Perhaps there is a Fairphone Angel in your neighbourhood who can help you.
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Thank you I’ll buy one today!
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Dear Fairphone community,
my battery won’t charge, I have been running through a lot of troubleshooting as suggested on this page without any success. I am about to order a new bottom module, but wanted to see if you guys think this makes sense…
Issue:
- Battery drains quickly
- When on power supply, charging goes on and off repeatedly within seconds, the phone will actually be drained within a few minutes, regardless of the state of the battery in the beginning
Troubleshooting:
- Different chargers/cables (which worked before): no luck
- Charging my battery in friend’s phone: worked
- Charing my battery in an external charger: worked at first, but after ~10 charing cycles not anymore
- Ordered a new battery - no luck
Sounds like the bottom module is broken, do you agree? I do not want to order all kinds of new electronics if that’s not necessary. Somewhat against the spirit of the FP…
Thanks!
Hi @cchris! Did you solve this issue? I have got the same problem: red LED since yesterday but the phone isn’t doing anything. I’ve tried different chargers, cleaned the different parts and take out the battery during more than a half an hour and nothing…
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I’ve been having the exact same problem as described by @Daniel_M_M. I tried four different chargers and two different batteries, but my phone refuses to turn on or charge. It is always stuck in a boot loop when I try to charge it. The battery-filling animation doesn’t even show…
I have also tried to disassemble the phone completely, including removing the battery for 30+ minutes, and re-assembling the whole thing but that didn’t help either.
The extremely annoying thing is that I’ve had this problem more than once in the past, and they’ve replaced my Fairphone twice already! Looking at how long this thread is and how far back in time it goes, I am extremely disappointed by the Fairphone 2’s apparent lack of quality…
Can anyone help??
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Do you live near a fairphone “heaven” or one of the fairphoneangels or have a friend with another FP2?
Then you could try swapping modules, to check if e.g. the bottom module is defective. That seems to be a kind of week spot with the FP2.
To this regard, please keep 2 things in mind:
- 245 postings, are not 245 users with the same problem. As the first posting shows, it’s 105 users having posted. At least half of them - just guessing - has posted in support or trying to help. So it’s no more than 50 users reporting the problem in this thread (of 100,000 phones sold).
- Fairphone is producing devices in batches rather than having a constant flow off an assembly line. So all the reports stem from one or two batches of phones produced and therefore do not represent a lack of care on behalf of Fairphone. Should the device be flawed - like it was the case with the original cover - this can be changed only when producing a new batch. As those production cycles are rather long (especially compared to other phone-brands), it just seems, that they did not work on the problem for ages.
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Update:
Problem solved!
I received the bottom module today. Very easy to change and all charging/battery problems are gone.
Fairphone repaired 
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Hello,
My phone was plugged for charge with my usual cable. Battery was around 20%, with green LED. After a moment, I noticed that the LED turned red (while still on charge), so I tried to unlock my phone, but nothing happens.
I tried removing disassembling all modules and reassembling them, but the problem is still the same : Black screen, no reaction to Power button (neither to power + vol up/down), and a red light if plugged in (no vibration).
I tried waiting a long time for the battery to charge (more than one hour), but the LED stays red (no yellow/green). I also tried a battery reset, and using a different battery, as well as different cables.
Any ideas of where the problem could come from ?
Thank you,
Fresh
I received a response from tech support claiming that both my batteries must be defective so I should buy a new one. But I think this is highly improbable: What are the chances of two batteries which worked well suddenly both stop working practically overnight, conveniently just after their warranties expired?
After much trying and repeating for multiple times many different chargers, both batteries suddenly started charging again! This is good new but also two problems:
(1) The batteries have returned to their previous state and work fine again. So why did tech support claim that the batteries have died and wanted me to buy a new one?
(2) Even if my phone if fine for now, who knows when both batteries will suddenly die again?
This is very frustrating, and I feel tech support is very unhelpful, especially considering the fact that my current Fairphone 2 is the second replacement they’ve sent me (due to other defects) and hence the third one I got. How is this environmentally and socially responsible? And if it is indeed true that both my batteries have suddenly become defective, that’s also environmentally irresponsible!
I really feel for you.
My guess would be, that the advise from support was a kind of “shot in the dark” at the most likely target. Not really the perfect solution, especially when they don’t inform you, that it’s just a guess. 
Seems like the bottom module or rather the charger/cable were responsible.
Well, all batteries die after some time. And if they are already out of warranty, that’s not without reason. On that behalf Fairphone even offers a much longer warranty on the battery than most other companies.
Regarding sustainability. There your experience and perception might be misleading.
You find my thoughts on this here:
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(1)
Distant tech support is a rather tough job to do. I did not wanted to do it as the assistant needs to know the product and possible ways how it can act very precisely. Of course if warranty is over and the technician comes to his conclusion the batteries are spent he will likely advise you to replace them.
(2)
I think it is rather unlikely that both batteries will fail suddenly. It´s more likely that the bottom module then has failed in advance. But also some phones suffer from batteries being too loose in their compartment hence does not charge correctly or are not recognised at all. You can read through several topics here.
Since both batteries are working again I would use them for some time
but consider doing a reset by this #batteryguide in the near future to have a better battery status.
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Hello,
I have a similar problem to the ones described in this topic, but not exactly the same. I guess the most similar case is the one described in post 100 by @Matters_Martin.
I have asked official support, but I wonder if someone in the community can also help me . This is a short description of what happened:
- I found my phone unexpectedly off even if there was enough charge for hours
- The battery has at least 3.5V left (I measured it with voltmeter)
- If I plug the phone with battery, no LED turns on (and screen remains black)
- If I plug the phone without battery, red LED starts blinking
Because the phone turned off unexpectedly I doubt it is due to bottom module (that, according to this thread, was the main reason of battery problem). I also doubt it is due to the battery (I tried to remove it for 6 hours and insert it again without any change). In addition, I tried to clean the contact of all modules, but nothing happened. Finally, different chargers or plugs (all of them actually worked until yesterday) were not able to bring my phone back to its glorious past life.
I tried the solution suggested by @Kate_Bottriell in post 85, but I can not turn on the plugged FP2 without battery. At this point, I am afraid that the main module is broken…
Could someone give me some more hints?
Thank you.
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