Skip to main content
1 of 3

I accidentally started the download/install process for the Android 11 beta, can I cancel it?

I have two Pixel phones on Android 10. Yesterday I joined the Android Beta program to get Android 11, with the intention to try Android 11 on one phone and keep the other on Android 10. I started the download/install process on one phone. Today, I wanted to check on the progress of the Android 11 update process, went to settings and saw that an update was available. Thinking that maybe it timed out and I just needed to try again, I chose to download/install the update.

Immediately after it started, I checked which phone I was looking at, and was horrified to find it was the other phone, the one I wanted to keep on Android 10. So I wanted to cancel the process on this phone, but there is no cancel button. Since the UI didn't provide the option, I thought I'd try killing the processes on the phone.

crosshatch:/ # ps -A | grep update                                                                                                         
u0_a64       10143   893 4987920  48108 SyS_epoll_wait      0 S com.google.android.configupdater
root         10773     1   44184   5808 SyS_epoll_wait      0 S update_engine
crosshatch:/ # kill -9 10143

This killed com.google.android.configupdater, but update_engine refused to die. Every time I tried killing update_engine, a new one would pop up.

When I went back to the system update screen, though, it mercifully indicated that the download was paused. BUT it only presented an option to Resume, NOT to cancel. Download/install screen with Resume button

Even then, this reprieve was short lived, as it soon automatically chose to Resume, without receiving any indication from me that I wanted to do that.

I have now turned off the phone while trying to figure out how to keep it on Android 10.

I see that in some cases, after the download is complete, the user will be given a final chance to decide whether to proceed. Is this true for the update to Android 11? And as the question in that link asks, can I choose to just delete the download instead? Or is there even some way to cancel the download in progress? I'm nervous about letting it complete and then maybe deciding for me that I want to proceed rather than selecting "Later".