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I'm a hardware engineer/software developer, it should not be this hard. Have Droid X with Android 2.2.1, after rooting using SuperOneClick with PDANet for Android, it would no longer charge, even on AC adapter, battery discharged during phone call. I did a lot of research online, have done as detailed below, but still not charging, and am awaiting delivery (a week away!) of a an external Droid X battery wall charger. I AM ABLE TO USE MY PHONE ONLY FOR NOW USING THE HACK INVOLVING OVERLAYING THE BATTERY WITH CUT OPEN POSITIVE/NEGATIVE LEADS OF A USB CABLE AND INSERTING INTO PHONE!!!
After establishing the USB/battery hack, I did the following (none resulting in battery charge restored):
Removed root authority from apps intended to calibrate CPU and Battery, removed these apps entirely from phone.
Removed root authority from ALL rooted apps, removed all such apps from phone.
Unrooted phone
Downloaded RSDLite 4.8, 64 bit Motorola Drivers and VRZ_MB810_2.3.34_1FF_01.sbf (latest I could find) -- all onto Windows 7 Ultimate 64 bit, no problem flashing the new SBF, which is replaced Android 2.2.1 with only some minor cosmetic difference from what I started with. Yet still will not charge, even on AC adapter.
Downloaded the Motorola PC/USB charging drivers referenced on several website. But they are NOT compatible with Windows 7 and will not even install. I don't really think these would fix my issue anyway since I cannot charge even with AC adapter.
(Please note that the battery was pulled on numerous occasions and I did remove the bare USB positve/negative leads from the battery before attempting to get it to charge either from PC or wall charger again.)
Can somebody please advise? I regret ever having rooted the phone, but in fact, only after I rooted it was the first time the battery completely discharged while in use. The battery also ran down way too fast after rooting. I have read some users experiencing this issue with a completely unhacked/unrooted phone. And since I am now experiencing this with a newly-flashed SBF and unrooted phone, I just have to wonder.
Is there really any point to reflashing the bootloader? (It is version 30.04 by the way.)
I really DON'T need the phone to be rooted, though having Samba would have been cool as would complete access to the Linux command shell. Am willing to try some more steps with flashing, drivers, et cetera, if anybody can suggest a proper solution.
Otherwise, what I really need to know is ... once I have flashed Android 2.2.1 back onto my phone, will Verizon be able to know that I hacked it ... if indeed it seems the only solution is to depend on warranty to get a new phone? Are there other steps I need take? (I would likely remove my 16 GB micro-SD card and replace with a 2 GB one anyway so no trace of apps/backups would be there.) The battery has had a lot of scotch tape stuck on/removed in past few days. I am thinking therefore that I want to avoid taking this phone directly into a Verizon store for service.
I also rather wonder if all this cut-open USB cable jumpstarting may be affecting the battery. For all I know, the battery was flawed anyway. I guess that, once I receive the external charger, I can verify whether the battery itself is capable of holding a charge.
The good thing here is that it really DOES seem difficult to actually brick the Droid X. Well, unless one crosses wires when laying a cut-open USB cable over the battery leads in order to jumpstart.
You sound more like a heart surgeon than a software engineer....wow!
Unless you have a wall charger you might as well stop what youre doing, so you dont risk killing the patient. If you were connected via USB to your PC then this is exactly where the problem lies. You prolly do not have enough juice in the battery to do anything. An easy test of this would be press the volume down, camera, and power buttons all at the same time. This should throw you into the bootloader, and if you do not have juice in the battery it should tell you that the battery is low and cannot program.
The ONLY way I have been able to get my DX to power up in this condition is to connect it to a wall charger and go from there. As a side note I invested $60 and bought an Energizer Energi 2000K power pack. It comes with a standalone battery, tips for every conceivable device, and wall/car charger. All in one small handy pack. A must have for all us geeks!
Steve
I thank you for the post. It is clear my battery is discharged. This is why I used the USB splice procedure I found on this and other websites to jumpstart and flash, which works just fine. I rather suspect that, once I have the charger, it will not solve the problem. Rather, I will just be stuck charging externally. Some have solved this issue by reflashing an SBF (which I did). Others by installing new PC-based Motorola USB charging drivers. These are not compatible with Windows 7 and anyway my problem persists even when charging from AC adapter.
