I have had a lot of problems with my phone shortly after getting it last year but I won’t go into them all.
The main issue that I had started several months in, culminating in a complete loss of function in December.
I would charge my phone and suddenly the phone would stop charging and the problem persisted no matter what, even when I changed chargers. I would take the charger out and replace which worked for a little while it but it gradually got worse and worse as this became gradually less effective until December 2016 when plugging a charger in made no difference to the battery life at all and the battery just died.
I wanted to replace the bottom module then but it was out of stock for months and months. Finally, I few weeks ago they were restocked. My new bottom module arrived today, I replaced it and started charging my phone. The red light on the front came on, I heard the phone vibrate and I left it to charge. I came back some time later and nothing happened when I tried to switch it on. I have tried turning it on with the charger plugged in, I have taken the charger out and tried, I have put another sim card in but it just isn’t working.
I’m pretty disappointed at this point. I have waited six months to finally be able to turn my phone back on and it seems that the broken bottom module was not the only problem and there is something else that is casing the phone to not respond.
Does anyone have any advice or the ability to magically bring me back my phone? Thanks in advance.
I’d suggest contacting Fairphone support, as these sound like issues that should/could be covered under warranty (a defective bottom module usually is, though the battery itself may not be anymore). Support have been prioritising parts for warranty repairs, so warranty replacements are not necessarily affected by the availability in the shop - there’ve been some delays in warranty repairs, but not 6 months.
Also: did the charging light stay on? The official troubleshooter suggests a defective battery if the light briefly comes on, the phone then vibrates, and finally restarts.
The bottom module was covered in the warrant, I was sent a new one free of charge today my phone still won’t turn on.
I assure you that it has taken 6 months to get a new bottom module. This is a direct quote I received after contacting Fairphone:
"In more detail, the reason [that the bottom module is out of stock] is that we are currently optimizing our production process. We are gradually introducing some changes to improve production quality, based on the teachings of the past half year of Fairphone 2-production. For that purpose, we temporarily stopped the assembly lines. We also engaged with suppliers to adjust their processes and materials.
Currently we are waiting until the new modules are shipped from China and back in stock again in our warehouse."
In answer to your question the light did stay on while the phone was charging but nothing else happened, it didn’t restart or even turn on. To clarify, since changing the bottom module the phone seems to register that the charger is connected by the red light coming on but nothing else happens and the light won’t turn green. I have changed to different chargers but nothing has made any difference.
Thanks for the clarification that it took them that long - I’d been under the impression that there was a backlog that reached a couple of months (which is already bad), but not that it had taken them this long!
I hope they can now get it sorted out quickly for you. At least they should have better parts availability now.
I don’t really think that it is worth fixing to be honest, I have just had so many problems with the phone right from the start, even with simple things like receiving phone calls. I don’t want to spend months and months replacing modules for a phone that barely functions.
I am going to try to get a refund so that I can buy a more reliable phone from a different company. Wish me luck!