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Here is a head scratcher....
I have a Samsung Fascinate from Verizon, and just recently updated to the new 2.2, I now have no usb functions at all. Tried several times to install/reinstall/turn off/turn on pc, phone, etc to no avail... all I get now is USB is not recognized
here is the weird part,
when I unplug the USB from the phone it keeps charging.... is it really charging because it shows it is!!
try toggling USB debugging. It's under settings>applications>development.
If that doesn't work, I'd suggest uninstalling your Samsung drivers, reboot PC, reinstall drivers and see if your phone is recognized.
If that doesn't work and you can get your hands on another set of Samsung cables, try that out, as that happened to be my problem a few weeks ago.
I had this happen a while back. The PC would not recognize the phone at all, driver replacement didn't help, odin wouldn't recognize it either. I also experienced the charging indicator remaining on after the phone was unplugged. Remained this way for a couple of weeks. I tried multiple cables, ports, and computers.
It sounds screwy, but the only cause I could find was a dirty connector/cable. One evening, I cleaned out the cable connector and port on the phone with a piece of paper dampened with isopropyl alcohol. Following this action, the usb connected for the first time in two weeks, but not every time. Multiple cleanings were required and eventually the usb connection became reliable again. I haven't experienced the problem since.
Can't explain it but there it is. YMMV.
printing724 said:
I had this happen a while back. The PC would not recognize the phone at all, driver replacement didn't help, odin wouldn't recognize it either. I also experienced the charging indicator remaining on after the phone was unplugged. Remained this way for a couple of weeks. I tried multiple cables, ports, and computers.
It sounds screwy, but the only cause I could find was a dirty connector/cable. One evening, I cleaned out the cable connector and port on the phone with a piece of paper dampened with isopropyl alcohol. Following this action, the usb connected for the first time in two weeks, but not every time. Multiple cleanings were required and eventually the usb connection became reliable again. I haven't experienced the problem since.
Can't explain it but there it is. YMMV.
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same here, dropped phone over winter, salt prob got into the connector where it charges. battery meter would change wildly and wouldnt connect to usb. Cleaned usb port with a little iso alcohol and a thick piece of paper and it was perfect.
Mine did the same thing. It would and would not charge. Then it would keep charging after unplugging. I took it to Verizon and they gave me a new phone. No questions asked.
Sent from my SCH-I500 using XDA App
This sounds like the perfect solution to people who have been complaining of terrible battery life!
....heyo
jeffro0625 said:
Here is a head scratcher....
I have a Samsung Fascinate from Verizon, and just recently updated to the new 2.2, I now have no usb functions at all. Tried several times to install/reinstall/turn off/turn on pc, phone, etc to no avail... all I get now is USB is not recognized
here is the weird part,
when I unplug the USB from the phone it keeps charging.... is it really charging because it shows it is!!
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Click to collapse
Sry, if your saying your still stock then what are you installing reinstalling? If you don't wish to deviate from stock then taking it back for replacement might be your only option as it may be physical.
I should clarify the title by saying that trying to charge this phone is resulting in a number of odd results.
So firstly, I've tried using the wall-mounted AC charger. I then tried using USB on my computer, in 3 different usb ports. The phone was charging perfectly less than 24 hours before this problem began.
I plugged it in as per usual, and it didn't show the little lightning bolt on the batter icon like it should. It wasn't registering that it was plugged in. I tried plugging it into my PC, and it wasn't showing that it was connected via USB. In addition to that, my computer was failing to install the drivers for it. I went back to the AC charger, and tried a few different outlets, including one on a power strip. Nothing worked.
I searched online, and found that other people had this problem, and could only fix it by resetting to factory default settings. One person even had to do it twice to get it to work. So I did this, and it still didn't work. I tried charging my old phone with this Ac charger and cable, and it wouldn't work either. So I thought it must be a fault in the cable. So I dug up the cable (also micro-usb) for my old phone, and tried it. It worked just fine for my old phone, but my S4 still had the same problem, but with something new. It would say "Dock connected" but still not charge.
As of right now, it seems to be charging properly with my new AC mount and old usb cable, but I'm worried that this could happen again. Considering this seems to be a problem for other people too, what should I do about it? Is there some way to prevent this sort of thing from happening? Was it purely the other cable, given the fact that it didn't work with my old phone either? I'm on an extremely tight budget, and this phone is my only way of being contacted for job interviews, so having it in working order is very important. Any advice would be very appreciated!
Having exactly the same problem... couldn't find over the internet a solution yet or a position about it...
Affraid it's a hardware issue and have to send to the assistance...
Anyone know what to do?
Yup having the same issues - but i noticed only having charging issues when battery reaches 20% or the low battery notification pops up
it detects that a usb is connected but it wont charge
Solutions:
- dont let it go below 20 which is ****
- some people claim that if you use a 5pin charger instead of the 4pin which samsung includes solves the prob
Mine is a little more serious I think... haven't found a solution like that yet.
I have to connect/disconnect multiple times and it suddenly works.
But between those connects/disconnects it presents multiple problems, it appears on notification bar "Dock Connected", sometimes appears "Dock Connected" and on the notification bar appears "Suggested Apps (Anchoring)", other times it appears "Dock Connected" and the volume bar appears on the screen and stay there freeze (the phone works, but the bar doesn't disappear)... Sometimes the phone starts charging and suddenly stops, other times it says it's charging and if I remove the charger it keeps the charging symbol on the battery icon...
It's completely crazy, gonna take to service I guess.
Have you tried blowing out the usb connector on the phone with a can of compressed air?
If there is a minute piece of dust there it may be shorting something out - error that dock is connected. I know this happens to other phones, there was a big thread about it on the S3 forum. Might be a simple little thing like that...
Unfortunately that doesn't work for me, will send to service, let's see.
have you solved this problem and how?????
rokashi said:
I should clarify the title by saying that trying to charge this phone is resulting in a number of odd results.
So firstly, I've tried using the wall-mounted AC charger. I then tried using USB on my computer, in 3 different usb ports. The phone was charging perfectly less than 24 hours before this problem began.
I plugged it in as per usual, and it didn't show the little lightning bolt on the batter icon like it should. It wasn't registering that it was plugged in. I tried plugging it into my PC, and it wasn't showing that it was connected via USB. In addition to that, my computer was failing to install the drivers for it. I went back to the AC charger, and tried a few different outlets, including one on a power strip. Nothing worked.
I searched online, and found that other people had this problem, and could only fix it by resetting to factory default settings. One person even had to do it twice to get it to work. So I did this, and it still didn't work. I tried charging my old phone with this Ac charger and cable, and it wouldn't work either. So I thought it must be a fault in the cable. So I dug up the cable (also micro-usb) for my old phone, and tried it. It worked just fine for my old phone, but my S4 still had the same problem, but with something new. It would say "Dock connected" but still not charge.
As of right now, it seems to be charging properly with my new AC mount and old usb cable, but I'm worried that this could happen again. Considering this seems to be a problem for other people too, what should I do about it? Is there some way to prevent this sort of thing from happening? Was it purely the other cable, given the fact that it didn't work with my old phone either? I'm on an extremely tight budget, and this phone is my only way of being contacted for job interviews, so having it in working order is very important. Any advice would be very appreciated!
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Click to collapse
have u sved this problem ??
ihave same problem plz rply.
jkgohil29 said:
have u sved this problem ??
ihave same problem plz rply.
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Yep, chalk up one more with the same problem!
At first I thought it had something to do with Aviate, a custom launcher from Yahoo (actually a pretty sweet one at that!)
But I guess not.
My work-around is to reboot the phone while connected. It charges fine while turned off and seems to keep charging when booting while plugged in.
Still... this is a stupid work-around and I want this fixed properly.
Any news from any of you guys?
ZonderZout said:
Yep, chalk up one more with the same problem!
At first I thought it had something to do with Aviate, a custom launcher from Yahoo (actually a pretty sweet one at that!)
But I guess not.
My work-around is to reboot the phone while connected. It charges fine while turned off and seems to keep charging when booting while plugged in.
Still... this is a stupid work-around and I want this fixed properly.
Any news from any of you guys?
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Had this problem today. Suddenly out of nowhere "Dock is connected" message appeared after plugging the charger in and out. Tried to clean out the dock with stick and cotton on the edge. Then turned off and plugged in charger. Problem exists. Phone charges but stops regularly. It is very annoying when you dont know how to fix this kind of problem.
Any new solutions?
Right after this post, I froze the app "battery doctor 4.9.2" using Titanium Backup Pro (you can just uninstall it i guess). Then just plugged charger and now it's already Almost 90% without any interruption.
Sent from my GT-I9500 using XDA Free mobile app
Kamo777 said:
Right after this post, I froze the app "battery doctor 4.9.2" using Titanium Backup Pro (you can just uninstall it i guess). Then just plugged charger and now it's already Almost 90% without any interruption.