I hope what you surmise is correct. However that would reveal an immense flaw in the phone. Cannot: cannot charge up when battery completely discharged. I have trouble believing this is the case.
For now, I am having to continue to use the USB cable splice just to make crucial phone calls, as this is my only phone. Otherwise, my poor Droid X remains off and in a safe place. I don't believe the spliced/hacked power interface hurts the phone at all ... but it probably is not very good for the battery. However, occasional phone calls are a necessity. I am in utter withdrawal not being able to text and do all the other non-voice things I am accustomed to.
Because I have read a number of posts where people found themselves in my situation even though they had not rooted their phone ... in some cases after upgrading to Android 2.2, in some cases not ... I am really wondering if it could be true the Droid just can't cope at all with a depleted battery. Unless one uses an external charger, the battery depends on having a running operating system to charge. The OS seems to require the battery to have some power itself in order to charge. Not exactly a classic "deadlock" situation but something like it.
O, woe is me. Wish I were a surgeon ... I could afford to just buy a new Droid X and forget about all this mess. Got this one from Verizon for just $70 -- they would charge me hundreds for a replacement.
SOLVED! (for me anyway)
This is so typically stupid. One can go to extremes and the problem is so OBVIOUS!!!!!
I was using the wrong AC/USB adapter. Like everybody else I have about a billion of these things now and they all look just alike. I almost didn't even bother to do this, but did go look through my drawer of chargers and located the Motorola one. As soon as plugged in, the thing started to charge right up. I removed all the temporary wires from the battery, put it back into the Droid X, put on the cover, and it is currently charging right back to where it was.
(I am glad however that I spent the $8.00 for the external wall charger, because a Verizon tech did verify for me that the battery has to have some minimal charge in it for the phone to charge at all. Thus, if the battery were every to totally discharge, an external charger might be a good idea.)
This kind of stupidity is so typical in the computer field. Once, when I was in college and programming FORTRAN for the biochem department, I wasted a whole weekend slaving over what turned out to be just two variable names joined into one, where there was not a comma at the end of one line ... blah blah blah.
Hey Guys,
I really dont know what to do anymore.
My OPT needs 8 hours+ to fully charge everytime!
If I use my OPT to watch Videos it even drains faster than it charges.
The strange thing is if i shut it down and let it charge in the shut down mode ( with only battery visible on screen). The Charge time goes down to less than 2h. So a very normal charge time, that I experienced before.
It started the strange behaviour after i had OOS3 installed for 2+ weeks and never gone back.
Things i tried:
different roms: OOS2, OOS3, CM13, Exodu. Currently I am on Hydrogen OS-
different kermels: Boeffla, Sandy, AK, Stock.
different firmwares and recoveries (I know its useless but i tried everyhing)
wiping complete phone and reinstalling from 0 several times.
different cables / adapters and wall chargers. (Normaly using a 5-port 40w anker charger with anker cable. Every other config like car charger or orginal power adapter&cable same problem).
I have no problems with other devices like my tablet, powerbank, nintendo 3ds, Videogame controllers,... And even the OPT works but only if i shut it down.
I observe this problem now since the start of this month. Its so annoying i am basicly forced to have a power bank always with me.
I really hope you can help me
Could it be an update for one of your apps that has made the app run wild causing it to put phone under constant use? What does battery stat tell you about battery usage? Tried installing system monitor to check on installed apps and how much CPU time the use?
I googled alot and found something about ES File explorer that messes with charging. I deleted it now,
Other thatn that i only installed very common apps like whatsapp.... I dont think its the apps but its worth a try.
Running complete stock for 1 day with no 3rd party apps and recharge.
Same here...some voltage problem in your home....try charging turning phone off.
i would suggest you to use a voltage stabilizer in between your wall plug and your charger,
the one that you normally used for desktop pc
HandsomeOwl said:
Hey Guys,
I really dont know what to do anymore.
My OPT needs 8 hours+ to fully charge everytime!
If I use my OPT to watch Videos it even drains faster than it charges.
The strange thing is if i shut it down and let it charge in the shut down mode ( with only battery visible on screen). The Charge time goes down to less than 2h. So a very normal charge time, that I experienced before.
It started the strange behaviour after i had OOS3 installed for 2+ weeks and never gone back.
Things i tried:
different roms: OOS2, OOS3, CM13, Exodu. Currently I am on Hydrogen OS-
different kermels: Boeffla, Sandy, AK, Stock.
different firmwares and recoveries (I know its useless but i tried everyhing)
wiping complete phone and reinstalling from 0 several times.
different cables / adapters and wall chargers. (Normaly using a 5-port 40w anker charger with anker cable. Every other config like car charger or orginal power adapter&cable same problem).
I have no problems with other devices like my tablet, powerbank, nintendo 3ds, Videogame controllers,... And even the OPT works but only if i shut it down.
I observe this problem now since the start of this month. Its so annoying i am basicly forced to have a power bank always with me.
I really hope you can help me
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Same issue here. Tried every sort of things. Was initially on CM13 Seraph08, moved to Grarak, then back to OOS3. No improvements, as the OP mentioned the issues are observed from the month of May. It takes 7-8 hours to charge 100%. Did anyone approached service center?
Have your also tried different cables and chargers? As quality of the cables that came with the phone can differ, and also the chargers. Some chargers seems to barely be able to output 1A even, nearing USB:s 800mA charging.
i also having same problem check the charger and cable if u r in oxygen os factory test mode
So most of the answers havent read my first post prolly.
I finally got the OnePlus sup to exchange my phone. With the new one i have no more charging problems.
So i think it was a hardware defect but I am not 100% sure.
how did u get the exchange of the phone ??
was it rooted ??
if it is having a custom recovery will they reject the warrenty ??
please reply asap
Just an observation, Benschholds kernel seems to have fastcharge support. See this recent commit in his source:
https://github.com/benschhold/andro...mmit/b5d1eed20c12a9e9db5128ace98efa51b0a97e19
I noticed these values aren't updated in the AOSPA kernel source for our device, so I'm going to try flashing this kernel and see if it works with AOSPA.
Edit: interesting, the stock OOS2 and 3 kernels do not have these values. So this may not help, or maybe it does, who knows.
Edit2: I tried to flash Benschholds on AOSPA and it DOES NOT WORK! I had to flash the old boot.img using fastboot to fix boot loop.
i had the same problem
i also tried many ROMs and kernels, no help
but now it's fine i'm using another cable
just change the cable(not the charger head)
right now i'm using nexus 6p cable (borrowed)
A friend was having this issue, he said he fixed uninstalling clean master app
Sent from my ONE A2005 using Tapatalk
Yea same issue in Exodus ROM.. Oxygenos 3 didn't have any issues lyk this..
No need for fastcharge in this case, OP2 can already suck almost 1,5A by default and that is a significant number, if connected to original or similar charger with high current output of at least 2A. There are ways to see exact number, like in kernel config apps (Boeffla does it for sure) or by installing apps like Ampere. Compare your cables and charger adapters
Same issue!
My Op2 used to take around 2.5 hrs to completely charge .. Just after i installed cyanogenmod 13 my charging capacity got tooo bad. Its taking more than 5hrs to charge the device. After changing roms from cm13 the battery capacity has not Changed
According to me due to some issue in cm13 the battery charging time has become too bad. Please help currently on oxygen os 3.5.8.. when i use my
phonr while charging at times it evn discharges. Tried moto g4 plus charger due to which the charging time reduced a
bit.
ashwathb24 said:
My Op2 used to take around 2.5 hrs to completely charge .. Just after i installed cyanogenmod 13 my charging capacity got tooo bad. Its taking more than 5hrs to charge the device. After changing roms from cm13 the battery capacity has not Changed
According to me due to some issue in cm13 the battery charging time has become too bad. Please help currently on oxygen os 3.5.8.. when i use my
phonr while charging at times it evn discharges. Tried moto g4 plus charger due to which the charging time reduced a
bit.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Replace usb cable & try a different charger.
Same problem here
It take 12hr from 2-100% charging, can anyone help. It happened suddenly, I dought on recently update by oneplus.
The phone was supposed to Quick Charge, it is doing slow charge, not even normal charge.
