Hello community,
i have following problem: While Whatsapp video call it is not possible to charge the battery. I tried different cables and both PC-USB and plug socket power source without success. If i change to standard voice call, charging battery works as usally.
I run FP 2 with Anroid 7 (up to date), and never had problems with battery before. i found this forum discussion, but it was closed without solution.
Thanks for your help and have a successful new week.
Dominik
A post was merged into an existing topic: 
Neue Kamera - Batterie wird bei Video nicht geladen
Hi. I have the same problem even though I did not use a new camera but still the regular one. During Whatsapp calls the battery is not charging. Is there any possibility to fix this?
Welcome to the community forum.
I moved your post to this English topic, hoping your issue will be seen by more people here than in the other topic which is marked as German.
Question: Does the battery just not charge, or does the battery level actually decline over the time you use WhatsApp?
Does Whatsapp allow to limit video quality (resolution)? If yes, I would give that a try to see if it makes a difference.
I once had a similar issue with my FP2: I made a skype-videocall and was charging my FP2 at the same time.
But somehow it was using more battery than it was able to charge. So after time the FP2 turned off.
I was using LineageOS 16 that time.
I think it’s related to the (not very good) battery consumption of the FP2: If the display is active and a videocall-app is running, the back of the FP2 gets really hot and the capacity of the battery is decreasing rapidly.
Hey guys,
i didnt expected that there will be a discussion about this after one year with no interaction. 
The battery didnt charge, so the yellow control lamp, which normally lights up during charging, was not active. Also the charging symbol in the top right corner was not shown. The battery level declined rapidly.
But to be honest, i didnt tried it for few months.
Thanks for your help.
Its not charging at all
I have seen the battery not charging e.g. when running navigation with OsmAnd … charging light went on and off all the time, and the battery level stayed about the same overall.
I think the battery to just not charge while the phone is busy with performance-hungry tasks might be inconvenient, but not a big deal if we take the subpar battery life of the Fairphone 2 into account.
A considerable decline of the battery level, however, would hint to a real problem in my point of view … old battery, Android battery optimisation failing, processor not using all cores - using and heating the cores in use more than otherwise necessary, possible hardware acceleration failing … and there are probably more possible causes.
Having a powerbank or a fully charged spare battery ready on the go should give some peace of mind.
A powerbank helps to keep the battery level up before heavy use so when the level declines with the phone in heavy use is has to decline from a higher starting point, giving more usage time.
A spare battery is nice to have in any case 
.
If it was me and if I was confident about my battery not being too old and if I really would want to know what’s going on (big if) the first step would probably be installing the phone from scratch with the minimal set of stuff to confirm the problem … problem is the same = probably trouble with hardware or OS = not good, but there are OS alternatives to try to narrow that down further … problem is gone or not as severe = probably trouble outside of hardware and OS = good, but problem could be reintroduced later on when installing and using the same stuff as before.
I can confirm this issue with using Zoom.
I had the problem that the battery drains quickly while having a conference and if you only charge it to ~80% to extend the battery life, it’s gone after 2.5-3 hours.
So I thought plugging in my powerbank while using Zoom should change this, but, as already mentioned in this thread, the FP2 does not charge at all.
So when I plug in the powerbank before or during the meeting, it disables it’s led level status bar after a while (because it thinks it’s not plugged in).
It would be quite interesting to know what exactly is causing the issue.
By the way: For me the problem seems to be limited to video calls since I never encountered it playing mobile games which also have a very high battery consumption.
I have the same problem. Before a call charging a d also during a voice call it keeps charging but the second the video call is requested the charging stops entirely like many people indicated here.
Uninstalling and reinstalling WhatsApp didn’t made a difference. Neither in the android as WhatsApp setting I could find something about it.
I would like that fairphone reacts on this.
This is a community forum. So please don’t expect a official reaction from Fairphone here.
Eyup. Frustrated FF2 user here.
Can somebody with knowlage state clearley that " The FF2 will stop charging while the camera is being used. This is because that is what it does. There is no work around. We never thought people might want to use Skype, Whatsapp, Facetime, or any other video based function, ever. Sorry."
And then I can stop wasting my time on forums and searches.
I have a FF3+ now, and I wanted to use the FF2 as a camera with motion detection using an app. But I can’t, because I can’t charge the FF2 while it is being used as a remote camera. So despite spending 2 long evenings updating the FF2 to Android 9 (via USB) it still wont do what every other phone on the market will.
So, can someone poke Fairphone and get a proper answer?
My battery is a few years old but is it even worth it buying another when best case I might only get a few hours remote running from a new one? Anyone know how long a new battery will run the camera while it is running an app too?
Much frustration. Between these two phones there must be £700 in the job and it can’t charge while using the camera??? Not happy.
Without knowledge but with experience: I have just connected my FP2 to my charger and opened the camera app. The charging LED stayed on with the camera app open and I could watch the battery percentage increase. This was on LineageOS (with the old camera module) but I doubt that this is different on the other OSes. So at least this is not a general problem.
Hi @Deaffish,
indeed on Fairphone 2 with the 12MP rear camera module charging the phone while the camera is in use won’t work. This is definitely an unfortunate problem for video calls, caused by a power conflict between the camera flash led and the PMIC.
For your use case you should be able to replace the 12MP rear camera with the 8MP rear camera (you can normally get that module for free or for cheap in the forum buy/sell section). With that module charging should work as expected while the camera is on. I know it’s not a great solution but I hope it works for you.
Does this apply even when doing a videocall with the front camera? So if I remove the rear camera module before a videocall, it should charge while filming? Or does this also depend on the front new camera?
@Alex.A As this limitation exists because of the flashlight LED, I assume that it should work as expected with the rear camera removed but I haven’t tested it myself.
Sorry for the long delay. Good suggestion re changing out the rear camera. For me it would mean more expense, on a worse camera, plus the new battery for FF2 (original battery died), just to test a concept… So…
I gave up on the idea and found a work around by putting the FF2 back in the dead phone drawer and buying what are basically wifi nest cams (NEOS) with an app that runs fine on my FF3+. The FF2 battery died while I was experimenting with the free ‘use your old phone as a security camera, app’ (I think I got 3 years general normal use before it finally gave up at being run flat a few times experimenting.
Long before all this I was thinking of getting a new battery but upgraded to FF3+ early 2021 to get access to the more recent android OS? so specific apps would run ( different thread/rant ) and that all seems fine.
I am surprised that even using only the front cam in a video call, the rear cam assembly/circuit would shut out the ability to charge, even though in effect it is disengaged and the flash is not even on. But that’s not needing a technical response.
All said, thank you for your reply, apologies again for the huge delay (insert excuse here 
and if anyone wants a FF2 that I think just needs a new battery…(JOKE)… I know, I should have sold it 18 months ago, but that means I would have to buy the new battery, make sure it all works, do all the selling and posting and praying it wont get returned and fretting and worrying, so it lives in the dead phone drawer. I will take them all to my local ‘ReBoot’ UK recycling place one day…
Stay well and keep doing what you do best, Deaffish