My Fairphone (FP1) has just died completely. The red light does not come on when I plug in the charger, and it is not recognised by Windows when I plug in the USB cable. It started with an error message saying FairphoneOS has stopped responding, so I switched it off, took out the battery, put it back in again and tried to restart. Nothing. The battery was 80% charged at the time. I have tried the instructions here http://forum.xda-developers.com/showthread.php?t=1982587 and here http://forum.xda-developers.com/wiki/Fairphone_Fairphone/Guides#How_to_restore_Fairphone_if_you_totally_bricked_it and also looked at this forum thread phone-completly-died/1311 but I still can’t get it to work. As it is still under warranty I want to send it back for repair, but if anyone knows of another fix I will try that first.
From what you say, a question pops up in my head: Have you tried it with another USB-cable? Maybe the one you were using broke and caused the OS to crash… (I don’t really know if this is even possible, but I think it’s worth a try.)
Also do you have access to another FP-battery? Just to rule out the obvious hardware failures…
Hi - thanks for getting back. The cable works fine with another phone, and no, I don’t have another battery. The red charging light should come when the charger is plugged in on even if the operating system is corrupted, right? Makes me think it’s a hardware problem.
I confirm this problem. It happend to me after I did the storage upgrade from Fairphone Updater. It
went well. But after the successful upgrade, while I was downloading the
google Play store, I turned off the Phone to put in the micro SD card,
and now NOTHING ist working: The phone remains dead.
- If I press the power button for >4 seconds, nothing happens.
- If I press the power button for >10 seconds, nothing happens.
- If I press the power button and Volume Up button for >10 seconds, nothing happens.
- If I plug in the USB cable, there is no red light, and nothing happens.
I tried another cable AND I tried another battery (replaced it a month ago and still have the old one). None of them worked. I am so much hoping that there is possibility to get it working without sending it in.
I vaguely remember such a behaviour with my First Edition FP between updates and hard resets… But I never sent my phone back, I just let it lie around a bit, then tried again, played a bit with the hardware (battery in, charger in, out, press power button, and so on.)
Something which sometimes happens to computers is that the power button holds some dump energy. This can be resolved by taking the battery out and with no battery in pressing the power button for like 10 seconds. Did you try that? What happens after you took this procedure and try the battery/charging again?
I doubt that this must be the case because you never know which “security” barriers the chipset manufacturer implemented in the chip. Take my old HP laptop, e.g., it noticed when I plugged in a power supply from a different manufacturer. So possibly Android also has some “switch”, which tells the hardware: “Something’s wrong, don’t let power in.”
Something which sometimes happens to computers is that the power button holds some dump energy. This can be resolved by taking the battery out and with no battery in pressing the power button for like 10 seconds. Did you try that?
Just tried - still nothing
Thanks for your effort @Stefan.
Sadly – Neither for me it worked. cry!
At least i didnt give away my Nokia 2323, so i’m not cut off the world…
Hi @JPL,
It’s nice that the community is trying to help each other out on this, but there are some serious issues that should be handled by customer support. Our customer support team received your message over the weekend and will be replying to you end of today. Thanks for your patience!
Best,
Joe
Thanks Joe
Look forward to the response
John
Hi Joe,
unfortunately I have the same problem as JPL… the phone is “dead”… The last thing that happend was that the power went from 15% to 0 very fast. After that: nothing. No charging-light, no reaction… Before I try something else, I thought it was better to ask you first what else to do now?!
Kind regards,
Stefan
Same problem as Steff
@SteffMaerz and @Gardda: You both did try to let the phone plugged-in for some time (10min), and tried to switch-on then? Tried the tips posted by @Stefan?
It looks quite serious, that you 4 guys all have the same problem within just some days?
Did it start for you all after draining battery down to 0%?
In my case it also happend some time (0% + switch-off), but it was no problem to re-charge and re-boot the phone while charging after 10 seconds…
You should all open a support ticket, if nothing of the above reported helped!
I hope that @anon90052001 and the support can help you more and figure out the problem to avoid it for others! Please post back here any success!
Good look, although I have no more helpful hints for you…
Cheers, Robert
Same problem with my Fairphone
Hey @therob,
I tried to let the phone plugged in, all cables I tried are ok and working with my old phone.
Nothing.
I checked the power of the battery with a voltmeter and it told me 4 V, so the battery isn’t completely out of power and I don’t think that that is the problem. I will be able to check a battery from a friend’s fairphone on monday. After that I’m sure about that.
I hope you have written our support team: www.fairphone.com/asksupport.
They can best help you through that channel!
Best,
Joe
Hi Joe
Yes, I have now sent the phone back to the repair centre. Hopefully they will be able to find the cause.
seems to be the days when fairphones die … mine just showed the same issues on thur/fri … ordered a new battery as a first measure … but it’s probably a good idea to watch this tre(n)d
Same happened to my FP1 
Hoping for the support to suggest a solution.
Hi everyone,
I could test another battery yesterday and: it worked! I could boot and I could charge.
So in my case it seems no problem with the phone itself.
The little weird thing is that my voltmeter still shows me a voltage of 3.8V…
I’ll give it to the support now.
Best,
Stefan
So did some thorough inspection … looks like the mini USB port has become wonky. wiggling the cable shortly brings the phone into charging mode. might be dust or mechanical.