Can anyone help. I never used custom ROM on my phone.
kunalkrishna85 said:
It take 12hr from 2-100% charging, can anyone help. It happened suddenly, I dought on recently update by oneplus.
The phone was supposed to Quick Charge, it is doing slow charge, not even normal charge.
Can anyone help. I never used custom ROM on my phone.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Oneplus 2 was never designed to be Fast Charge ready.
I've had problems like: random reboots, slow charging, battery drain. But after flashing the (considered most stable) 3.1.0 firmware + Boeffla kernel everything was ok again.
But you probably tried it already I guess.
Hi,
My moto x pure started charging really slow out of nowhere
Yesterday when i connected it to the turbo charger the message (turbo power connected) didnt showed up so i thought it had something to do with the cable, i changed it to another but the message still wasnt showing. I also tried with my power bank with turbo charger and it wont show up either.
I can live without the turbo charger, but not with how slow it is charging, in the Ampere app it show that is charging at 400 ma.
Is there something i can do? I already wiped the cache and depleted the battery but the problem is still there. At home i will do a factory reset, but i dont have a lot of faith in it.
Also i havent rooted or unlocked the bootloader, it has android 6.0
The end on your turbo charger cord is worn out most likely.
Its not that, i tried with 3 different cables that i knew already work with turboCharger and still wont charge at a normal speed.
I cleaned the phone usb port but didnt do anything, now i want to try with some isopropyl to see if i can clean them.
Anyone got an idea what could be? I already did a factory reset.
Patopa said:
Its not that, i tried with 3 different cables that i knew already work with turboCharger and still wont charge at a normal speed.
I cleaned the phone usb port but didnt do anything, now i want to try with some isopropyl to see if i can clean them.
Anyone got an idea what could be? I already did a factory reset.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
The possibilities are pretty limited... list them in order of difficulty to test:
USB Cord
Turbocharger AC adapter
USB port in phone
Battery
Honestly, I would lean towards 1 or 2, the turbo charger that comes with these devices has been known to be of... umm... less than exceptional quality. Otherwise, it is not unheard of for the USB port in the phone to go bad, and the battery is likely pushing 2 years old.
Patopa said:
Its not that, i tried with 3 different cables that i knew already work with turboCharger and still wont charge at a normal speed.
I cleaned the phone usb port but didnt do anything, now i want to try with some isopropyl to see if i can clean them.
Anyone got an idea what could be? I already did a factory reset.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Moto Turbo Chargers are low quality, mine stopped working 2 months in. So I got a 3rd party quick charger. No problems since.
i have battery charging issues as well!!
Shows as USB charger Turbo charger not working even don't show as AC mode! Basically just don't charge only with PC and USB cable! It's original turbocharger and USB connector is fine because it's working fine with PC!
I already have done 3 factory reset from menu and from recovery menu but no success sadly it's very odd issue! Basically every wall charger appear like "USB Charger" no AC or Turbocharger! But connector is fine because it's working fine with PC!
Nothing appears! Only shows charging next to clock but only about 20-30 second After that doesn't show any charging! But very slowly charging 6-7 hours to full.Maybe it's just a coincidence but 2 days after 7.0 update this issue started! I think that connector is fine because with PC it's working fine and transfer files or charging fine
Same happening here just 2 days ago, anyone find a solution?
I had this same problem from today. Today morning turbocharged by my friend's Moto turbocharger. Today evening I use my 2different turbocharger it's not charge quick and very slow charging...
Same here..stock, never unlocked. On latest updates. XT1575 A0.52
Accubattery shows its getting 247mA from a Samsiung Adaptive charger (which always showed up before as a turbo charger, and does fast charge samsung phones.)
So I have been running AICP 13.0 for a couple weeks and love it. I woke up this morning and my phone didn't charge overnight despite being plugged in. It shows it is connected (the lighting bolt in the battery icon on the top right) but the led light doesnt display and it doesnt say charging. Other weird thing is everytime I plug the cord in the volumne starts adjusting itself up and down automatically and now sound is not working (microphone or speaker audio). Battery is now draining and I cant get it to charge. Any ideas why this could be? I have tried it with numerous cords and charging bricks, did a factory reset but still can't get it to work. I am now down to 20 percent battery life and am worried I have a hardware problem and am going to be without a phone for a couple days.
