Several issues with the Fairphone 2 (owned for 4 months)

I just read a closed issue posted in april 2016, with exactly the same issues that I have today. the promise in 2016 was that a Andoid upgrade would resolve the issues. 1 year later, I just got the fairphone for 4 months now, nothing seems to be changed.

  1. I can’t call regularly for no apparent reason, but sms is possible.
  2. sometimes the SIM card is just blocked for no apparent reason. no sms or calls are possible nor receiving them.
  3. sometimes the screen freezes and you need to taken off the back and remove the battery before you can reboot again and use the phone again. Sometimes shutting the phone down and lighting it back up, helps, sometimes it does not.
  4. sometimes the speaker does not work for no apparent reason (I can’t hear the calls coming in- I tested this)
  5. there is a disturbing noise on the speaker of the phone, because via hands-free in the car, there is no noise.
  6. the activity of automatic synchronizing contact persons with mail outlook contacts worked fine during 2,5 months and then for no apparent reason it failed and I got like an infinite number of contacts with all the same phone number. It took me hours to resolve this issue and I dis-activated the automatic synchronizing. Which is not what I want.
  7. The battery is very weak. It does not even last 8 hours straight. Which is very stressful. And I am a very light user of the phone.
  8. When the battery dies on you and you plug the phone in, the battery needs to be fully charged otherwise you can’t start using the phone. what I did discover is, that when after 20-so minutes, you plug the phone out, you can reboot the phone, start using it and plug it in again. This is such an amateurish way of doing things.
    I bought the phone out of principles and conviction. I started out as a proud owner of the Fairphone, but the phone does not even deliver on the basics of being able to call, being called and send and receive sms ?

Besides synchronizing my outlook work mailbox, I am really not doing anything fancy with this phone. It is all very basic. A bit of facebook, sometimes a picture, calls, sms, email and agenda. That’s it.

Do I have a “Monday” phone or does every one experience the same issues. Because if everyone has the same issues and this phone continues to take hours of my personal time trying to search for work a rounds for basic functions that do not work. I will find myself an other phone. I would certainly not recommend the phone to anyone with the experience that I have today. It is save to say that I am disappointed and pissed off. I sincerely hope that Fairphone can resolve this issues so I can be the proud owner again of the Fairphone that my son can use without a glitch when he wants to call his father. To use his words : “Het is altijd iets met die telefoon van jou”.

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Judging from what other people reported, the “original” Facebook app seems to cause a lot of trouble:

If you have this app installed, switching to some alternative implementation might make your experience a lot smoother.

Apart from that, as you haven’t indicated which version of the OS you’ve installed: You have updated your Fairphone OS to the most current release, right?

Your issue with the speaker seems like a hardware issue to me. Try to contact support about it, as this might still be covered by warranty.

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I’d live to know where you read such a promise as most of the issues you describe don’t sound like OS bugs.

Appart from @struppi’s suggestion the following causes for some of your issues also seem likely:

  • faulty/old SIM card → Ask your provider for a new one. Many replace old SIMs for free.
  • hardware-connection issue → disassemble the phone, carefully clean the connectors between the modules and put everything back making sure all connectors align well.

If none of this helps then yes, you seem to have a faulty phone. Contact support and get it replaced.

PS: Please don’t post the same text in multiple threads. I deleted your other post and moved @Patrick1’s answer to it here.

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Hi,

I am sorry for you having major troubles with your phone. The quantity of problems seems like these are not only software related.

  1. Try and take off the screen itself for re-mounting it if you are able to. Help for doing this can be found here in this forum and on “ifixit”. This action has helped some in the past.

  2. Maybe try the same for the speaker module, therefore the entire phone is build in a modular design. Could help too.

  3. Now you know why you battery drains so quickly. This permanent connectivity for synching is heavy duty, which brings me to no.7

  4. NO, it surely is not, unless it is somehow broken! This is a false statement as several FP2 users here can prove as wrong me including. My last full battery charge from thursday lasted until yesterday without “battery saver” active. But I do not permanently synchronize and don´t have any Facebook app installed. Furthermore I have a close look into the “battery” monitor which apps are running maybe wasting my battery. You also should take a look into this settings->battery; and also ´running´ apps in settings->apps->running. I do look out for proper acting apps, not only mainstream apps. Facebook app is known for causing major troubles due to bugs. This can also be read here in the forum. Some other users deinstalled it to recover the phones reliable operation again.

  5. I assume this rather depends on your chargers power rating (usb cable quality) being able to deliver enough current to charge your empty battery AND pull up your phone. Have this checked first before giving maybe false statements. There is a lot of information to be found here in this forum.

Generally you may also get back to the customer service of FP for further help and assistance.
Before returning it a factory reset could revolve issues as well.

This is your judgement. But keeping your wifi/data connection permanently active is one of the most power hungry parts beside the screen.

Generally I believe coming through one day with one charge should not be hard if not using heavy-duty apps or maybe games.

