Charging Bug of FP4

It happened twice now that I plugged in the charger but the FP4 (A13) did not start charging. After conducting a restart, charging starts with no problems.
Happened for the first time a few weeks ago. Thereafter the problem did not occur, but today the exact same behaviour occurred. Both times, it could be fixed easily by restarting the phone.
Did this happen to somebody else, yet?

Once or twice I had a similar issue time ago. I thought it could be dust in the USB port. I bought protections, the issue gone and I didn’t care again.

FP4, eOS, A12

Beware, correlation doesn’t mean causation.
Did you restart the phone without moving it? Because if there is a bad contact somewhere (between phone and cable, in the cable itself, between cable and charger), simply picking up the phone to reboot it might have helped…

Check indeed the USB port for dirt, and if this happens again check if simply wiggling the cable fixes this.
Also, dial *#*#2886#*#* in the same way you enter a phone number to make a call. This calls up the Service Menu, in which you will find a long list of tests. Scroll down and select an entry called “USB/Charger”. This tests the charging.
You should see something like “USB: OK, Charging: OK, Current: OK” (“Current: OK/NOK” means fast/slow charging) and the values of the charging current. To stop the test, simply tap on FAIL or PASS (doesn’t matter which one).

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First of all, Service Menu doesn’t work. The call is declined after 2sec.

And there is absolutely no fault with the cable.
I tried multiple connections with the phone in my hand.
The first time, problem kept occuring for half an hour until I restarted the phone.

You mean the Service Menu goes away after 2 seconds? :open_mouth:
That’s strange, but seems to indicate some software issue with the phone, indeed. Which would explain why restarting it fixes the problem, temporarily.

I guess contacting contactsupport is your best option.

I can’t even enter the Service Menu.
This is what it looks like

You can also access the menu from thr My Fairphone App. Should you not have FPOS installed the menu is not available

Thank you. Could find it in the application easily.
This is what the test reveals

That’s what it looks like when everything is normal. Now try doing the test when your phone refuses to charge.

I have the same problem. Phone detects an connected charger and uses it power to being powered up but don’t charge the FP4. After reboot it starts charging. This is now the third time this happened. When the phone don’t want to charge I tried several chargers and cables with no success. Only a reboot fixes it.
Here is the screenshot from yesterday where it don’t charged

This is the output of “Ampere” when the phone don’t take charge from the cable.

I connected the phone with 22%. The phone stayed connected throughout the night and had still 22% charge left after the night.

I’m happy to deliver more logs when anyone tells me how :wink:

Same question: Could it be a bad connection? I have known USB-C connectors go bad after years of good services (they are definitely not as reliable as USB-A/B ones): One day suddenly they start working/not working depending on angle, what we Germans call a “Wackelkontakt”…

You can check this quickly and easily by jiggling the USB-C connector and watching the “USB/Charger” test. Does wiggling the connector change anything, or is the connection stable (in charging or not charging)?
If it is stable, and only a reboot fixes it, it must be a software problem, you’ll have to contactsupport… :slightly_frowning_face:

As i mentioned at the 3 times when this charging problem occures. I tried several cables, both orientations, different chargers, powerbanks. And nothing helped. But after a reboot. It started charging. So my answer is “No” the cables and sockets and chargers are fine. It’s definitly a software bug and it is there for several months already.

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…and actually I expect it to be unsolved for more months to come as

  • it happens only sporadically → difficult to identify the root cause and so to solve it
  • a reboot at least for me takes about 30 seconds → probably the developer’s priority for finding the problem and fixing it is low…

Because of the sporadically of the bug I offered to deliver logs. But for this I need to know what kind of logs and how to collect it.

A reboot is relatively quick yes. But the problem with this bug for me is. I plug my phone on the charger when I go to bed. Sometimes with 10 Percent or less charge remaining. And in the morning I unplug the phone and take it with me. When the bug occurs I unplug a phone with 10% charge remaining. Sometimes without notice (because why should I check the charge level. The phone was connected to a charger for several hours).

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I had the same issue now for the second time. What I’ve noticed: in the status bar the battery icon has the flash in it, indicating that it is charging. When I unplugged the phone, the flash remained there. A reboot fixed the problem in both cases.

Similar observation. It still thought it was “rapidly charging” 30 minutes after it had been unplugged, while overnight it had not actually charged at all.

Hmm. Since a month or two I get this too, FP4 says it charges (both on the lock screen and on the status bar), but its battery level doesn’t go up, the phone just becomes warm to the touch (warm, not hot).

When this happens no amount of unplugging/replugging helps, but a reboot instantly fixes this, at least for a couple days.

Given this reliably happens (to me) in very specific situations, it seems like some external influence (bad contact on the now somewhat used USB plug?) crashes the charging software, which remains dysfunctional till the next reboot.
It’s the only explanation I can find. :thinking:

Did you check the charging rate/power (W / mA) while this happens with an App like e.g. AccuBattery? (not to solve it but out of curiosity)

:bulb: Very good suggestion, no, I didn’t. Mostly because this usually happens in the afternoon when I’m quite busy, and usually don’t have the time to fiddle with my phone. I usually simply unplug it and leave it till the evening, when I reboot it (the risk of a business phone call coming in right then is too high during the day).
But I will try to do it next time, thanks.

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Ok, done: For me it’s most likely a hardware bug, due to the USB plug: It has become very sensitive to cable position, and since I charge my phone on my laptop, when I move the cable ever so slightly on the phone’s side I hear the “plong!” sounds of the phone connecting and disconnecting from the laptop: Bad contact.
Now why the phone gets warm is another question. Some short-circuit in the plug? :thinking:

What remains to be seen is if it is indeed the cable’s or actually the phone’s USB plug. Unfortunately I’m currently not at home and don’t have a spare USB cable with me, so I’ll need to find the time to buy one.

Jeez. It was actually supposed to be more robust, but USB-C is apparently a “substandard” system, I’ve never had any problems with good old USB-A/B (of all sizes), some 10+ years old now, but all my (not cheap!) USB-C cables seem to go bad in 1-2 years… :frowning_face: