FP2 reboots and home screen issues

I see, thank you. Not a great prospect but could be worse I assume.

I have to write another update unfortunately. The phone has started to, well, restart itself again. And I did not re-insert the SD card. First it restarted when I was using my banking app, twice in a row. Then I started doing something else and left the phone on my desk. It’s now restarted 7 times in a row, with a very predictable 3 minute window in between restarts. I’ve been timing it. Give or take a few secs.

Start timing 00:01:33
Split 2 00:03:57
Split 3 00:07:12
Split 4 00:10:25
Split 5 00:13:48
Split 6 00:16:57
Split 7 00:19:26

Mein Fairphone 2 schaltet sich seit heute nach ein paar Minuten von selbst aus und startet dann gleich wieder neu. Das passiert bei Anwendung pausenlos.
Vorher ging es eigentlich noch gut, war nur oft langsam und hängte sich immer wieder für kurze Zeit auf. Den Akku habe ich vor kurzem ausgetauscht. Daran liegt es wohl nicht.
Habt ihr Ideen, an was das liegen könnte?

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It seems this issue occured to multiple users at the same time, including me. (Android 7.1.2, Build number 19.11.2) What is your version?

See the English post of today: FP2 reboots and home screen issues

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What would you say it is a reasonable storage? Or how much did you have that was not enough? I have almost 4Gb, I think.

I think I’m not the right person to advise on that specifically. I don’t know what the size of the update is. At the time that I did it I probably had less than 1 GB left, and I was not aware of that when I started the update. I got stuck in TWRP because the update could not be installed because of too little storage space.

So if I sum up:

  • This affects multiple users regardless of their country, but not everybody (having an emptier phone memory prevents it from starting; cleaning memory does not solve the issue)
  • Some of the common problems look like hardware (non-functional buttons)
  • All of us had Android 7 when it started (does anybody know if this happens to people with A7 in other phones?)
  • Upgrading to A9 does not solve the issue with the home- and app list buttons
  • It started across the world on Dec 6th (this is the creepy part)
  • safe mode, removing cards or flight mode reduce frequency but do not solve the problem fully (so although it may not be an app thing, some app[s] may make things worse)
  • notifications have disappeared
  • some settings are not working, e.g. not direct access to flight mode.

Now seriously, this looks lousy. Can’t be random. Programmed obsolescence is not an option, I assume. Any ideas?
Why can’t we see the app list? Is there a way to see whether there is an app working on the background and messing things up?

Has anybody tried the factory settings specifically after this issue? If so, did it solve the problem?

Let me know if I forgot anything important…

So far, I have managed to save my documents into G-drive using safe mode. Haven’t managed to save data from apps (yet)

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thanks to sum up, i confirm that i also have the same issues and no solution till now and it started on 6th. my boyfriend has the an FP2 too, but he doesn’t encounter thoses problems till now.

@andreea are there any differences in usage between your phone and your boyfriend’s that could be relevant? e.g. difference in memory use, apps, changed modules…

Not sure it will be relevant, but so far, I have changed the top module and the battery.

Maybe the current outbreak, but the problem is waaaaaaaay older, for example:

Yes, as far as I know it always solves the problem. At least it did for me.

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we made changes in modules a year ago, both the buttom module, i changes the screen and he changed the battery. I still have more than 10Gb free memory, we were both on Android 7, today i changend on Android 9 to see if it change anything, but still the same problem. he is installing the A9 right now.

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Hi, same exact problem here, also since yesterday (and in france).
FP2 with Android 7.1.2 build 19.11.2, no SD card, internal memory pretty full (900 MB left)

Today the phone is mostly stable, but I can’t say what made it better (except maybe more battery ?). But even without the reboots, the other problems big and small are still present (home button, square button and notifications not working, only 1 line of swipe down menu, buzzing when hitting keys, fonts bigger than usual, brightness higher than normal, …). The settings I managed to turn back to normal this morning (e.g. fonts, brightness) got messed up again during the day.
I don’t know if there is any link, but for a while before that (a couple weeks maybe), I started having more and more frequent random prompts for my pincode (but now the automatic reboots strangely do not ask for the pincode).
I have not tried factory resetting yet because I was hoping to backup my phone first, but with this notification problem I don’t know how to switch the USB from charging to file transfer. From what I gather on this thread there is no way to circumvent this, and i should try to upload on Drive ? (gonna be long…)
Good luck to everyone with this…

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Just start the phone into twrpwoflashing and connect your computer to it. Then you’ll have access to internal memory and can copy the content from the phone to your PC.

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It had already happened on 1st of January 2020 that a similar problem happened to various 7.1.2 devices during the same day:

Unfortunately that time also only a factory seems to have solved the the problem.

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i’ll try that, thanks ! (I was unsure about using TWRP, seeing TJM’s post about being stuck because of data, but now I understand that the issue was the upgrade to Android 9 and not the twrping itself.)

Correct. And you even don’t have to install it if you don’t want to change anything on the phone itself (so no risk).

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I apologize if I’m going a bit offtopic, but i need a little bit more help to use the #twrptoflashing : my computer (Windows10) can’t find a driver for the FP2 (“fastboot devices” is empty, and in the device manager FP2 shows up as an unknown Android device)(fastboot seems fine, blinking blue). #twrpwoflashing instructions say Win10 will find the driver on internet, but it turns out it this is not an option anymore (since summer 2020 apparently). Any idea where I can find such a driver ? I looked into ADB Driver installer but it requires that I put my phone in USB debugging mode, which I cannot do more than setting USB to file transfer…
I’m going to try on other computers tomorrow, but in case it doesn’t work, any pointer is appreciated !

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(In case it helps someone else, I found the answer for the driver : don’t try to find the driver through the device manager options, but through windows update, see yvmuell’s solution in Which android driver should I use? )

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I’m in safe mode now and the problem persists. I had more than 10 GB storage left. Trying to uninstall some apps now, anyway.

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thanks for the hint of just repeating the process. I finally managed (after 25 retries) to flash the new OS. I can use the phone again and all the data is still there.

Still the problems with the home button and reduced swipe down menu are present.

What’s the current recommendation? Backup all data, factory reset, reset to backup? would that work?

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exactly same symptoms from the Netherlands, starting the same day :confused: this is SO strange.

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