4-year-old FP3+ (running /e/OS): first SIM card issues, then freeze during boot, now boots to recovery

Help Fairphone 3
, ,
1

Hello everyone,
maybe someone can help me out. Or point me to another post where this has already been answered. I have searched the forum, but only found issues almost like the one I am facing. If this has been already answered elsewhere and I simply haven’t found it (or realized I found it), I’d appreaciate a nudge.

A couple of weeks ago, my FP3+ seemed to temporarily loose contact with its SIM card. While I was using it, it kept interrupting me and showing me the “please enter your SIM card pin” screen, and after I did, resumed working normally. Sometimes, this happened a couple of times a day, sometimes a couple of times an hour.

Then, last week, it started to reboot out of nowhere. And during reboot, it kept freezing. Sometimes while showing the “Fairphone powered by Android” screen, sometimes when /e/OS was starting up, sometimes on the lock screen, sometimes even after.

I read somewhere that this kind of behavior might be due to a hardware issue and might be connected to a loss of contact between the screen module and the main board. And I did see the connectors on my screen module somewhat resembled scratch cards where they met their counterparts on the main board. This led me to believe I might be on to something (unfortunately, without checking in here first), and I ordered a new screen module.

After installing it, the phone first behaved like it did before (freezing during boot), and after a couple of tries, it just booted into recovery mode.

I would like to get my phone back, if possible, but if not, I’d like to get hold of my data. Most of it is backed up, but the most current data, alas, is not.

Can anyone make sense of this and help me find a way to solve this?
Many thanks in advance!

2

You might want to add: Did you also try to boot your FP3+ with the SIM card removed?

2 Likes
3

Strange as it may seem: That didn’t occur to me. :see_no_evil:

When I try it now, I get a boot process that appears to be restarted immediately (two vibrations with about a second between them) and ends up in recovery mode.

4

Have you tried “Reboot system now” in Recovery Mode?

1 Like
5

Yes, I have. It gets me straight back into recovery mode.

(I sincerely appreciate your patience.)

1 Like
6

I haven’t got any immediate advice right now. I am unsure if your “symptoms” fit the “sudden death” fate that some FP3 motherboards have experienced, but tend to think this is not the case here. Maybe someone else has some better ideas.

P.S.: The SIM card symptoms you describe in your original post do suggest an issue with the SIM card itself though, it might have degraded by now and replacement/renewal of the card would not do any damage.

2 Likes
7

And faulty SIM cards can cause reboots in general, not sure if it could also be a reason for the current issue.

Is your bootloader locked?

Edit: you might have fairphone angles in your area maybe they can help in person…

Infos here fairphoneangels

2 Likes
8

Thank you. The sim card does have three parallel scratches in it, it looks as if I had been taking it out and re-inserting it on a daily basis. Which I didn’t, but these scratches might have caused some of the original issues.

How, I must ask, do I determine whether my bootloader is locked? :grimacing:

9

Usually, when booting your FP, there is a white/yellow font warning message on your screen – before the FAIRPHONE screen – telling you when the bootloader is NOT locked (“unlocked”). The AOSP Recovery would also indicate the bootloader status, BUT as you are running /e/OS, you probably only get the /e/ recovery (with white background) which does not provide this information.

10

Thank you. I don’t see that message.

11

If a faulty simcard caused reboots/crashes, those crashes could cause damage to some data on your phone if they occur while the systen is writing data to a file and this could be the reason it isn’t booting anymore.

Sooooo, I think you should try to backup your data as a first step. This should be possible with TWRP but I am not sure, sometimes it wasn’t able to decrypt the storage for me.

1 Like
12

Thank you. I am currently trying to wrestle through the … not entirely straightforward way to get Android SDK Platform-Tools installed on my Mac for that purpose. I consider myself not completely technically illiterate, but this looks like it might take a while.
If anyone knew any shortcuts, that’d be greatly appreciated … :grimacing:

13

“But if you want just these command-line tools, use the following links:” …

We might be able to help with this if you can point out an issue or an error message.

2 Likes
14

Thank you. I found those, and I found out that I had to edit .bash_profile and head to the Terminal from there on. I might even have managed to shove everything to the Library folder, but

sdkmanager "platform-tools"

gives me

zsh: command not found: sdkmanager

Do you have a suggestion for me what I might have missed?

15

I have made – some – progress.

I have selected “Enable ADB” in the Recovery Mode Menu, and got a tiny “ADB enabled” at the bottom of the screen, and connected the Fairphone to my Macbook.

Now, in Terminal, adb devices gives me

List of devices attached

(Followed by an empty line.)

Are there any steps I could try to help my Fairphone make that list?

16

Hi,
did you try to boot without SIM card?

17

Yes, I did. That doesn’t appear to change the outcome, which also has deteriorated somewhat over time.

Sometimes, it will boot to Recovery Mode, sometimes it will freeze while showing the “Fairphone powered by Android” screen. Sometimes, it vibrates and the screen stays black. Sometimes, nothing at all happens.

(I don’t spend all day trying to boot my phone, even if it sound like that. I try it a couple of times, try to connect to my computer, and when that fails, I leave it for a couple of hours or for the rest of the day.)

18

I just had nearly the same problems…
It has occurred for the third time in a row and is obviously related to updates.
My provider is Vodafone. After a lot of research, this problem appears mainly with Vodafone and Fairphones. They seem to be incompatible at certain points.
I have now drawn the conclusion and bought a new mobile phone and changed telephone provider.
I have lost confidence in Fairphones.

19

That’s a pity, I – very acutely, right now – feel your pain about this.
Since my Fairphone 5 is already on the way (and this is the first time I encountered something like that, at least in that magnitude), I will hope that this is linked to the actual physical SIM card, and switching to eSIM will help.
My provider is WeTell, they are, if I am not mistaken, Vodafone’s network …

20

They are.

In the past, more or less after each updste a bug hit Vodafone user, however I would say at least since a year thats not longer happening.