Battery problems (wrong charging status / battery might be dying)

@Stefan: Confirmed! My phone was at 6%, ran down from 15% in a matter of minutes, screen on.
Turned screen off, checked back appr. 2 hrs later: 4%!

I too had the 14% bug with the percentage stalled at 14% for appr. 12 hrs. before the update. Are these bugs related? It would appear so!

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Seems to me that the 14%-Problem (which later escalated for me to a "45% to 0% in a few minutes“-problem) was the sign of a failing battery. Ordered a replacement battery and since then I’m seeing an almost linear drop in the battery capacity.

Still: not good. Hope that I don’t have to replace the battery every year (never had to do replace the battery on my previous phones and I used them 2yrs and longer)

And: it would be interesting how common this problem is. Because: everyone in this thread has this problem which might distort reality for us. Maybe we’re the only 20 (estimate) people who have this problem (then I wouldn’t consider this a big problem). But maybe we’re only 1% of the people having this problem. The rest just didn’t find the thread

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@Arnd: Thank you for confirming this. It seems that before and after the update the battery calibration was handled differently, so the low-quality-battery showed different symptoms. Still, I don’t think the bad battery is caused by the update.

@bgschaid: We did some calculations on this some while ago:

Maybe this has been posted before, but still:

  • replaced old battery for my Fairphone (first edition) with a new one three weeks ago
  • seems to be working just fine
  • today: phone shut itself off because battery was down; no failure here
  • just started to recharge it - first, no red light, after one minute red light appeared, I checked: big battery symbol on blue screen showed 2%
  • after 15 minutes, I checked again: recharge status showed 19%
  • charging stil going on, I immediately switched on my phone, everything started as normal, BUT battery status in recharging mode now showed 55% - !?
  • I switched off my phone; recharging status continued at 55%.
    This means: from 19% to 55% in 10 seconds!?

Maybe this piece of information helps solving the battery trouble.
Thanks!

I would be interested to know this. I’m keeping an eye on my battery, but no signs of physical bloating so far.

I’ve also experienced similar battery issues that people have described in this thread, with power suddenly dropping down. And power draining much more quickly than expected - last night I had around 20% before I went to sleep, but woke up to a dead phone! (no data or wifi connection enabled)

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As I already said before, support replaced my battery before it even started bloating. So, write them a ticket, refer to this forum and they’ll send you a new one (if they have not run out of new batteries by now :wink:

Although I haven’t had huge problems with my new battery, I have experienced some of the funny battery stuff that is part of this thread again with my new battery. It seems that if the phone is charging and I am extensively using the phone, e.g. for a game play more than 5 minutes, and the phone gets really hot, that then - the battery load is jumping up and down and creating problems for the following charging cycle. So for now, I am not using my phone while charging and I haven’t had any problems.

While this is not how it is supposed to be, it works for me now at the moment and I hope that the next FP will not have these problems anymore…

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I also have a charging problem. It won’t charge sometimes even when it is plugged in and today it dropped from 55% to 21% just when restarting the phone. I have the original Kola Nuts 1.8 version installed (FP1).

I’ve had similar issue for a while, but I’ve just found this topic now. Overall, my FP1’s battery seems to drain a bit quicker than before (I used to be able to do 3-4 days with it, whereas now I get 1-2 days max), but the most annoying part is that it goes from 15% to 4% to 0% in seconds.

Good to know this is a recognized issue. I’ll contact FP support and hope the new battery will fix it.

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Damn, I’m afraid I may have a similar issue soon… :confused:

Exactly the symptoms of my phone as well. My fiancée also have a Fairphone that he got one week after me, we are doing the same thing with our phones but while I have to charge it three times a day he usually has ~40% battery left in the evening, even though he uses a pebble and I do not.

No signs of physical bloating though.

@Sokin, did you have the same problems?

@Lovisan, I don’t know, can you check your battery life history and post the screenshot?

