways, and I don’t know if there is “one best path”.

@f00l eh, using your reasoning they’d probably get more mileage getting a lawyer to write a letter to the former employee than Google. Company the size of Google it could take quite a bit of back and forth between lawyers before anything gets done.

I still think a $100-150 letter for a $200 device is silly.

@jbartus
Was intending to suggest a letter to the employee only.

Sending a letter to Google would at best be a monumental waste of time and $, and might make things worse.

And re waste of time and money: yeah the whole thing is likely that over a tablet worth a few hundred bucks, in terms of time and $ efficiency. But @Bingo asked … and it’s an ongoing irritant to employees who are prob pretty valuable. So … ?

Companies are gonna do what companies are gonna do. To a degree, so are employees. Not everything can be about pure efficiency or people go nuts.

@f00l @jbartus I will say having one of our lawyers craft a letter did cross my mind even before this but in the long run it’s just not worth the time and effort for a sub $500 tablet. It’s more the ongoing irritant to me that this person was able to do this mostly due to my not thinking of this problem to start with. In the end I’ll tinker with some of the various suggestions put forth in this thread on my own time and for my own edification more than anything. That and the knowledge that I can tinker at will not worrying about breaking something of my own since this is already unusable in the current state it is in.

@Bingo Use it for parts.

@mfladd

@ilyashap lol. That would be epic but would open us up to massive liability which I’m not going to do. Certainly not over a $400 tablet.

@AllStarFame It’s a random account he used when the device was setup. Previously, we never forced a specific account when giving out test devices.

@Gumby @Bingo

I was thinking of that, but then I realized that if it were so simple like that, FRP would be completely pointless and it would be easy to steal and keep devices.