I updated my phone about a week and a half ago, and that may be related. I am having the following problems:
ALL incoming calls are “Unknown”
Internet is extremely unreliable and constantly disconnects for a few minutes, especially when signal is less than full
Sometimes when I call, the connection never begins
Sometimes when I call, there is no ringing, but someone eventually answers
I can’t get SIM #2 out of the phone no matter what I do
Support hasn’t responded and this phone is becoming unusable. I have my own business and it is important to know who is calling and to have reliable internet. I bought this phone because it was supposed to last 5 years and not just a year like so many other phones I’ve had, yet less than a year later and it is failing.
Has anyone else had these issues or any potential solutions?
Unfortunately, that did NOT fix the problem, and Fairphone hasn’t even responded to my email. I am going to have to buy another phone. I really regret buying this phone, which is sad because I was so excited and even recommended it to a lot of people. Good thing I didn’t buy two more for my business. Its just another unreliable phone I was trying to avoid, and the company refuses to do a single thing about it, not even respond to many people, as you can clearly see here on the forum.
hey randallshamlet
I really feel sorry for all your struggles with your FP!
Which problem doesn’t’ fix it?
You wrote that you have two SIM cards in your phone. Have you checked that Enhanced 4G LTE Mode is deactivated for both SIM cards? You can select the SIM card, for which you want to make this change, under Mobile network.
And have you checked this thread already?
What kind of internet connection are you talking about? W-LAN or mobile network (3G/4G)?
Could you describe this problem a bit better or even post some pictures?
You can’t physically remove the sim card ?
Maybe the last email didn’t send (even emails are failing). I couldn’t find any confirmation that my response was sent, so I assume that is what happened. I submitted a new request on the website, and have this number: #392971.
The second SIM card is stuck in the phone. I can’t do anything to get it out. I tried to take the phone apart, but couldn’t remove the SIM slots. A company I work with gave it to me and didn’t say they cut it from a bigger one, so it is slightly too big for the slot, and not it won’t come out.
I only have mobile data. I don’t have cable (or even a permanent address right now). I always use the hotspot from my phone for all my online work. I always have 4G wherever I go.
The second SIM is a foreign card and is not used for data. The first SIM is my local SIM, the one I have used for a year now. I only use the second card to call the US. I do everything else with my first card.
I find the current response times simply intolerable, btw. The higher workload was totally foreseeable, so Fairphone should have enlargened its support capacities before bringing the new products to market …
I don’t think raging over this, or hindsighting, is particularly useful right now. It is what it is.
I think it would be useful to know what the pinch points are, because if raising a ticket is unnecessary as it’s already being dealt with, this is actually causing the delays to lengthen rather than being of help.
@randallshamlet
So sorry, that you are having so many problems.
As it seems - see the post @teezeh linked to - shows, those troubles come from the upgrade to Android 10 and (hopefully) should be solved with the next upgrade they are working on.
They obviously did not expect this and - being a small company - are not able to solve those issues as fast as would be desirable.
Or was it?
I don’t think so, as the FP3+ is not exactly a totally new device and the FP3 did not have such issues on release.
Most troubles are caused by the Android 10 upgrade; and since most upgrades up to now did not result in so many serious troubles, they surely did not expect them this time.
I only updated my phone after constant notifications telling me “now or later” even though I disabled Play store updates. Fairphone obviously knew there were serious problems, yet still hasn’t pulled the update. I was pestered into updating. Why didn’t they stop it when they saw it was causing problems? Why did they push it out to everyone without giving beta testers time to try it out?
Am I just raging? My phone is virtually unusable. The only thing that works reliably is texting. I am losing tons of time and money because I HAVE to have this phone for my work. I have no choice but to buy another phone. How should I feel knowing I spent hundreds of Euros on a phone that was promised to last 5 years just for it to fail after an update I did NOT want less than a year into its life? Is Fairphone going to refund me 80% for the missing 4 years of usability? Are they going to send me a second phone for tomorrow? No. They won’t even respond for over a week until I write another email because I thought the first one must have failed to send. That is neither responsible nor ethical.
Update:
I tried a different SIM card from another carrier and it won’t even recognize 3G, let alone 4G. I tried to manually set up the APN from the carrier site, still didn’t work. I tried their automated SMS APN setup process, and it said they “couldn’t deliver the settings to the device.” Only SMS worked. Didn’t try calling.
I meant arguing on here the right and wrongs of what has happened isn’t going to fix anything. And it’s not. This is a customer forum, so only customers can offer you assistance.
In terms of the problems you’re having - changing the settings as already described should resolve the ‘unknown’ on your caller issues, and is the current workaround that we have and is also endorsed as a temporary solution by Fairphone while they get a fix sorted.
In terms of the other connectivity issues you’ve described, some of this may be as a result of the SIM card issue you’re having. Which if there is any damage from may not be covered by your warranty as it sounds like you’re not using an official sized SIM but a bigger SIM that has been cut down to size. You could see if a local repair shop is able to help you in terms of removing that without damaging the phone, but would be at your own risk of course.
In terms of the signal issues, does the SIM you’ve entered support 3G service? And are you in an area with coverage?
The SIM card was inserted a few weeks before these problems started. There is absolutely no way a slightly thicker SIM card will cause the second SIM card to magically have internet issues and unknown calls. The SIM card merely holds the data the phone needs to communicate with the network. It wouldn’t cause internet to be intermittent. That is a problem with the network or phone, and based on the fact no one else has these network issues, it is clearly the phone. It therefore would have zero impact on the warranty. If Fairphone dares try to use that excuse, I will file a complaint with the relevant government agency and make sure to leave a review.
I am in a major city. In Poland, I have almost never seen an area without 4G. I took it out of a phone with a very good 4G connection. This is clearly a problem with ONLY this phone.
The community deserves to know how terribly Fairphone has been handing these issues. Its incompetence has meant that the company hasn’t even canceled the update, so it is STILL being pushed to people. If I saw these forums today, I would not have bought a phone from this company. I specifically bought the phone because I wanted a reliable, long lasting phone with good support and high repairability.
Ok, I’d suggest not much more can be done through here and you’ll have to wait for Fairphone to respond. Have you tried phoning their support line?
Why I referred to your SIM card and potential warranty issues is that you have tried and failed to get the SIM out of your phone and there may be potential damage there as a result which is causing some of the issues.
I should also add, I say this because it sounds like a device issue rather than the update that is the cause of the issues. The unknown caller issue has a workaround, but the other issues aren’t being widely reported and may not be linked to the update at all
I don’t have another phone, and I don’t know when I’ll have the chance to take a picture, but it is completely unrelated. It is slightly thicker and hasn’t affected the board in any way. This is 100% on Fairphone.
Twice since I got the phone I had random phantom touches all over the screen, even when I just put the phone down and don’t touch it. It is now starting to do that often. Yet another problem.
I still haven’t gotten a single message from Fairphone, and I have reported them to a relevant government agency in the Netherlands. We shall see what they say. Hopefully that agency isn’t as useless as the Polish equivalent.
