What does this system ui message mean?

Help Fairphone 4
1

Hi everyone,

I am a new Fairphone user and have had my Fairphone 4 'for a week. I’m very happy with it so far. However, for the past two days I have gotten a System UI message that reads “Warning: Please reinsert the USB,if the phone cannot be recharged”.

The messages have both occurred when the device was charging and nearly or fully charged. Yesterday, it happened when it was 98 percent charged, and I got the message just now when it was at 100 percent. It occurred both times when the phone had been plugged in while I was sleeping.

Does anyone know what this means and what’s causing it or if it is something to be concerned about?

Thanks!

Sorcha

Screenshot_20221229-041349_cropped
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Hi and welcome to the forum

First let me say it is not advised that a) you charge the phone to 100% and definelty not frequently… b) Leaving the phone on at night may not only charge it 100% but keep the phone at this level.

Whereas the batteries and phone are designed to be charged fully, it is not recommend as it will undoubtedly shorten the batteries ‘life’ by pushing the extremes.

Equally and arguable more so is allowing the battery to drop to zero, the other end of stress…
So whereas I am not advising on the issue you have you may find you can avoid that by stopping charging earlier as you only mention it happening at high charge levels.

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The warning message looks completely unfamiliar to me, I haven’t noticed it being mentioned in our forum before. My first instict was to wonder if there’s an imperfect contact somewhere in the charging “chain” (either FP4 charging port or cable or the charging plug in the wall), but that’s just very vague.

I think you better contact Fairphone Support if you haven’t done so yet: https://support.fairphone.com/hc/en-us/requests/new

Your screenshot can be uploaded in their form, too. :slight_smile:

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Thanks so much @urs_lesse , I’ve submitted a support ticket. That seemed like the safest thing to do since the notification wording is confusing and seemingly uncommon and I’ve only had the phone for a week. I’m also going to try as @anon9989719 suggests and stop charging the phone fully to see if the message keeps appearing in such cases

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Please let us know should you get any enlightening response. :+1:

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I’ve got the same message, now, and the phone has only charged to 48%.

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Hmm, @rjsleven, that is interesting. Thanks for posting here that has happened to you, too. When I put in a support ticket about this, the reply was that I should make sure I have the latest Fairphone build number (I do) and to see if the message also occurs when I use a different charging cable and charge from a computer and not a wall outlet. However, I have been unable to recreate the issue other than when it had happened twice in a row, which had prompted me to post here. So, it’s quite a perplexing thing and not a message support seemed familiar with!

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Well, the developers should be able to find it since the text must be present in the OS code, unless it comes from some app.
However, it has a spammy / amateur feel about it (absence of space after the comma, word “if” incorrectly used, exclamation mark).
Are you running any security software (apart from standard Android stuff such as Lookout)? It might be an idea to have the device scanned for malware, to be on the safe side.

P.S. - This FP forum thread seems to be the only place on the whole www where this exact text appears (according to a well-known search engine).

P.P.S. - Welcome to rjsleven and thanks for the info.

[Edit - I withdraw my remark on the grammar, but the message remains strange …]

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I also had this system UI message twice on my FP4.
The first time was last december (running Android 11). The second time was only recently (after upgrade to Android 12).

I’m using the fairphone charger…

… in combinbation with the sturdy cable…

… no crappy charger nor cable. So that should not be the culprit, I think.

I don’t know at what exact charging level the message appeared. But I will try to keep an eye on that.

@supportlivemusic , please keep me/us updated when you have more info on this topic/support ticket.

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Hi @Wollerik,

I have not had the issue happen since December, when I posted about it here. I also scanned my phone for malware, but none was found. I’ll try to paste my reply from support. I closed the ticket since I could not recreate the issue beyond the two times it happened in December to see if their suggestions helped. However, I did confirm to them that I had the latest Fairphone build. I, like you, am using the FP charger setup.

<*****> (Fairphone)

Jan 5, 2023, 12:28 GMT+1

Dear Sorcha,

My name is <*****> from the support team, nice to e-meet you :slight_smile:
Thank you for supporting Fairphone and for reaching out.