I have the same problems as @Spicy

"This morning i got up around 08:00 am with a 100% battery, half an hour later it was 92% without using it, if i use it i can practically see the percentage drop. Now, almost 4 hours later, my FP is at 45%. Does someone know how to solve this?

Some background info:

  • It didn’t occur right after the update but i do use Kola Nut 1.8.
  • I had the 14% bug and the 15% to 1% in seconds bug but those are gone.
  • I use Juice Defender and followed some of the tips to lengthen the life of my battery."

To everyone who is following this thread: These tips might help you have more capacity again!

[quote=“Stefan,topic:5372,post:7”]At FP they told me that the battery has its own software inside, which sometimes needs to be reset.

  1. Use the battery up until it is below 0% (until the phone dies).
  2. Take the battery out of the phone.
  3. Plug your charger into the phone (still without battery).
  4. Insert your battery. (This will give the battery a kick)
  5. Charge your phone in one go until 100%. Do not boot.[/quote]

Edit: It works for me! :slight_smile: I get through the day easily again! :slight_smile: Edit2: You might need to follow the procedure multiple times to notice a significant improvement of the battery’s capacity.
:warning: If you have a bloated battery you should contact support immediately. A bloated battery is dangerous because it can burst!

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:uk: I tried your proposal. Is it normal that the charging status didn’t start at 0%. In our case it starts at 13%.
When I removed the battery, I noticed that the middle of the battery is a little bit thicker then the boarder. Is this normal, or is the battery starting to bloat?
Best regards,
Tuffi

:de: Ich habe deinen Tipp mal ausprobiert. Ist es normal, das die Ladeanzeige nicht bei 0% anfängt? In unserem Fall 13%…
Bei raus nehmen der Batterie ist mir aufgefallen, das diese zur Mitte hin leicht dicker ist als am Rand. Ist das normal oder fängt sie an zu bloaten?
Danke und Gruß,
Tuffi

edit: Now it’s stuck at 39%

@Tuffi Hard to tell from the distance, if your battery is bloating. A good indicator is to check, if the back cover still fits on the phone. Also look at the pictures posted in the other thread about bloating batteries and see if there are similarities.

Die ist ganz bestimmt zum ‘bloaten’ angefangen!

I had a new problem yesterday :worried:

I shut down the phone with a charge of appr. 50%.
One detail: When shutting down, the screen goes black, then, after some more seconds, there is a short vibration. This went way faster yesterday, no idea if this means anything.

After a few hours, I turned the phone back on.
Directly after booting, it showed a capacity of 3%!

Additionally, all 4 entries in the quick access menu were gone! The latter happened for the 2nd time already, again directly after booting.

Are these issues related?

My battery is one with the 14% bug. But it does not look bloated in any way.

I did not try the battery reset suggested above. Will try that next.

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My symptoms were similar and got a bit better now, after I had tried the battery reset. I think though, it needs multiple goes to improve the battery’s capacity.

After the incident mentioned above, the 15% bug was gone! The battery lasted considerably longer, too.

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Hi, I was wondering whether others also face the following problem. My battery runs out extremely quick (although I put the screen brightness the lowest, or turn off wi-ifi and 3F), it takes approximately half a day before my battery is dead after being fully charged.

Also, the charging goes much slower than in the beginning. Turned off, it takes up to 2,5 hours; turned on, it takes 3 up to 4 hours.

Besides this, I noticed that since some weeks the ‘charging percentage’ does not seem to be correct. I.e., sometimes the lamp turns green while the charging percentage shows 82%.

I got my phone in September 2014. Two months ago I ordered a new battery & charger (perhaps the problem was linked to my old charger which I re-used), but the problem quickly began to appear again. I always try to make sure I only charge when the battery is completely dead and I always try to charge up to 100%.

Is anyone else facing this problem? (Does this problem fall under garanty?)

Thanks for the answer.

Cheers