I reported it yesterday and was told to expect a reply in approx. 8 days - there’s a backlog at support dept. caused by a flu epidemic at the office among other things …
1 Like
Would be great to know if there is a problem with the phone - I’ve had zero reception for a few days now. Tried my friends SIM card (on a different network) in my phone and I got signal, but when I put my SIM into his phone, it worked and got signal. So I don’t think there’s an issue with my SIM.
On the way to the phone shop now to try various combinations of phones and SIMs. Though it would be great to find another FP2 owner nearby to try and see if it’s a faulty unit…
My FP2 drops calls frequently, and sometimes I have to call 3-4 times, talk a few sentences and call again, before I can talk for a longer period. No depending on environment, Outdoors, indoors, ground level, 8th floor, same issue…
1 Like
I’m having the same problem as @3on . In fact I have the feeling that the radio in FP2 is significantly weaker than the one in my previous smartphone (Samsung Galaxy S2). Both at work and at home I have mediocre reception thanks to coated glass, but the SGS2 had stable connections even with 1 bar. The fairphone often loses connectivity, especially when taking a call, and stays offline with no signal for several minutes before it comes back.
I had the same thing. Since I am an engineer and don’t really care about my warranty ;-), I decided to have a look. What I found in my case was that the antenna cable connector in the left lower part of the phone was not seated correctly on the small circuit board under the cover plate. I clicked it in place and since then no more dropped calls.
Might or not might be the same problem for people here, but it’s worth to have a look I guess.
Hope I helped someone here.
Regards,
Alfi
3 Likes
I assume you are talking about the one on the left? Too bad they are missing a lot of pictures. But maybe other people can test it as well. Would be interesting to know.
1 Like
Yes, the left lower left corner. The little circuit board that connects to the antenna on the outside of the plastic frame is underneath the white plastic cover which is held in place by the two torx screws. In my case the antenna cable connector was not seated correctly and gave a clear ‘click’ when it snapped into place when I pressed it. Be carefull as this is very sensitive and easily broken if handled to rough.
4 Likes
Now everyone just has to get a torx screwdriver. Wait… Isn’t that what they wanted to avoid?
I just bought a torx screwdriver and had a look at the RF connector @Alfi1966 mentioned. It was firmly seated. I wiggled around the connector a few degrees just to be sure. I see two antennas in the body, on the left side and on the top. Are there different connectors for them? Or do they have a different purpose?
I am not entirely sure it is the physical RF connection though. I often experience loss of signal and inability to reregister for several minutes in locations where signal strength was perfectly fine minutes ago. Could this be a firmware issue as well?
With my old SGS2 I have often used the app “Network Signal Info” to track reception over time, but it does not seem to work so well with the FP2. The signal stregth in the app does not change, although the indicator at the top and the signal strenth in the system status change when moving the phone.
I am having the same sort of problems. Since getting my phone a few weeks ago almost half of the calls I make one of the callers cannot hear the other and we have to hang up and redial at least once. I have also lost the call on a few occasions. I have full signal when this happens and I’m not in any remote places. I am not a techy person and not sure what to do about this so any help would be appreciated. I have waited a few years to be able to afford a fairphone as I have refused to buy another unethical smartphone in the meantime - I am getting quite frustrated and disappointed. Do the moderators check these posts and offer advice/solutions at all?
Cheers Z
1 Like
Of course we read these topics. And offer advice and solutions, if we know that there is one. But we are just normal users like you, not employees of Fairphone. Sometimes somebody finds a workaround and then we spread the good news, but in this case, I just have no idea what could help. Besides contacting Support.
Well, @Alfie666 opened his phone and fixed the antenna (see above) and in his case, the problem seems to be solved…
Update: Unfortunately I have no objective measurements, but I have the strong feeling that the signal level has improved a lot after this change. I now have a usable signal in the back of my appartment where the FP2 was totally offline before I fiddled with the RF connector.
This however:
is still happening. So there seem to be more issues.
1 Like
Same problem at my end.
I have the feeling it’s connected to the respective network the call takes place - in my case 4g calls often are really bad and the phone keeps changing networks. Even at places with very good network Cover.
If I receive calls at my second sim card, which is limited to 2g , I don’t have any problems at all.
Any experience at your side?
Update: after switching to 3g or 2g I don’t have problems anymore.
Maybe the build in modem can’t handle “volte” (Voice over LTE ) in the best way.
But having Set the network mode to 3g all the time is not really an atractive option due to lower Speed at surfing etc.
2 Likes
I also got a problem with getting calls en calling people. On my second SIM (limitid to 2G) less problems.
I put the settings of the mobile network of the nr. 1 SIM-card to 2G only and this SIM-card now has full reception as the second SIM. Hoping that the problems will be gone now but this is still not normal.
The problems haven’t become less since I started this thread. Sometimes when I’m on the street (not even in a building or subway station) I can’t call people, even though it shows that I have a good network connection. It doesn’t make the “ring” sound and just aborts the call attempt with a standard no network error message. A restart of the phone usually solves the problem, but as you can imagine this is very annoying. Since I am connected to 4G 99% of the time, I will try @SiVi’s idea and revert back to 3G for a few days to see if the problems disappear.
The behavior descibed here is still unchanged in my case. Working around it by making sure to turn off the screen before every incoming or outgoing call is not really convenient. When waking the screen to operate the keypad during a call, the phone gets scared and freezes, so I have to hold down power for 10 seconds to force reboot.
Looks like I have a similar problem. I got 2 brand new FP2’s, one is working as expected but the second one has always only 50% of signal-strength compared to the first one. That leads to permanent disonnections (or downgrades from 4G to 3G to GRPS/EDGE and finally to offline). Both dualsim-slots are affected at the same time. And to compare better, I took the same provider-simcards for both phones and placed them in any combination. I even tried a roaming-enabled card just to verify its not related to the mobile provider. Same effect: FP2 #2 has serious issues with the connectivity - and for me it looks like an antenna-problem (again?). As the phone is in the 14 days return period, I asked the support for a return and refund. Lets see …
Hmm, as I read in multiple treads, there are connection and reboot problems, maybe caused by the 4G connection? Hopefully the Fairphone crew will find the problems.
I had also a call drop while talking with my sister who owns a FP2. First we had good sound quality (I guess HD voice or VoLTE, then we got disconnected. During the following talk we had bad sound quality (I don’t no why) and no call drop.
Dosc
I have the same problems. Sometimes I have a weak signal, might be weather related. Three weeks ago I have contacted the customer support but I do not have received any answer, yet. I have tried other SIM-cards, an older Android version, no success…