Thanks Alex; I didn’t know that. That’s obviously a worry, as I the “no questions asked” return period is only 14 days from delivery, which for me runs out on Friday. I’ll keep contacting the support service.
My phone is still “flashing”, that is, displaying something a tenth of a second every second and being black the rest of the time. I tried a factory reset by pressing the on/off button and the “less volume” simultaneously during 10 seconds, I chose the “recovery” option, but it did not change anything. The phenomenon started 36 hours ago, since then I have restarted my phone a zillion times. I have no answer from the customer support.
I tried to totally empty the battery and to let everything apart (battery, SIM card, SD card, the rest of the phone) for a night. No result: when I reassemble and charge my phone, it is still “flashing”, that is, displaying something a tenth of a second every second and being black the rest of the time. Also, I cannot switch it off anymore: when I press the “on/off” button for 8-10 seconds, it “starts” again.
No answer from the customer support either. No phone for 3 days now.
As I am no more allowed to reply, I update this message: still no improvement in my phone, still no answer from the customer support, 4th day.
7th day and a job meeting tomorrow: no change in my phone’s behaviour, no news from the customer support. Factory reset is not possible (I press the buttons “on/off” and “lower volume” simultaneously, the menu does not contain “factory reset”). Am I supposed to buy a new phone when this one is only 7 months old? Is it compliant with “sustainability”?
8th day: for some reason, my phone functioned properly between 15h30 and 19h30, but went back to its odd way again. Thus in total 4 hours in more than a week, this is not what I expected when I bought it 7 months ago. Still no news from the customer support.
For a factory reset, did you carefully follow these steps: https://support.fairphone.com/hc/en-us/articles/360032859811 ?
If your Fairphone 3 starts normally, you can perform a reset via the Settings menu.
Go to: Settings → System → open Advanced → Reset options → Erase all data (factory reset) → push the button Reset phone .
And then, to do a factory reset without booting the phone, you have to
Please don’t go too quickly.
I really feel for you, because you need your phone to be reliable. But delays for an answer from Fairphone can go up to 10 days.
You have to become a basic user for this.
9th day now, phone still out of order, still no answer from the customer support.
I noticed the same, it looks very much like your description. It got worse after it once fell to the ground. But it functions well again when I try to bend or wrench the phone. Apparently, there is some bad contact inside. I guess I have to disassemble it to find out what it is, and probably clean a contact.
I am, however, the lucky owner of a second phone, so things are not as urgent as in your case.
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Do you have a #fairphoneangel in your vicinity? They may be able to help you to find what is faulty and perhaps lend you a spare part.
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Thank you Siard. Indeed, it is a bad contact: if I press the middle of the right side (and even try to bend the phone – I am afraid to break it, I have to try quite hard), it works again. For a few seconds.
I disassembled it to check whether there was dust or anything preventing the contact, I found nothing, I reassembled it and it does not work any better.
I did not get any answer from the customer service, 11th day.
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As temporary workaround you could then stick a piece of paper to wedge the display.
Call them. By all means refer to your e-mail or zendesk ticket when you speak to them, but call them. If you haven’t got a phone to call, get a fiver of pay-as-you-go Skype calling credit (or a similar service) and use that to call from your laptop, that’s what I tend to do to call internationally anyway as it’s a lot cheaper than my carrier. 11 days of your brand new device being out of order without a good plan for a resolution is unacceptable.
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Hmmm… no, that will not be enough: I have to block the corner of the phone (on the table for instance) and press hard with my fingers/bend the phone to get a correct contact. In other terms, I have to apply quite a high pressure on it, a piece of paper will not suffice. (Plus, I do not see where I could put it: if I put it between the display and the rest of the phone, the parts which should be in contact will be even further apart.)
Did you check this thread?
When you reassembled, did you tighten the screws really hard enough as said in this post?
Thank you. I had checked the screws a few days ago and I just checked them again, but this is not enough. I have to press the upper right corner really hard against the table while I press the middle of the right side to re-establish the contact.
Indeed, the given picture is what my screen looks like, when it displays something, this is what I described as noise-grey looking like an old TV screen. Most of the time it is black.
I am not willing to phone to the customer support because, apart from not having a phone, English is not my mother language and speaking is less easy than writing. However I have sent one email per day + filled the Web form twice.
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Question: support did answer didn’t it? Were you able to send this video?
If you don’t have any means to do a photo or video then please take any on the forum that represents your problem (for example the link to the thread I gave you) and send it saying you have the same problem.
It happened a first time in April 2020, for 1 day or 2, and the support answered asking for a video. As my phone started again working properly after emptying the battery and letting the phone without its battery for one night, I did not send any video.
This time (July 2020) I got absolutely no answer.
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@formerFP.Com.Manager @lorahaspels, sorry for mentioning you again, but aren’t 11 days a long time for an answer from the support team?
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Hi everyone,
I completely missed the first tag on this post. Apologies for that, and for your experience @NathalieR. Do you perhaps have a support ticket number to share so that I can check with my colleagues?
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Thank you: my ticket numbers are [#370524] on Tuesday
and [#372031] this morning.
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12th day without phone.
If I bend it (pressing really hard with my two hands), I manage to establish some electrical contacts between the display and the rest of the phone. For a few seconds.
However, after one day of this regimen, the touch part of the screen is out of order: when I try to enter my PIN code, each digit is entered many times, it is impossible to press each digit only once.
Still no answer from the customer support.
Hi NathalieR,
i had similar problems the last 4 weeks. Two weeks ago the screen than turned completley black. I conntacted the support team, however i only got the generic answers after about a week:
Blockquote
Step 1
To help you further and to improve our product quality, we would really appreciate if you could provide the following details:
Can you tell us which app/steps you performed before your Fairphone 3 showed this issue?
Step 2
Sometimes this issue can be caused by the operative system being corrupted. We suggest you refreshing the operative system of your phone.
Make a backup of your personal data.
Refresh your operating system by following the procedure of this article: Install Fairphone OS on Fairphone 3 using a computer.
Reset your Fairphone 3 to its factory settings. This will wipe all your personal data.
Step 3
Check if the behavior remains.
If it does, could you provide us with pictures or a short video to show us the symptoms?
Try to keep the video size below 20 MB. If the file is bigger than 20 MB, you can use our Fairphone Fileshare portal to upload your files. Please click here and follow the instructions.
I also tried the disassemble/assembling tricks, the battry removal and so on. So far nothing worked. Yesterday, out of desperation, i tried it once more and realized that on the display there is a small silver coverage. This coverage seems to secure an inner connector of the display. I pressed the silver coverage gently down and felt a small click. I assembled the phone back togehter and it worked (even without the screws keeping everything in place.). So the phone is now running perfectly again for about 24h. Probably this can also help you resolve your problem.
Cheers from Germany,
Moaxle
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