Why Is Google Downgrading Pixel Users on Oreo to Android 7.1.2 Nougat

Rafia Shaikh
downgrade Oreo to nougat Google

You may not be lucky enough to receive Android 8.0 Oreo for the next few months, but Google's Nexus and now Pixel series is always the first to receive the latest updates. However, after releasing Android 8.0 Oreo to Pixel and Pixel XL, the search giant is apparently sending an update (read: downgrade) to Android Nougat 7.1.2.

Is Google downgrading its Pixels from Oreo to Android Nougat? Apparently not.

Since its official release few weeks back, Google has been having some issues with the OTA releases. The company took its sweet time to release the OTA files and the update was also delayed for some Nexus devices. Looks like the problems continue as some Pixel users have reported receiving a notification to update their phones to Android 7.1.2 Nougat.

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While Google has previously sent updates that were more of downgrades after some major issues were reported in the latest version of Android, there has been no such reports with the Oreo release. Granted, it comes with its own set of issues including Wi-Fi and mobile data problems, but nothing so big that it would warrant the company to push users to downgrade Oreo to Nougat.

At the moment, it is unclear what exactly is happening. Google is yet to give a statement on the issue. It is very likely that this is just an error. According to the folks at 9to5Google, those who did install this update saw their Pixel devices upgraded to Oreo's September security patch on Android 8.0.0 Oreo, which means the September patch is likely labelled incorrectly. To confirm, we have reached out to Google and will update this space when we receive a response from the Pixel maker.

- How to install the latest Android 8.0.0 on Pixel and Nexus Devices Manually

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