Anyone experience similar things or have ideas to try?
Also leeco doesnt have a us website anymore, so how do I contact them for support if needed?
Only idea a hardreset or clear coch?
Sent from my LEX720 using xda premium
Well, go back to any eUI vendor ROM (basically, stock) and see if it solves the issue. Preferably the same firmware version that your device was originally on. It could be a hardware issue or a software issue.
Sounds like a faulty charging port. You might need to replace yours. You can find replacement charging ports on Aliexpress, and a teardown here: http://www.myfixguide.com/manual/leeco-le-pro-3-teardown/ (the phone has the same internals as other LeEco phones, so you can consult various LeEco teardown videos too).
EDIT: now, I don't know if this will work for you, but freezing the phone for an hour might also get it to start charging again, but only do this as a last resort if it dies on you. And make sure you put it in a plastic bag first (obviously).
Ok I will locate the stock rom and flash it, I havent looked for it but it has to be on xda.
As far as replacing the charging port....I bought the phone in June so it should be under warranty correct? Does anyone know how we would get in touch with leeco support? Do we still have a warranty since they shut down operations in the US?
I still have 16 percent battery (I turned it off once I posted here so I could have juice to try ideas you guys would come up with, so hopefully I dont have to try the freezer trick.
sk8223 said:
Well, go back to any eUI vendor ROM (basically, stock) and see if it solves the issue. Preferably the same firmware version that your device was originally on. It could be a hardware issue or a software issue.
Sounds like a faulty charging port. You might need to replace yours. You can find replacement charging ports on Aliexpress, and a teardown here: http://www.myfixguide.com/manual/leeco-le-pro-3-teardown/ (the phone has the same internals as other LeEco phones, so you can consult various LeEco teardown videos too).
EDIT: now, I don't know if this will work for you, but freezing the phone for an hour might also get it to start charging again, but only do this as a last resort if it dies on you. And make sure you put it in a plastic bag first (obviously).
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Have you tried a different lead? I've had one leeco lead go on me, i almost chucked the charger until i realised it was the lead
Ymm, often the cable is broken.
Yes I have tried numerous cables and chargers. It has to be a hardware issue as it is dead now and won't charge at all is my thinking. When I plug a charging cord in it displays several quick red led blinks where it usually has the yellow led for charging but nothing else. When I tried it with my car charger this morning it got really hot very quickly.
jongordo8 said:
Yes I have tried numerous cables and chargers. It has to be a hardware issue as it is dead now and won't charge at all is my thinking. When I plug a charging cord in it displays several quick red led blinks where it usually has the yellow led for charging but nothing else. When I tried it with my car charger this morning it got really hot very quickly.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Sadly, the stock charger cable is known to destroy the charge port. If you have always used the stock charger cable, then that is probably what caused the issue . I had to get my phone replaced for that reason about a year ago. If you do end up getting it fixed, get a certified USB-C cable and scrap the one that came with the phone. So sorry man...you shouldn't have to deal with this.
Long-time lurker, first-time poster. I've gotten a lot of good insight from reading posts and figured I would join to share what I've learned.
Its a long one and if you get all the way through it you will understand why.
Nexus 6 XT1103 with original battery running stock 7.1.1. Started showing issues in early 2020. Apps would be slow to respond. Camera would take forever to open and take a picture. Scrolling through news feed would be annoying because it would register my scroll as a tap into a news story. Weird static sound coming from speakers during scroll. Phone started to shut off on its own at around 20-30%. Installed Accubattery and it showed battery was at about half its original capacity. Progressively got worse throughout the year. Got to the point where it would shut off around 50% or even at 80-100% if opening something that would result in high CPU use spike. It was time to replace the battery.