Let’s make sure that you are running the latest Fairphone OS. To check your build number follow the steps below:

Go to Settings → About your phone → Build number
Check if your Fairphone 4 has Fairphone OS v.175 (Build number FP4.FP4I.A.175.20221207). Some network carriers might differentiate for one digit.
If the build number on your device is different, please, follow our support article to Update to the latest software.

Additionally, if this happens again, make sure your charger and/or USB-C cable are not failing. Just try a couple of different ones on your Fairphone. Try also to charge the phone using a PC or a laptop.

You can find further instructions and more information on compatible charging equipment for the Fairphone 4 in this support article. Please, make sure to check it and follow the suggestions before proceeding with this message.

If none of the chargers/cables you tried is working, and they are compatible, please take some pictures showing:

Both USB-A and USB-C connectors for every cable that you tried.
The label clearly showing the technical data for every charger that you tried.

Should the issue still be there, please go to the next step.

Test your device
If after following the previous steps your phone turns on, please run this test. Otherwise you can of course skip it:

Open the phone app.
Dial ##2886## in the same way you enter a phone number to make a phone call. Once the last character is introduced, the Service Menu appears.
Select Manu
Tap on USB/Charger. This test is for testing the USB-C connection and charge. If the USB cable and the right charging current are detected, the screen will display OK. Current can be OK (quick charge) or NOK (slow charge), based on the type of charger used. Keep in mind that slow charge refers to the use of a charger of 5V and minimum 1A. You can check this support article for more information.
Take a screenshot(s) of what you see on the screen.
If you want to stop the test, tap on FAIL or PASS. It does not matter which one you select.
Send the screenshot to me as a reply to this message.

Once you performed all the previous steps, please come back to me with your feedback and the requested screenshots/pictures so that we can help you further.

Thank you in advance for your time and collaboration, I will wait for your reply.

Have a lovely day and take care!

Kind regards,

<*****> | Customer Support Agent

☆ Fairphone || Change is in your hands ☆

✆ Phone: <*****>
Monday - Friday 10:00 - 16:00 (CEST)

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Hello everyone, I got this exact same system-ui message. This happened at 5.00 in the morning with a very loud noise. It startled the hell out of me. I put the phone on the charger at night. The phone is automatically set to do not disturb when it is charging, so for something to get through it must be really bad, right? Like a natural disaster or something. On the one hand I am glad it was NOT a natural disaster, on the other hand I am seriously annoyed that this stupid message is somehow set to overrule the do-not-disturb-status.

Right now I do not really care why I get this message, I just want it to be QUIET. I have tried to turn of the warning sound via Settings > Notifications > App settings but “System UI” is not listed there.

If I search for “System UI” in Settings I do find the app. If then has a setting with the rather obscure name “notification_usbntc_temp”. I wondered if this might be the culprit! However, it has no sound icon next to it. Also, this setting is greyed out, meaning I cannot adjust it.

Unsure what to do next, except hope that this was just a fluke and won’t happen again.

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Welcome to the community forum IrisHRA.

I would recommend you to inform official Fairphone support. They would be able to pass the information on to developers. Please make sure you quote this topic if you contact them.

How to: #contactsupport

P.S. It might be useful for you to know, that charging at night is not recommended, since this will likely charge the battery to 100% or close. It is recommended to keep your battery charge level between 20% and 80% whenever possible. The same goes for all Li-based batteries.

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I also got this message on my FP4. The battery was down to 33% around last night, so I put it on the charger overnight. When I saw the message this morning it was already 10 hours old, so it probably appeared during charging or shortly after.

I agree that the punctuation has a really amateur feel about it: no space after the comma, and an exclamation mark at the end. This is definitely not conforming to Android UI guidelines. Worse, it’s entirely unclear what the message is trying to tell you.

Given that this thread is literally the only hit in search engines, I bet it’s coming from a Fairphone customization. My phone is not rooted and I’m not running any shady software on it.

