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This is a self answered question that is different and may save hours of frustration to somebody

Related questions but none that helped

My situation

  • After more than 6 months I thought of updating security patches on my Pixel 4a Android 11 (stock) and root it again.

  • I uninstalled Magisk , applied OTA update , extracted boot image and patched it with magisk (see this). All smooth

Problem

I needed to run fastboot flash boot patched.img to root the device. But when I run the command response is <waiting for any device>, which was strange since adb devices shows device serial.

Things tried, without any luck

  • Updated adb on Lint Minux, it was latest

  • Switched to Windows 10 and updated

  • Andrew in chat pointed to an XDA thread, which was better covered by Izzy here How do I get my device detected by ADB on Linux?. Added udev rule but then no dice.

  • Firelord in chat suggested it could be plugdev issue so tried the solution mentioned in this Stack Overflow question adb devices => no permissions (user in plugdev group; are your udev rules wrong?), though the problem wasn't similar

  • Multiple cables , rebooting Android, Windows, Linux when I was at a loss to figure out

  • Variations of fastboot like fastboot flash boot_a patched.img, fastboot flash boot --slot all patched.img and sudo fastboot devices

Finally, the solution ....

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I have now idea why this worked. Before running fastboot commands rebooted device in download mode:

  • adb reboot bootloader to get into fastboot
  • fastboot devices shows device serial
  • fastboot flash boot patched.img works :)
  • fastboot reboot to get back to normal device state
  • Device is rooted and I see su permission requests

Note: Some devices of LG and Samsung lack fastboot functionality.

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