I had the same symptoms as described above by @ingridgk (also nicely shown on her video):
reboot stuck at first screen
loss of access to recovery mode
however, in my case, it wasn’t linked to a drained battery.
In that state (some call it hardbricked), the only solution is probably to flash the system afresh using binary images, BUT without access to recovery mode, that seems hardly possible (at least using fastboot and flashable images). Can anyone confirm/infirm that?
My solution: I called support and now will send my FP2 back for repair… (they answered my call within seconds )
but that was after a month waiting that they answer my support ticket…
here is how it started with me:
phone started to randomly reboot (especially with Google Maps), sometimes asking to enter my simcard PIN
phone went into The Boot Loop of Death… (optimizing a random num of apps each time)
left phone doing its thing overnight (plugged)
phone dead in the morning, not booting passed the first screen, rebooting… no battery led, no recovery mode
If it is a deep discharged battery, I am not 100% sure if it is a warranty case, but it is possible.
Options I think you have in the very short time:
Best would be to see if you can get a hold of your friend with the FP2 (asap), so you can check if it is the battery or the bottom module (I doubt anything else will be the problem).
Order a new battery. In case you get your original back alive or it will be replaced under warranty, you’ll have a spare battery. Assuming it is only the battery that is the problem, you can deal with anything else (e.g. warranty claim) later, but you’ll have a working phone for your trip.
Give Fairphone a call for immediate support and see what they recommend/can do.
As I wrote before, if you didn’t experience problems with charging earlier, and you use the same charger, I don’t think the bottom module is the problem. Still you can try to disassemble/reassemble the module. It is possible that the connection got loose for example from a fall or something similar, and thus doesn’t charge.
I actually tried to hard reset it two hours ago. I managed to enter the recovery mode and hard reset my FP2, but my FP2 still hasn’t turned on after hard reset. It is still in this restart loop of “Fairphone” logo > black screen > vibration > “Fairphone” logo.
I have just sent a request to customer support and hope to receive their reply soon.
Now I’ve tried everything above except trying my friend’s bottom module (had the wrong screwdriver) + doing a factory reset, and my phone still doesn’t charge. However, I got to charge the battery for a bit in my friend’s phone, and when I put it back into my own phone, I noticed that the battery drained really fast (a percent every minutes or so). So it seems the problem is not only charging the phone. Does anyone think this could still be connected to the bottom module?
I called support, but they could only ask me to send a support request online, and also told me that it will definitely not be possible to fix my problem before I leave.
I guess I have two options:
a) order a new bottom module, hope I get it in time and that it actually fixes the problem
b) get a new (cheap) phone
As much as I really want to do the right thing and give FP another chance, I’m a bit tempted to just go straight to b) – it will probably cost me less money, and I will have a working phone tomorrow.
Thanks, ingridgk, for detailed description and video.
Same issue here since yesterday with following conditions:
cold & humid conditions (no direct contact with water, just in slightly damp pockets or bags - nothing unusual)
battery 80% charged
1 day after replacing an empty battery (at 3%) with my spare full battery
after 2 weeks of use only in airplane mode
as described by langga, it does app updates, usually “X of 95” or “X of 136” - sometimes reaches full number, but then goes back to restart loop
same after disassembling (base - screen - battery), cleaning, drying & waiting for hours
I don’t feel like investing half a day in all these options, since most don’t seem to have worked for others. I think I’ll send it back to FAIRPHONE.
So this seems to be happening to a growing number of people… (5-10 on this thread alone) and all in the last 3-4 weeks (no such records on this forum prior to that). I wonder what is the cause of this and if FP support staff will have time to look into it.
I have the following environment:
Fairphone2 with the openOS and openGAPPS pico as I need some apps from the Playstore.
After the last update of the openOS I first had some error indications concerning the google environment, which I ignored, later on I got the restart loop as described by langga.
For my special case the following worked:
I managed to enter the teamwin environment, by pressing volume up and the power button simultaneously. As the phone was in the boot screen at this time, I had to press both buttons quite a long time (20 sec). In teamwin I installed the openGAPPS as decribed in the corresponding post. Now my phone works again without trouble. So both, the restart loop and the error indications vanished.
Hi there! I seem to have a similar kind of problem. My FP2 suddenly crashed while I was using Messenger and didn’t turn on again. I tried several things (removing the battery and putting it back, doing a battery reset…). I got the phone to charge a few times (also blinking at first, signalling a deep-discharged battery even though it was charged at the beginning), but it mostly stayed stuck in a restart loop. I also try dismantling it. Now it doesn’t react to anything. The restart loop does not even appear anymore, nor the LED light. I must say I am pretty desperate!
Check if the battery sits tightly in the phone or if it can move slightly. You may need to put it a small piece of paper to make sure the battery doesn’t loose connection to the phone.
Then try the battery reset again (let the battery cool down first) and make sure you don’t try to boot (don’t press any buttons) until the LED turns green. The phone shouldn’t try to boot on it’s own, but only show the Fairphone screen shortly, followed by the charging animation.
Thanks for your input! I tried this a couple of time before and tried it again just now. So I dismantled and reassemble the phone again. The battery seems tight enough: I don’t think I could find the space to put a piece of paper. I let the battery cool down for about one hour and then put it to charge. The LED blinking light appeared for one minute or two (no Fairphone screen or charging animation). And then the light disappeared and the phone does not seem to charge. Pressing buttons won’t help. Is there anything else I can do besides sending my phone back?
I have the same issue and I can state it is NOT caused by the battery. My battery was at 60% when android crashed and the FP2 went into the “reboot” loop. - My battery works fine in another FP2 - we have two FP2s here. - So do not waste time trying to figure out how to “solve” this issue, but send your FP in for repair.
I did try with 3 different chargers and 3 different cables and also plugging it into my laptop! The charger I used worked just fine before, but is probably not powerful enough for a deep-discharged battery (5V, 0,5A). The other chargers I used were more powerful (1,8A or 2A) but apart from the red LED light blinking for a few second, nothing happened. I contacted the support and they got back to me really quickly, advising me to do a hard reset. I think I will try to do that (even though I will lose all my data…) before trying to send it back.
A quick update from my bootloop issue:
Talked to FP support bcause nobody was answering my support ticket. They asked me to send my phone in. Sent my phone in some weeks ago.
This week I got the answer that my phone will be replaced completely without charging me any additional €
-> “Indeed, with this bootloop issue we are replacing phones completely. We
are still not sure what the root cause of this problem is, which is why
we want to be as sure as possible that our customers aren’t getting
their phones back with the same issue”
Really frustrating but FP support acted really quick and customer friendly.
So do not hesitate to call them, describe the problem and send your Fphone in.
)