Looked up battery recommendations. Ebay batteries seemed iffy. Initial install reviews would be fine but some reports of lasting for a year and then crapping out, or just no long term follow-up. Review of Akku Polarcell for a Nexus 5 seemed promising. Email to Wannasee was answered quickly. Batch of batteries they were offering was made in late 2019. They could have just made that up but I had no reason to doubt them. Looks like an actual brick and mortar operation. Ratings are pretty high. $10-15 for unknown battery off Ebay vs $35-40 for something made in 2019 from a reputable vendor. I decided to go with the Polarcell. Bought it after trying to open the phone up the first time to make sure I could. Could have bought the Polarcell from Wannasee’s store on Ebay. Waited for one of those mythical Ebay coupons to show up in my inbox but that never materialized, by which time the phone was really in bad shape. Compared the price for buying the Polarcell off of Wannasee’s Ebay store to buying directly from Wannasee’s site. Went with the direct buy since it was a buck or two cheaper with the exchange rate at that time and I didn’t have any Ebay coupons to use anyways. Paypal payment using credit card. Pay attention to currency conversion setting in Paypal. Was better for me to have my credit card do the conversion rather than let Paypal do it, but that’s because my card doesn’t charge foreign transaction fees. Came out to $36.68 when I bought it. Their email comm is pretty good. They let me know when it was going to ship, when it shipped, when it was expected to arrive and provided a tracking number.
By the time I was ready bite the bullet and buy the battery, the phone wouldn’t even recognize the charger. Went through multiple chargers and cords trying to figure that out. Seemed possible that it was cord or USB port related. Sometimes if the cord was held just so it would charge. Got to a point where it wouldn’t charge at all while on. Wouldn't even recognize the charger was plugged in. I did figure out that it would charge while off, but even that was hit or miss (more hit than miss though). Even while off it did seem like it wanted a higher output charger. I had been using a 1.5A HTC charger mainly. Eventually that didn't work. I tried 2A Samsung and that didn't work. A 4A Asus charger seemed to work the most reliably. So at this point I am debating whether its worth it to buy an almost $40 battery if something is seriously wrong with the phone. What made it worse was that my first attempt to open the phone ended up slicing through a flex cable part of the wireless charging coil. So I could have tried to figure out whether the charging issues were due to the USB port by trying a wireless charger, but not anymore! I was using plastic cards to separate the back from the frame; nothing metal. But the amount of force required to push through the glue was enough that when it broke through the card slipped and it was enough to slice through the thin plastic and copper of that ribbon. Irritating due to the loss of ability to troubleshoot the charging issue further, but I wasn't too burned up about it because I never use a wireless charger so I just took it out and left it out. Works fine without it, except of course no more wireless charging ability.
Looked up lots of videos on how to open up the phone. Most helpful ones were:
Most warn about the cable for the power and volume buttons; rightfully so. None mentioned the wireless charger flex on the opposite side. The power/volume ribbon did get a decent crease into it as well, but luckily no damage. Straightened it out and it works fine.
22 screws. They are tiny but they come out easily. Pretty much everything I read and watched said they were T4 screws, but at least with my screwdriver kit the T3 bit is the one to use. Besides getting the back off the rest of opening the phone to get the battery out was pretty simple. The videos say to separate the two halves of the power/volume ribbon where they intersect but I didn't have to do that. I just removed the end that plugs into the board. Seemed easier than messing with the tiny connector at the intersect and it was. Removing the battery connector didn't work how it should have. The plastic had become brittle with age and just broke apart when prying at it from the opening in the frame. Had to get under the frame and pry it off from the back side of the connector where the ribbon cable goes into it. By the way, by luck I had a decent charge on the old battery before removing it. More on why that was important later.
The Polarcell didn’t come with a curve in it like the OEM battery; it was just flat. But it wasn't hard to massage the edges down. Used the old battery as a guide to bend the new battery into shape. Other than that it went in just fine. Ribbon cable was already folded in the right direction so it just plugged right in. Frame went back into place without any interference. The phone turned on just fine. I dont remember if it charged while on that first time, or if I had charged it while it was off. Probably the latter. But it went to full charge. I did get a capacity reading from Accubattery so it was charging while on. It was in the low to mid 90s vs the rated capacity. That was worth it for me. The phone didn't shut off randomly anymore. The apps were quicker. The camera took pictures the way I remembered it used to. No more static noise. But the charging issue was still there.