Some users here who have switched to FP2 complaint with their previous phone they could easily come through one day with one charge, I do see how often non-FP users actually plugin during their work-day…but if that is true it could also be a solution. Luckily switching phones works back and forth.
I know there are models out there lasting long, but as the battery performance is an issue very often in official tests and user-experience e.g. Amazon I think it is still the minority.

  1. I should not be asked to perform work on a phone that is only 4 months old.
  2. idem 3)
  3. you suspect constant connectivity, where I only synchronise every 30 minutes and only when I am connected to a Wifi network. Never had this problem with my blackberry - full charge gave me 2 days of autonomy.
  4. I don’t know why you should claim that I am giving false information, unless it is aimed to discredit my complaint. My battery lasts, half a day. Data exchange use is in peak days 500MB/day. which is really not a lot. A new phone should be able to last a lot longer. Yes, one can check this :slight_smile:
  5. i always fully charge the battery at night, like in a 100%. So no cable and charger issues there.

thanks for the reply. I read this in a post here in the Community. A closed post of April 2016 I wanted to reply on that one, but as it is closed was unable to.

Then I tried to submit a support request clicking on
https://support.fairphone.com/hc/en-us/categories/200154535-Repairs-Returns
and Warranty and Returns https://support.fairphone.com/hc/en-us/categories/200999206

I got twice :
oops

  The page you were looking for doesn't exist
  You may have mistyped the address or the page may have moved 

Futher

  • SIM card is not yet 1 year old.
  • I finally found the support page and the way to file a support request. Did checkups with both ear speaker and loud rear speaker and both checks failed. I could file the issue with the ear speaker, but not yet for the rear speaker as the procedure demands to disassemble and reassemble the phone first. This phone is not yet a fully 4 months in my possession ? And as it is Easter monday, I wasn’t able to provide myself with the fitting screwdriver. (all shops are closed in Belgium). i will proceed to further disassembly and assembly.
  • OS version is the latest, yes 1.13.0.
  • Facebook app - what is meant by an alternative implementation ?

One more for Patrick who claims that there can not be any issue with the battery. check this out : FP2 Battery Problems (drains quickly, CPU gets hot) - See batteryguide for workarounds

I found the comment from April 2016 : :nl: Multiple problems met FP2

Hallo Struppi,
een aantal apps verwijderd, ook facebook. Ik heb gevonden wat je bedoelde met “alternative implementations”, nu “swipe for facebook” geïnstalleerd omdat die de batterij zou ontlasten. We zullen zien wat dat geeft voor de batterij duur. Het is natuurlijk niet heel zinvol om een smartphone te hebben als je geen apps mag gebruiken :slight_smile: fingers crossed.

This is a long shot but eventually a new SIM card would help at least with some of your problems. Some time ago with my last phone I had connectivity problems and battery problems which disappeared when I got a new SIM card.

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Hi Stefan, I think issue number 7 of the battery duration is being solved by removing the facebook app and installing the "swipe for facebook"app (witch works perfectly fine as an alternative by the way) . Phone was fully charged this morning and started checking it at 7.30 am. Now 11.32 am and using half an hour of Swipe for facebook + synchronizing emails + agenda + keeping wifi on, the phone is still 80% charged. meaning at this rate It could go for another 20 hours (referring to the accu stats). Seem like you got one problem fixed here. Thank you very much @struppi

One down, seven to go :slight_smile:

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Even a relatively new SIM can cause problems. I would also advise to try finding a new one.

Long-press the power button (> 10 seconds) will also reboot the phone.

Many people suffering the frozen (black) screen could solve their problem by using the proximity sensor tool (https://forum.fairphone.com/t/proximity-sensor-tool-or-how-to-fix-the-proximity-sensor-issues/21411).

You bought a modular phone, that is made to perform such actions. Many people solved their problems by disassembling (parts of) the phone. You just need a screwdriver, nothing else. Give it a try!

It’s true the battery is not the best on the market. I get myself a Waka Waka to make sure I get trough the day and I charge my phone at the office. It’s not the most convenient, but it’s not the end of the world either :slight_smile:

I still get the random crashes after getting a whole new replacement phone. Current theory is that it’s something in my Google profile that the fp2 doesn’t like. Extremely annoying especially when it stops the alarm working…

I’m hoping the new android upgrade might fix…

Did you already participate in this poll? Apparently, it could be processor related. That would explain why a replacement phone has the same problem (my replacement phone too, by the way).
If you find anything on the Google profile, I would be very interested to hear!

Other workarounds can be found here.

Although that thread is about reboots, rather than lock ups. Not 100% sure they are the same thing

Do you use Facebook, if so use an alternative like Tinfoil for Facebook.

If that was in response to me, I still get the same freezes with Facebook uninstalled.

Better to remove Facebook completely. A recent study found that Facebook use seems directly related to worsening health:

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