Oneplus 11 Region Lock Problem
Update 08.05.23
You may have already heard, but all China versions of the Oneplus 11 have a region lock. This means that after 10 reboots, outside of China, the device will block the phone from making calls. Everything else will still work, but you won't be able to make calls with it.
We tested more than any other store and waited to see if anyone would come up with a solution and it looked like it would shortly. We had sent test units to 10 Youtubers and over a month of testing was done before we even put it up for sale. The phone was tested daily, updates went from A07 to A08 to A09 firmware via OTA, everything worked fine. However, one customer found out that if you reboot the device exactly 10 times, you see the popup 10 times, from then on you can't make calls.
We also bought devices from Aliexpress or Giztop to see if they found a solution, unfortunately that didn't apply either. No matter which vendor in China is selling a Oneplus 11 device, no matter what firmware is on it, whether Oxygen OS or Color OS, there is the region lock.
We sold a total of 70 devices and offered a refund to all customers, however, this also allowed us to test out a lot of things. We are posting our findings here on the site and linking to a few interesting forums that deal with the issue.
As soon as there is a solution, we will of course test it and gladly pass it on to all our customers, as some customers say they can live with the problem.
OnePlus 11 - 16GB/512GB - Hasselblad
1 Review(s)
The OnePlus 11 is a flagship that is uncompromisingly well-equipped with Snapdragon 8 Gen 2, 6.7-inch Samsung E4 LTPO QHD+ display with 120 Hz, 16 GB LPDDR5x RAM, 512 GB UFS 4.0 Rom and a Hasselblad Triple camera. The 5000 mAh can be charged with up to 100 W in 25 minutes. Bluetooth 5.3, NFC, WiFi 6, stereo speakers and an improved vibration motor are also offered.
FINALLY: NO REGION LOCK ANYMORE + OTA UPDATES POSSIBLE
OnePlus 11 - 16GB/256GB - Hasselblad
4 Review(s)
The OnePlus 11 is a flagship that is uncompromisingly well-equipped with Snapdragon 8 Gen 2, 6.7-inch Samsung E4 LTPO QHD+ display with 120 Hz, 16 GB LPDDR5x RAM, 256 GB UFS 4.0 Rom and a Hasselblad Triple camera. The 5000 mAh can be charged with up to 100 W in 25 minutes. Bluetooth 5.3, NFC, WiFi 6, stereo speakers and an improved vibration motor are also offered.
FINALLY: NO REGION LOCK ANYMORE + OTA UPDATES POSSIBLE
OnePlus 11 - 12GB/256GB - Hasselblad
2 Review(s)
The OnePlus 11 is a flagship that is uncompromisingly well-equipped with Snapdragon 8 Gen 2, 6.7-inch Samsung E4 LTPO QHD+ display with 120 Hz, 12 GB LPDDR5x RAM, 256 GB UFS 4.0 Rom and a Hasselblad Triple camera. The 5000 mAh can be charged with up to 100 W in 25 minutes. Bluetooth 5.3, NFC, WiFi 6, stereo speakers and an improved vibration motor are also offered.
FINALLY: NO REGION LOCK ANYMORE + OTA UPDATES POSSIBLE
WHAT IS THE SOLUTION? UPDATE 08.05.23
After the 10th reboot or a certain time, the phone no longer worked. A complete reset resets the counter, but that is not a solution.
From 08.05.23 we can offer the devices again, because we have found a solution that removes the region lock. The region lock is a software feature that has been built in by Oneplus and can therefore also be removed. We now remove the region lock on every device directly after flashing the Oxygen OS version and thus the problem is solved. Why Oneplus built this in in the first place and then allows it to be removed via software is also something we wonder about, but shouldn't be our concern.
We have tested it and can say that the region lock is history for now.
WHAT TO DO IF YOU HAVE REGION LOCK ON YOUR DEVICE RIGHT NOW?
The solution that is easiest if you live in Europe. Log in to Oneplus.com and ask them to remove the region lock via support. Usually Oneplus will send you a UPS tag, pick up the device and fix it at the service in the respective country. The region lock is removed there, but the software is left untouched. Thus, Oxygen OS remains on it and you can use the device normally afterwards.
Oneplus even pays for the return shipping, which makes the whole region lock nonsensical again.
Another option is, if you are a customer of ours, to contact us, then we can solve this with you via software.
What does not work!
Yes, it says that when you enter the code "*#3988691#" into the phone app, a message appears that you have unlocked the device and you can now make free calls. Unfortunately not true.
This is also a new proposed solution. One should:
please try this method
1, download adb app control : https://adbappcontrol.com/en/
2, enable usb debug on phone
3, connect pc and delete the com.oplus.engineernetwork
We have also tested this and unfortunately it does not work either.
Yes, we already done it and added China Sim card to every one of the 70 devices, called somebody, everything fine. But this doesn't help.
Yes, there is a list of country codes in the code that are affected by the region lock. However, not all of them are affected. We have customers from countries that never see the popup because their country is not affected. But the problem with this can be, as soon as the user enters a country that is locked, that's when the popup should show up.
These are the country codes of the blocked countries
404 405 31* 302 250 424 420 334 425 419 410 730 401 724 470 429 414 418 427 602 603 605 244 238 240 242 234 235 262 222 208 214 204 206 260 226 520 502 525 515 452 510 Region locking is not done in all regions and is only activated when using a SIM card from particular region. The target regions is written in these files: my_bigball/etc/regionlock_config.xml my_product/etc/regionlock_config.xml my_region/etc/regionlock_config.xml
No, no matter if you have Color OS or Oxygen OS on it, the lock popup comes and locks your device after 10 reboots.
These are different firmware versions for different countries,
2447 INDIA
2449 GLOBAL
2451 USA
But this will not help either. As long as the device is a China device, that won't help either.