After 1 year of no problems my fairphone 3 switched off while i was using and charging. Since then charging has been a constant problem. Immediately i bought a new battery from fairphone in case that was the problem £30 . It wasn’t the problem. so i looked on this community and saw messages about the cable and charger. I had always used a variety of cables and chargers whatever was to hand with no problems. But i decided to buy the official fairphone in case that was the problem. another £40 later it was not the problem. So i wrote to support and said what i already had done. they still told me to get fairphone charger (and didn’t know it was sold out on their own website), told me to clean the port, to do battery health test (one was brand new) and finally a factory reset. Very hard to fit all this in to very busy work time and nothing made a difference. The problem was randomly not charging at all (no charge light), or charging extremely slowly 20% in 12 hours, or occasionally charging normally. I managed to keep some charge on both batteries and occasionally get them to top up but now its worse. Also my backlight fades up and down randomly and the flashlight flickers. Anyone else suffering like this? Anyone else had to return for same issues ? did you get a replacement or what? seems unlikely i would be the only person with this problem.
Also if it charges at all it will only do so if switched off.
You can contacted support@fairphone.com or log a support query via the website.
You may then be asked to disassemble and reassemble the phone and check the contacts of the charging module and core module. Dampness may have effected the stability and the contacts may need cleaning.
But as the phone is under warranty still you should be able to get it sorted by a Fairphone return if it’s not a simple module contact problem.
Not that there may be a Fairphone Angel near you, that could swap modules, if there is a problem, but are you in the UK and what area?
I have exactly the same problem.
About a year the battery perfomance was great, with a battery life of at least 2 days, often even 3 days. Then, from one day to the other, the battery life was only about 24 hours and since I have massive issues just charging the battery (either not charging at all or very slow). Like in your case, the flashlight is flickering since then, too.
At first I thought the charging socket of the phone was too dirty, but cleaning it out did nothing whatsoever. However, I’ve noticed the battery charging as fast as it used to if I follow two things:
The phone has to be switched off for it to charge
The charging cable has to be plugged into the socket with force. Seems it also helps to twist the cable before inserting it, so there’s a bit more “tension”.
After a few minutes I check if the phone is charging, if not I disconnect the cable again, turn it 180 degrees and insert it again. Usually the phone is charging quickly then, still often enough I have to unplug and plug in multiple times until it starts to charge normally. On the daily, I now need several minutes for the charging process to start satisfactorily, the battery is still run down after max 24 hours though.
Anyways, my next guess was that the problem was the cable or the charger, hence I bought the fairphone original ones, but again it didn’t help.
Then I hoped a new battery would do the job, though after reading your post I doubt that. I’m afraid it is all because of an “internal” error within the charging unit inside the phone itself. As of yet I’m still managing, but it feels like the battery life becomes less with every month.
It would be fantastic if anyone knew a solution for this. Has anyone perhaps tried to take out the battery and charge it with a universally usable charger?
It does seem like the usb socket is not making good contact.
It could be that the bottom module isn’t seated very well, you could disassemble and put it back together to see if that helps |or| there is debris in the port that you cannot see |or| some corrosion |or| some coating of the contacts like oil. If you have a Fairphone angel nearby maybe they could swap the bottom module to check.
Anyway I have had this problem on other phones so I bought a case so I could insert a small piece of non woven fabric inside to cover the port.
Okay, I will try it, thank you!
This is my effort to keep the usb socket clean, ~, I have to take it out of the case to charge it.
Thank you , yes many emails with support. many of them standard responses to problems i don’t have or irrelevant tests. lots of wishing me a nice day. no real effort to understand or solve. they keep asking for reviews where i tell them whats happened but no follow up at all. I have now said i am going to send it back and ask for a refund but no response to that either. I have such a busy life and phone is so essential for me to fit everything in yet i never know if i can charge it or not, its very stressful trying to manage the battery life. Today my son examined it and said the cable connection is not good there is too much movement and only occasionally can it make proper contact. when it is switched off and plugged in it spends around an hour booting every minute before charge light comes on and very slow charge. occasionally it acts like there is nothing wrong and charges fast straight away. but this is getting rarer.
Hi, good to hear its not just me. you would think they would be keen to understand and resolve . This is first time i ever bought a handset instead of getting unethical one on contract and was a very significant spend for me but fully trusted fairphone would also be fair to me. i never had any of these issues in 25 years of mobile phones. In the end it needs to be working all the time and if i have to go back to an unethical one i will. Mine also only last 24 hours or less when fully charged whether on the new or the 1yr old battery, something i hadn’t really registered just grateful and releived when it charged. I will try disassembling and checking everything is clean and secure.
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