Google’s March security update for Nexus 6 causing Android Pay issues: developing

Most of us love the security features Google have introduced in recent years and Android iterations but there is now so much going on behind the scenes with Android. With so many balls in the air it would not take much for them all to come crashing down. It seems this is what has happened with the March security update for the Nexus 6.

Reports on Reddit have led a barrage of posts on the Android bug tracker. Users are reporting that prior to receiving the March update they were able to use Android Pay but after the update to 7.1.1 March 5, 2017 patch level (N6F26U) Android Pay no longer functions. This is with a phone on a fully stock rom and the bootloader locked. When attempting to use Android Pay the user gets notified that their Nexus 6 fails because of an “unlocked bootloader”, which it isn’t.

Testing the Nexus 6 with this security update with the SafetyNet Test app leads to it saying that the phone does not pass CTS. Curious indeed. Certainly curious enough for Google to first pull the update and investigate the issue.

https://twitter.com/googlenexus/status/839941994868846593

Not long after pulling the update Android Plice have reported that the factory image update and OTA file are back online and are the exact same files as before. This time though Android Pay is working leading Android Police to believe that Google have “temporarily disabled” the SafetyNet check on the Nexus 6 until they can figure out the cause of the SafetyNet check failure.

The SafetyNet check is a big security feature for Google and Android so for Google to turn it off they must really be stumped about how to fix this. A lot of apps rely on this SafetyNet check as well so you would hope that this issue is not indicative of a greater problem that may spread to other devices. A lot of Pokemon Go and Snapchat users would be very unhappy.

Do you have a Nexus 6? Has this issue reared it’s head for you?