I tried to find the message in the Fairphone OS source code, but failed. The website only has a tarball of GPL sources of third-party libraries, which is outdated (A.067 release) and doesn’t contain the message. There’s also the Linux kernel source, but I didn’t check there because it’s unlikely that a UI message would be found there. The rest of the modifications that Fairphone made to the Android OS are apparently not open source?!

This remains a mystery that probably only FP developers can clear up.

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Yes, Fairphone OS is not open source and I agree this message is very likely FP in origin.

I presume you’re running the latest version of FPOS (currently FP4.SP28.B.065.20230420).

The few appeals to official support seem not to have obtained any satisfying result. It’s a bit frustrating seeing how easy, I would have thought, it would be for them to check it in their source code.

My five cents’ worth:

  • don’t leave the phone charging all night, you’ll be kinder to your battery and the message won’t wake you up
  • the message in itself seems harmless, if meaningless and likely comes from FP, not some malware.
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During the day, charging is difficult, since I carry it around in my pocket. Software should be able to stop charging at a specified point, shouldn’t it?

I’m not annoyed by the message, but by the alarm, which sounds at high volume in the middle of the night. How can I prevent this type of alarms? I don’t use the Do Not Disturb mode just for fun…

It’s also strange that this warning doesn’t appear every day (night, actually), which I would expect when I do the same thing every day.

Being woken up by an unwanted alarm three times in the last two weeks is no fun at all! I think it started after the last software update, a few weeks ago. (5 May, security update)

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I agree, but this requires the function to be either built into the OS or supplied by an app with root access. There’s a lot of discussion in the forum. Have you read this topic from the top?

To take this further, you can contact official Fairphone support.

Leaving the phone charging all night is not recommended (also much discussed). If you need to leave it on at night but not receive calls, put it in Airplane mode.

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Ok, let’s skip the good advice on battery usage.

I have found the source of this annoying alarm!

I was triggered by a post on this subject from a Samsung Galaxy user.

On my FP4, I went to Settings → Notifications → App Settings, here you get a list of apps, but system-ui is not in it,… but… in the top corner on the right, there are three dots: tap on them and you’ll get 1 option: show system. Nothing seems to have changed,… but, if you scroll down, System-UI is in the list! Tap it! Now you can see the notifications that are switched on and those that are switched off. If you tap Battery, you can choose to make it Standard, or to make it silent. I’m a bit confused, because my current settings tell it to respect my do not disturb settings. Last night, it woke me at 5 AM, though. Not with the standard sound (in my case Fermium), but with Cesium, and not at amoderate volume, but at max volume, or so it appeared in the dark of the night.

I hope this helps!

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As for the notification itself. I doubt that it is intended to educate the phone user to pull out the charger at 80% (for which no notification can be set, afaik). I think the system has stopped the charging process, since the battery was full (in my case) and it is issuing a warning that the charging process will not start again automatically. You will have to pull out the charger and put it back in for the charging to start again. So this alarm does NOT mean that you have to wake up your family and have to evacuate the room, building, street or city because of an imminent danger coming from your phone.

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Thanks so much, Richard! I’ve just changed these settings based on your walkthrough, and hopefully that take care of the alarm. It most recently sounded for me early Monday morning, and while my phone was on Do Not Disturb. I also noticed that the alarm ringtone is not one I’d chosen Mt’s. I think you’re onto something regarding it happening when the battery reaches 100 percent. I usually unplug my phone when it gets around 80, but, the last time I heard this alarm, I’d accidentally fallen asleep before unplugging the phone.

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No, it appears not to be the feature, but a bug after all. Last night I was brutally woken up at 4:12 AM by Cesium and this warning. The warning settings had not changed: silent warnings and no ignoring the do not disturb mode. What I noticed, was that I had received the silent warning much more often since my last message, like every night (no sound!). So, it is SOMETIMES so that the alarm sounds, regardless of the settings. This suggests that the warning can be triggered in multiple ways and that one of these ways, the user settings are ignored or not used at all, like in hard coded. I had the call reopened and switched battery warnings off in the system-ui settings. I prefer not to switch off warnings, because of the obvious function of a warning, but, in this hot early Summer, it is difficult to catch any sleep again, after being woken up by an alarm with the intensity of a fire alarm.

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