Xiaomi Redmi Note 5 Pro devices made in India are now able to unlock the bootloader

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Although Xiaomi has traditionally failed to release kernel source code in a timely manner, they are working on speeding things up as shown by the relatively quick release of kernel source code for the Xiaomi Mi Mix 2S. Fortunately, unlocking the bootloader of Xiaomi devices hasn’t usually posed that much of a problem (barring the annoying waiting periods on some devices). The Xiaomi Redmi Note 5 Pro is no exception, for the most part. But for some strange reason, Redmi Note 5 Pro devices that were “Made in India” could not be bootloader unlocked. Just attempting to add an account to unlock the device would give an error code “86006”.

Judging by the dozens of reports on the MIUI forums and our own forums, it seems that this was a widespread problem. Xiaomi Redmi Note 5 Pro devices that were “Made in China” appeared to have been unaffected. It is unknown what exactly was causing error 86006, though the error text in Mandarin translates to “illegal parameter” which suggests that the error was caused on the server-side, and not by the software running on the device. While there appeared to be a workaround, it was a bit of a hassle to do.

Thankfully, we can now confirm that the issue has indeed been fixed. When we reached out to Xiaomi for confirmation of the issue, a spokesperson told us that “due to a technical glitch, users weren’t able to unlock the bootloader on Redmi Note 5 Pro smartphones. The issue has since been fixed and users should be able to unlock the bootloader on their Redmi Note 5 Pro normally.” We’re glad to see that the issue has been finally fixed, although it did take some time for the issue to get attention from Xiaomi.

We’ve confirmed with a few users who report that the bootloader unlocking issue for the Xiaomi Redmi Note 5 Pro has resolved. If you were one of the users having this problem, then try it again to see if you can now unlock the bootloader. Once you’ve unlocked the bootloader, you can join the many users on our forums and flash TWRP so you can enjoy the unofficial build of LineageOS 15.1.