The back came off a few more times after that as I tried troubleshooting as best I could to see whether there were any issues with the charge port. There were no visible issues. I did end up picking out some dust with a needle, but not any significant amount that would have explained why it wasn't recognizing being plugged in while on. I probed with a meter on the backside of the USB port while the phone was apart and plugged in to make sure voltage from the charger and cord was coming through. No issues there, but also not advisable to do. The contact points that need to be probed are very tiny and very close to other things. I was lucky I didn't short the 5V to anything important. Pretty sure I did short it at least once and it didn't do any damage, after which I stopped while I was ahead. Cleaned out the port with an old toothbrush dipped in isopropyl alcohol. That definitely seemed to help it charge more reliably while off, but it still wasn't charging while on.
I’ve read posts that suggested the charge port was bad and needed to be replaced, but the fact that the 5V was coming through the USB port meant it had to be something else. Before I had opened the phone up the first time and was troubleshooting this problem I had tried a full reset. Backed up the whole phone manually. It wasn't rooted at that time. At the same time I unlocked the bootloader to get ready to root it once I replaced the battery because I wanted to use a charge limiter with the new battery to extend its life (whether or not that actually works to extend the life I don’t care, its worth the tradeoff to me). The factory reset had made no difference to my charging issue. I had not reflashed the factory image at this point. I was just doing a factory reset with the image that was already on the phone.
After I replaced the battery and it was still having issues, I tried flashing the factory image. Even going in and wiping cache and data through stock recovery made no difference. In addition to charging issues while on there would also be connection issues. It would connect and disconnect if the USB cable was not held in the right way. Not the ideal condition to be flashing a ROM but I managed to keep it connected for long enough. This was not just once. I tried a couple different methods. The first probably was using the Nexus Root Toolkit. Then when that didn't work I went in and manually flashed each file with adb from the command line. At some point I had gotten it to a condition where I did not recognize what it was doing during boot and it was just sitting on the Google screen before the animation starts. Didn't realize then that it should not be on this screen for long. I let it sit like that overnight. I had it plugged in to a charger but I had no way of knowing whether it was charging… it was not. Drained the battery just sitting on that screen all night. Phone came apart again. Battery was down to 2.7V and the phone would not charge. Green light in the speaker came on once (I didn't even realize that light was there before this). It would charge a bit, screen would come on and then immediately die. Started looking up how to charge a Li-Po battery outside of the phone. Eventually my brain cells started working and I pulled out the new battery and put the old battery back in. It had a 4V charge in it still. Was able to get the phone to boot into the OS for the first time after the ROM flash. Turned phone off, pulled old battery out, put new battery in, plugged it in while it was off and it started charging. I kept the back off and had a fan blowing across it while it charged to make sure it didn't get hot. It charged to full. I pulled it out again to see that I hadn't done any permanent damage. It felt the same thickness as before. Nothing was swollen. Will eventually know for sure when I have some more charge/discharge cycles on it, but I think it will be fine since it wasn't discharged lower than 2.7V.
Phone back together. Still only charging while off. Last thing to try is what other posts were skeptical about working. Time to root in order to get access to the batterystats files. Tried to flash TWRP to recovery. It would take but it would not stick. Tried a few times and then gave up and moved on to installing Magisk without it. Turns out Magisk will work just fine with the stock recovery. Used Magisk to patch the boot image. Flashed the patched boot image with adb (still with a wonky USB connection that seemed like it needed to be held just right, but it was only 8meg so it flashed fast). Went with FX File Explorer to browse root. Navigated to data/system folder and moved the three batterystats files off the phone. Kept the files on my computer just in case something went south and I needed to put them back. Rebooted the phone. Booted up without any issues. Plugged in the charger. Recognized immediately and started to charge while on for the first time in a long time. But then it would do the same thing again where the next time I tried charging it would not. It would recognize its plugged into power but would not charge unless I turned the phone on. After a while I realized it would charge while on if I just rebooted it. I still haven’t figured out why this is happening, but its a minor inconvenience. Went through a few weeks worth of charge cycles and Accubattery is showing the Polarcell is at 95% health which seems good to me. I also installed Battery Charge Limit and set it to 80%. Whether or not that’s really going to extend the life of the battery I don’t know but its working fine for me. I get more than a full day out of it before I have to charge again, but I’m not really putting a heavy load on it.
