Hi there,
I am facing the exact same issue, since two days, and thus can't use my XZ1 Compact anymore. Before this I was happy with the device - form factor, performance, design... a dream. (came from a different, more cost-effective brand)
I bought my XZ1 Compact new and sealed from Amazon Germany 4 weeks ago. I started using the device only around 2 weeks ago. First thing I did was download and install all available OS software updates using the Xperia update function. So far so good.
Last weekend I went on a trip and took lots of photos. Sunday noon I got a warning of lack of internal storage space due to the photographing. Consequently I changed the photo saving location to SD card and happily kept on snapping. In the evening I wanted to download and install an app from the Playstore - the Google Photos app - but received the error message that not enough internal storage was available to install it. As far as I remember the download went into "pending" state.
From that point the phone started lagging and becoming sort of partially unresponsive. I got annoyed and thought it was an issue of cluttered RAM, thus went for a reboot. The phone went off and tried to boot again, but didn't get past the Sony logo on white background. After this, the phone would just attempt to reboot again and again, always failing at the Sony logo screen and turning off, then booting again, forever repeating this pattern. Bootloop.
The phone never booted normally again.
When this started to happen, the battery was at about 30%.
I am only able to end the bootloop when pressing vol up + power for a few seconds, which will trigger three vibrations and shut off the phone fully.
Pressing the power button normally for a few seconds, the phone will attempt to boot and enter bootloop.
Connecting the charging cable, the phone will enter bootloop, too. (I used a [good-quality] third party fast charger since day one)
Pressing the power button only shortly will blink the green front LED for a fraction of a second - this might mean that the battery is fully charged, but I don't know.
By pressing vol down only and connecting the USB cable from the PC to the phone, the green LED will light up and the phone will show as Android device in the device manager. If the information I got from the Sony call centre is correct, then I can use this mode to attempt Software Repair using Xperia Companion. However, there is plentiful data on the device that I do not want to wipe, thus a Software Repair which includes formatting storage is not an option to me.
By pressing vol up only and connecting the USB cable from the PC to the phone, the blue LED will light up and I can successfully connect fastboot. Note that previously the phone's bootloader has never been touched, and Developer Mode has been kept turned off in the OS settings.
"fastboot getvar battery-voltage" reads 4000.
This might mean that the battery is fine, but I am not sure. Sony?
"fastboot getvar battery-soc-ok" reads yes.
"fastboot getvar off-mode-charge" reads 0.
"fastboot getvar unlocked" reads no.
"fastboot getvar version-bootloader" reads 1306_5035_X_Boot_MSM8998_LA2.0_P_107
@Sony: Hypothetically, would it be possible with the device to unlock the bootloader using the unlock code without having previously ever enabled OEM unlocking or USB debugging in the OS settings?
Yesterday I took the phone to the Xperia Service Centre Singapore. Because I bought the phone in Germany (4 weeks ago!!!) my case is not covered under local warranty in Singapore and I have to pay for problem check and necessary repair out of my own pocket - very nice, Sony...
I am without a phone now, can hardly contact my parents overseas and my girlfriend thought that I got kidnapped on my trip. Facing such a severe issue with a phone that has been released 2017, that I bought new and sealed in 2019, and started to use only 2 weeks ago, is just... confusing.
By my understanding, the software of this phone should be rock-solid by now...
So far the Sony Singapore technicians have not found the cause to my problem. Today they called me and I needed to authorize them to open and disassemble the device, since the problem can't be identified from the outside. Previously in the Service Centre, the manager told me that such a bootloop is normally either caused by a hardware defect, mostly mainboard, or software issue. For our case, based on some googling, I would guess that it is a software issue caused by a recent Google Android software update.
Hey Sony, hope you can give us a positive solution...
Thank you & kind regards,
