Nexus 7 reported to be bricked on Android 5.0 or higher Lollipop

Android Lollipop is one of the best updates in the history of the OS. This version is famous for its lot of added features, but it is getting the complaints equally from the users about its several bugs and issues. The issues include the minor problems like crash of some features, and some major problems like bricking of the device. According to the latest reports, the update in the Nexus 7 tablet (both 2012 and 2013) versions is causing the devices to bricked on Android 5.0 or higher Lollipop.

Though several of the Nexus 7 users are complaining about their devices going bricked after they have installed the Android 5.0 or higher versions of the Lollipop update, both Google and Asus (which worked together to manufacture the tablet, the former for the software part and latter for the hardware part) do not seem to be concerned about it.

Users,who are suffering the issue in their devices, are expressing their outrage on twitter under the hashtag #Nexus7bricked. There are also a lot of threads on the product forum of google complaining about the issue, both on popular and new threads. Some of the complaints by users:

• I’ve just have the same problem. I have a Nexus 7 2013 only wifi.It was working fine. I think I was listening to music on Spotify and suddenly it switched off. When I switched on again, the logo Google stuck on screen and nothing else.I tried hard reset and recovery mode and still the logo Google on screen.I’ve tried the quick tricks like dropping, massage and drying battery but they didnt work. Now I will try to install the factory image… Probably it also didnt work but no other solution at the moment. Desperate. Now I have an expensive digital frame with two pictures: Google logo or android ready to surgery. I keep watching the forum for next answers.
• Hi, so I was trying to flash my Nexus 7 as well and used the Techno Bill’s instructions. I’m not sure what I’m doing wrong, but it gets hung up at the “erasing userdata” part of unlocking the boot loader. Anyone have any suggestions?
  My Nexus bascially just goes to the google splash screen and then never goes further. I’ve tried doing the recovery mode, but that just restarts it back into the google splash screen again. So I decided to flash it because it’s either that or me payin Asus some dumb amount of money to repair it. I might as well just get a new tablet in that case.
• Asus Nexus 7 2013 32g 5.0.2 about 3 weeks after update. I did notice it got warmer than normal.  When the issue happend I was downloading updates from the play store. It froze so the normal thing was to do a soft reset (hold power down for 10+ seconds) after that tried to turn it on and it stayed on the Google logo black screen. Attempted a hard reset (power + vol down and going to recovery) it act like it goes through but then get a stuck on wiping data.
• I actually had a followup call from a Tablet Repair shop in my city. They said that they have seen these problems come in on Nexus devices lately, and they are completely unable to make any repairs on them and require having the entire logic board replaced. So all you people who have pictures, videos ETC on your nexus.. kiss them goodbye.
• In August 2013 I purchased a Nexus 7 tablet from BestBuy (I also purchased the extended warranty) the tablet had been performing flawlessly up until a few weeks ago when one morning the tablet would not boot past the Google screen. This appears to have happened after the last system update (Lollipop) released by Google. From what I have read on the Internet, I am not the only one that has this issue. Since the tablet won’t boot past the Google screen and it has never been rooted (the bootloader is locked) I can not enter recovery mode or perform a factory reset. Phone calls to Google and the tablet manufacturer ASUS have not helped. ASUS would attempt to fix the tablet at my expense for $200 (it is out of warranty) and Google won’t help because I did not purchase the tablet from the Play Store. I now am left with a $300 useless brick with a cracked screen (the Google representative asked me to open the tablet to find the serial number). It is my estimation that this is not a hardware issue but rather a software issue created by the last release of Lollipop. I simply would like someone to take ownership of this issue and replace my Nexus 7 2013 tablet.
• Yikes. This happened to my buddy’s N5 as well- I was there when it happened, and he had just updated the OS a couple days prior. But the N5 went into a rapid bootloop: the Google logo would appear for barely a second, then the screen would shut off for a second, then the logo would reappear for a second, etc. (I never did try to adb his phone to see if it might be recoverable. He just took it to T-Mobile and bought an upgrade instead.) This bootloop behavior is slightly different than the N7-2013 brick, where it simply hangs up on the Google logo. But this N5 bricking does seem similar now to the N7 bricking- both are experiencing motherboard failure a short time after a 5.X update. So it seems there is something in the software update that is affecting the hardware in an incremental fashion such that the problem is not immediate upon updating, but builds up rapidly over time. Both devices have Qualcom chips, though different ones. Someone on another forum suggested that maybe the update is causing a write-loop to the NAND; since flash memory can only sustain a limited number of write cycles, this could eventually cause it to fail. Interesting theory.

The reason for the issue: It appears that the problematic devices boot to the Google logo at startup, but do not proceed past this point, thus, do not load the operating system, leaving the device, essentially, useless. A few users have talked about getting into fastboot and recovery to find what appears to be the complete failure to mount the local storage flash memory.

Solution: There is not a fixed solution till now given by Google, but we hope it will come forward with one very soon. If you are using a Nexus 7 tablet now, you might not want to update your phone to the Android 5.0 Lollipop, at least until the issue is fixed (we will update about this later when Google does it, so stay tuned), and if you have already updated but are a geek, downgrading the version to Kitkat might be  a good option (at least it doesn’t have so many issues, and the KitKat is not bad aferall).