Sony has a new security feature called My Xperia Theft Protection (MXTP), but it will raise some issues for fans of unlocked bootloaders.
MXTP is now live for the latest devices in the company's lineup, such as the Xperia Z3+, Xperia Z4 Tablet, Xperia C4 and Xperia M4 Aqua. This new feature aims to offer increased security, operating at the bootloader level. This way, even if your device ends up in the wrong hands, they wouldn't be able to wipe it clean or flash a different ROM as long as they don't have your Google account credentials.
Some device owners, however, prefer to unlock the bootloader so they can put custom ROMs on their Xperia device. MXTP interferes with this, as enabling this security feature will automatically eliminate the ability to unlock the bootloader. Disabling MXTP should allow users to unlock the bootloader again.
On the other hand, more severe issues occur when users enable MXTP on a device with a previously unlocked bootloader. In attempting to remove the ability to unlock the bootloader (which is already unlocked), MXTP ends up breaking the device in an unrecoverable way.
As FXP Blog reports, three of its Xperia Z4 Tablets broke before figuring out that MXTP was behind the issue. Sony failed to issue a warning in this regard when it launched MXTP, but the company is nonetheless aware of the risks.
In an updated description on its Unlock Bootloader page, Sony now reckons that enabling MXTP may not be a good idea if your device has an unlocked bootloader.
"After unlocking your device, you should not enable My Xperia (found in the settings menu under security on some devices running Android 5.0) as this might cause the device to malfunction," Sony clarified.
This issue hasn't gained alarming proportions for now, as Sony has yet to allow users to unlock the bootloaders of its latest devices. The company could be waiting to fix the MXTP issue first.
In any case, Xperia device owners looking to unlock their bootloader in the future are strongly advised to disable MXTP before proceeding.
