Gutted that it has just stopped working today (I had chinese writing on the screen a few days ago, and took battery out to stop it) - it tris to switch on - gets to ‘LOADING’ and switches off. I have managed to get teh robot screen and tried a soft reset and the restore factory settings one, no change. I think i must conclude its knackered - totally gutted, last nokia lasted 12 years. 2 years is rubbish. IS there a trade in scheme towards a FP2? I dont want to go back to mainstream, but neither can i afford £300 every couple of years 
… I would hope that Fairphone have a whole life approach and have a buyback (at value of the recyclables) scheme?
The chinese writing could have been testing mode, which can sometimes activate by accident (volume button gets stuck) or maybe activates when there is a hardware problem. If you’ve wiped the data anyway, you could try accessing testing mode again (see link for instructions) and choosing the clear eMMC option. For this, and the two options listed below, I’d ideally do this without the SIM(s) and SD-card present.
Another thing worth trying is re-applying the latest update, if it is still present on the phone. Instructions on how to do this from recovery mode are available here (I know the cause of the problem that page mentions probably isn’t relevant, but re-applying the update has on occasion solved other problems).
Finally, there’s the option of flashing the binary images, as is explained at XDA. You can use the flashable image of Fairphone OS Kola Nut with upgraded storage layout regardless of which version of Fairphone OS you had previously.
Of course, the above won’t fix broken hardware, but as your phone seems to boot part way, there is still a possibility that this is one of those rare cases where the Software inexplicably got messed up.
If it is broken, and you don’t want to repair it: I’m not aware of any buy-back scheme, but there are people looking for spare parts, so you could sell it for spares. Alternatively there is a recycling programme here.
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thanks so much - i will try all of that 