So I believe this issue has started quite a while ago and escalated more recently. For a while, Wi-Fi has been awful and periodically not worked on my FP6. One month ago I started experiencing periodical reboots as well. 2 weeks ago my phone was practically unusable due to constant reboots. I followed the troubleshooting-guides and nothing improved the situation, including a full factory reset (which I can tell you is incredibly infuriating when your phone keeps on rebooting and not letting you access WiFi for when you’re attempting to download all your app data).
When I say that the Wi-Fi is “disabled” or “gone”, I mean that toggling Wi-Fi in internet options just results in it getting turned back off immediately, and I can not view any saved Wi-Fi networks anywhere.
After this I have made 2 new discoveries that made my everyday a bit more bearable after scanning the forums for similar experiences:
My phone rebooted less if I kept it charged between 30-70%.
Going from 5G to 4G made that rebooting happen a bit less frequently as well.
Due to regulated charging assisting the issue a bit, I even bought new battery. Today I recevied and put in the new battery, and now the rebooting is worse than ever. The Wi-Fi is still gone.
I am at a loss. I have tried so hard to love this phone. The sound buttons got destroyed more than half a year ago, and I have powered through by going to “settings” every time I want to change the volume on the phone. Is there any way to save this situation? I really feel that I have tried everything.
To get answers more specific for you case, it would be very helpful to know
which Android flavor do you use? The stock Fairphone OS (“Fairphone Android”), or /e/OS (by Murena), or another different one you installed yourself?
which OS version are you at? Settings → About phone → Build number at the very bottom,
in which country are you and what provider do you use?
Because there are known issues for some of the problems you describe for certain of those mentioned cases, and some got fixes recently.
I live in Norway and use Telenor, which has historically been the biggest providor in our country. I briefly switched providors for a short month, and experienced a lot of issues due to them being incompatible, so this providor has been good to my phone so far.
The issue in the link you sent was the same as what I experienced with a different providor, but I can’t access the area in my phone settings where I fixed it at that time due to Wi-Fi being inaccessible, and changing my router’s settings doesn’t change that my phone doesn’t pick up on any Wi-Fi networks
Could you please say more about the sound buttons being destroyed? Perhaps one of them interacts with the device somehow and prompts rebooting?
Given you already have performed the factory reset, perhaps the easiest way out would be to send the phone for repair?
Some of the network issues you mentioned might be (also) connected to your provider, could you double check with another SIMcard, preferably from a different provider? I would imagine even eSIM card perhaps even limited to data transfer could do.
Depending where you live in Norway, you may also reach to local angels Heavens, there should be one in Oslo and another in Bergen
The sound buttons fell out, so I’d be impressed if they could interact with the phone in some way that would affect function
I fear sending it in for repair is the next step, but my electronics store where I bought it are arguing that it will not be covered and that it’s cheaper to buy a new phone
I have attempted using my phone without any sim card connected, and didn’t experience any changes - I will see if I can try with a card from a different providor before sending it in for a repair.
I sadly do not live close to any angels Heavens either