This summarizes troubleshooting and fixing that spans at least three months, for an issue that has been going on for about a year. I’m sure a lot of the issues I had are interrelated. There were definitely a few red herrings along the way. There is no physical damage to the USB port or cables or chargers even though the behavior would have indicated there was. I’m sure the old battery caused issues with either corrupting the batterystats files or just loading it with bad data, and that somehow caused the charging issues I was having. That also seems like it was causing general connectivity issues via the USB port.
Normal people would not go through this much trouble for a 6 year old phone that was presenting so many problems. Safe to say I’m not normal. But I like fixing things and I don't like waste. Hopefully this experience, or at least portions of it, helps someone else keep their Nexus 6 going or maybe even other phones since none of the issue I encountered seem to be specific to the phone.
Quite an adventure!
I would think that your USB connector is physically damaged. You should not have to fiddle with the cable to flash a rom, and also, charging isn't just passing 5V to the phone, it checks the data lines as well to identify the kind of charger.
People say that it is possible to replace the USB connector, but I guess you need to be a real pro at soldering. Maybe a repair shop can do it.
Replacing the charging coil is probably easier - I've done that, though it took some tries before I got the connectors aligned.
It could be the connector or it could be something further downstream (inside the phone). The connector looks physically fine; nothing obvious. Either way, if that's the issue it will be time for a new phone. I've seen those videos and that is well beyond my capabilities. The coil seems simple enough to replace but I've never used wireless charging anyways so I am fine without it.
However, I tend to think its more software related than hardware related just because I can do nothing else besides turn the phone off and it will start charging just fine. I have stood absolutely still, not moving the phone or cable at all and just turned it off and it will start to charge. And when I turn it back on it will still be charging and recognize that it is charging vs before turning it off it would seem like it recognizes its plugged into a charger but it would not be charging (Battery Usage screen goes from telling me how much time it estimates is left with the charge the battery has on it when the cord is not plugged in to saying "Not Charging" when the cord is plugged in).
Any pointers on where to read about how the operating system controls charging? I'm running stock 7.1.1 (N8I11F) with bootloader unlocked and Magisk installed.
Also, what controls charging when the phone is off? I'm assuming that its not the OS.
Thanks
You can always try clearing the bootloader logs:
[Q] Dying at 17% battery
My Nexus 6 is dying at around 17% battery. I've tried using battery calibration apps to fix it but they haven't worked. I've also factory reset, and went from LMY47D to LMY47M, both of which would die at 17%. Any suggestions?
forum.xda-developers.com
That should reset the battery status. It doesn't delete any user data.
I had tried clearing the bootloader logs before, and have tried it again. I had seen a response on a post (that i can't find anymore) that suggested the logs were cleared during a power cycle anyways. Not sure if there's any truth in that, but that's why i thought charging while powered off was working. However, i think i'm agreeing with you now that its the charge port. Last week it stopped working on the charger/cord combo (4A Asus charger and cord that came with some other device) that was reliable up to that point while powered off. Now it will only charge if i push in the cord real hard (won't work with the cord i was using, now i'm back on the OEM cord still with the 4A Asus charger). I think once this method stops working it will be time to move on to another phone.
Any battery recommend ?
I like the Polarcell. Accubattery says its at 94% health (3000mAh compared to the 3200mAh design rating). It hasn't changed since I first installed it two to three months ago. I don't use the phone for anything much more than phone/text/email/alerts so I don't have much screen-on time. I have other devices for that. With that lite use it will take two full days to drop about 50% charge before I put it back to charge. Phone is just as responsive as when I first got it. No random shutdowns or app crashes.
Vincent Adultman said:
I like the Polarcell. Accubattery says its at 94% health (3000mAh compared to the 3200mAh design rating). It hasn't changed since I first installed it two to three months ago. I don't use the phone for anything much more than phone/text/email/alerts so I don't have much screen-on time. I have other devices for that. With that lite use it will take two full days to drop about 50% charge before I put it back to charge. Phone is just as responsive as when I first got it. No random shutdowns or app crashes.
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Thanks for your post. Which ROM are you using?
Stock, 7.1.1, N8I11F