Recently I was on a flight, a while after take off I checked my phone and it wouldn’t turn on. Once we had landed I took a closer look and the battery had expanded somewhat. I took the battery out and got it replaced. However I have now discovered that my phone is broken as it still doesn’t turn on with a working battery. I also opened the phone up to see if I could spot anything wrong with it visually and it all looked normal to me. I had /e/ OS installed on it as well.
Is there a way to recover the information on the phone?
Am I able to do some kind of test to see if one of the modules is broken?
Hey there,
this sounds like the famous sudden death of the fairphone 3. There are already some threads about his issue, this one is quite a comprehensive one.
Before you dig into it I would recommend you to make sure there is no other problem. Are there any reactions from the phone when you try to charge it? Did the charging port make problems earlier? Do you have a voltmeter to check the voltage of the battery to make sure it has enough power to start your phone? Did the battery really expand during the flight or might it have “grown” earlier (when did you check it the last time)?
Hope this helps,
Clemens
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Thanks for this information!
I read the linked post and this does seem pretty accurate to my situation in some ways.
To answer your questions:
There is absolutely no reaction from the phone when I charge it.
No I had no problems charging the phone and I had no problems with overheating. The battery was hot on the flight but it was unplugged at the time.
I do have a voltmeter and have tried to check the battery with it. I am not well versed in its use but I have tried my best. Unfortunately I also don’t have any jumper cables to make proper contact with the battery so I can’t say if the battery is the problem or not for sure. It may very well be the problem so I will have to do some more testing on it with better equipment and more knowledge.
I can say pretty confidently that the battery went bad during the flight. I remember texting someone in the line at the gate, just before boarding the plane. At that point the phone was acting normally and the battery was not hot to the touch. Once on the plane and in the air I checked the phone to pull up something to listen to and the phone wouldn’t turn on. the back of the phone had bulged out and was hot to the touch.
Thank you for your reply!
Don’t hassle with a swollen battery. You might even be lucky, that it didn’t burst into flames yet.
Keep it in an inflammable place, a bucket with sand for example until you can dispose it safely.