Apologies for this very late reply, but I only saw this post a couple of days ago.
A mate of mine has an FP3 with a power button that won’t wake the screen. I asked him how he starts his phone, and he says that he presses the volume up with the power button. My power button still works and when I’ve tried it, all I get is an icon and ‘No Command’ message. But I thought I’d pass it on just incase, and especially as you have managed to get it to boot randomly.
I’m scratching my head how a dead button will work in conjunction with depressing another. Cracked PCB maybe? Apologies if this is duff info, but he says it works for him.
No, but I guess @anon9989719 tried to point out that this is normal device operation.
The icon with the “No command” message is the start screen of the default Android dic:recoverymode (<- see there on how to navigate this), available by keeping Vol + pressed while starting or rebooting the phone.
Keeping Vol - pressed instead would get the phone into fastboot mode (aka bootloader).
I’ve measured whether the button’s switches are broken or
not. For that I took an Ohmmeter and measured whether the
switches create a short circuit when I press them. The small
circuit with the button switches on them has a four pin
connector, where you can pick two connectors, one is ground,
and measure if pressing the switch creates a short circuit.
Since I needed two hands to hold the ohmmeter contacts I used
a laundry clip to press the switch. It turned out that the
power switch worked, however not very easily compared to the
volume switches.
That means that the power button can not create enough
mechnical pressure on the right spot on the switch.
So what I did was to cut of the power button off with a scissor
from the volume buttones. So now instead of the power button I
have a hole on the side of the Fairphone.
Now there are two use cases for the power button for me:
I need to switch on the Fairphone that is completely off
(due f.ex. to an empty battery). to do that I use a key from
my key chain to reach the switch throuogh the hole on the side.
It feels like I’m going to break the switch at some point but
works for now.
I need to switch the Fairphone completely off or I need to take
a screen shot - I have not found out how to do this. It seems
to be very difficult - impossible - to me to hold the power
switch just right to activate the “power menu”. There is a
“Shutdown” App in F-Droid, but it requires a rooted phone, which
mine isn’t. Same for screen shots.
mxeff mentioned here: Boot Fairphone 3 with broken power button - #10 by mxeff
that there’s some accessibility menu. However the settings he
mention do not exist in my “E Foundation” Android.
I need to wake the phone up. For that I use the “WakeUp” App in
F-Droid. It doesn’t work reliably but I always manage to wake
the phone up.
@tpo1 You are right, the accessibility menu of e/OS is not able to replace the power button.
However if you swipe down form the menu bar twice, the quick settings panel appears. There at the bottom in the middle you can easily access the power menu, where you can power off or restart your phone, but also take a screenshot.
Hi @mxeff - thanks a lot for the tip. However I do not have that in my e/OS (Android-Version 9 (I wonder if I can update…)) either. I checked in the cog-wheel (configuration of the drop down settings) and in there there isn’t a “power” icon either…
You are using an old (outdated?) version of e/OS (and therefore also old Android version). This easy access via the quick settings panel is a feature of new Android itself and not e/OS in particular.
If you want to use this feature you need to update your phone. Due to some changes from Android 9 to 10, e/OS needs to be completely reinstalled for this update.
Here is a link on how to do this. Upgrade Fairphone 3 from Android 9
This article many explains how to save and restore your personal data, but also links to another article in step 2 explaining the update process using the /e/OS easy-installer (which, as the name suggests is actually fairly easy to use).
I just downloaded the WaveUp app.
And I also activated the accessibility menu, to allow changing the volume.
This is a great work around to allow me to use the phone while looking for a more long term solution.
I will update the thread when trying other solutions.
I had the problem of a power button that basically died. I had to press it several times from different angles until it hopefully worked.
I could fix it in the following way:
I opened the phone and partly took out the strip that holds the power button – in the way that anon9989719 shows it in his post at the top.
I put a tiny piece of paper that I folded three times behind the strip, i. e. between the back of the strip and the inner plastic frame of the fairphone.
The problem was apparently that the green part of the strip was compressed over time and so the outer power button did not press hard enough anymore onto the switch.
Feels great if you can repair a smartphone with a piece of paper.
I tried your solution with a bit of tape instead. Then I put in just the screen without screw to test it. The button worked a bit better. I put all screws in, tighten them and tried again. My phone would start but I could not do anything with the button anymore. Even restarting did not work. Opened it again and removed the tape. Then put it back together again with the screws and now the button is fine. Although with this operation, my volume down button malfunctions.
Did got a result that I had not expected .
Now I have enabled the Accessibility menu. Within this menu there is a lock screen button. I use that to lock and the fingerprint to unlock. No need for the button then .
Edit: power button is starting to act up again. The first thing I thought when I pressed that button for the first time is: “How long will this button work? It feels quite fragile.”
Short update: After a few days, the problem occured again. So it seems, that I’ll have to regularly repair the phone. I’ll try out different materials and positions.
My update:
Tried to change the position of the button. Somehow broke the whole unit and cannot use the power button at all. Guess I can’t power the phone on without it.
Still deciding how I’m going to fix it. Most likely send it in for repair.
Update #2:
With this tip, I could get my phone powered on again! Thanks @mxeff!
I’m currently waiting for another broken FP3, which I bought for spare parts. The seller claims, that it wont turn on anymore and no LED flashes if a charger plugged in.
I will report, what I find out about this FP3 after a short diagnostic.
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