Sent from my GT-I9500 using XDA Free mobile app
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Amazing! I've dealing with this problem for weeks and internet didn't give me any good answer, but the whole problem was a baterry monitor apk that for some reason was interfiering with the charger. Thank you so much!
I had this problem too and in my case it was a hardware problem. When i start the charging it kept repeating the start proces of charging with the vibration and the grey battery icon(in case the phone was turned off). The battery icon with the green charging light just didn't showed up. I tried many things but nothing helped. I let the phone keep charging for the whole night but in the morning i saw that it didn't charged anyway!
Then i went to a local phone reparation shop(none official samsung) and they knew immediately recognized the problem and it was the usb/charging connector where you plug it in the phone. They fixed it in 1 hour for a cheap price and from then(i think a few months ago) it charges back perfectly. It seems it's a disease with S4's.
In my previous post I was happy thinking that all this charging problems were solved after uninstalling battery apk. But, in fact, my S4 charges very slowly after that incident. I have tried two other samsung adapters (galaxy s4 mini; grand prime). First one results the same (up to 5 hours charging), the latter was comparably shorter (up to 3 hours), but still slower than it used to be (2 hours normally). So I highly suspected the hardware might be the reason. Thank you for your information, now I will also have the phone checked at some local repair shop. And give feedback of course.
Sent from my GT-I9500 using XDA Free mobile app
Kamo777 said:
In my previous post I was happy thinking that all this charging problems were solved after uninstalling battery apk. But, in fact, my S4 charges very slowly after that incident. I have tried two other samsung adapters (galaxy s4 mini; grand prime). First one results the same (up to 5 hours charging), the latter was comparably shorter (up to 3 hours), but still slower than it used to be (2 hours normally). So I highly suspected the hardware might be the reason. Thank you for your information, now I will also have the phone checked at some local repair shop. And give feedback of course.
Sent from my GT-I9500 using XDA Free mobile app
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You probably got some water damage in your port. What you need to do is clean it. I used pure alcohol and a toothbrush for that. After that I flashed a custom kernel so I could enable fast charge true usb.
That's the reason your phone is charging slowly, it thinks it's connected true usb. So you need to boost the usb charging. After a few charge cycles I could revert back to my standard kernel and the problem was fixed.
I think ur right Lenny.
Mine S4 got wet last weekend and now i am also getting the " Dock is connected" message when i plug in the charger cable.
I can charge my phone but sometimes while charging i hear the sound go off and on what you hear when unplugging the charger.
I will try your solution and hope it will fix mine too. Thanks for posting ur tip!
I suggest you go buy a new genuine cable for an s4, the s4 does actually require a special cable capable of 2A charge rate otherwise you can end up in all sorts of bother.
Thank you all for sharing tips. I cleaned the port as suggested, then replaced my cable. Now everything is back to normal.
Sent from my GT-I9500 using XDA Free mobile app
Lucky you :good:
Same problem - galaxy s6
Hi there - same problem, on my 128gb s6. started this morning. Yesterday everything fine, would charge when connected via USB to both laptop and to regular samsung usb power unit. Have now tried 3 different USB cables including the samsung cable, 3 different usb power units and of course tried all 3 cables in laptop usb port. Have checked phone's usb port - clean as a whistle. Have rebooted both connected and unconnected. Started getting 'dock connected' message, now it just wont charge, although starts up fine. I take very good care of the phone, so no water damage or untoward shock damage (never get it wet, never drop it). Remaining battery charge seems to fluctuate between 30% and 40+ %, depending upon whether it's plugged in or not. If I turn it off, then connect usb cable, the phone just reboots, still not charging. I then turn it off and see no green battery charging screen, as I used to seen when connected but turned off. Should I just hard reset and take to repair shop? Still under warranty.
I would return the phone for a warranty repair. Software would not usually prevent the phone from charging when powered off.
As a final test, see if the s6 will charge wirelessly, assuming you have access to a qi charging pad and the s6 has a built-in qi receiver like the North American version of the s6.
So YD206 about a month old. Was connected to official yota charger (via a magnetic usb cable), noticed the plug at the phone end getting quite hot. Phone now essentially dead, wont boot, doesn't seem to charge. We also realised the charger had come out of the wall socket. But the yotaphone light was intermittently flashing on the charger.
Whilst I am inclined to blame the magnetic charging cable, is it possible for current to flow in reverse from phone to charger and essentially discharge the phone battery below acceptable levels?
Any advice on rebooting it (can't remove the battery like I would on a Samsung) so whats the procedure?
Just a follow up charger not the issue, it crashed in use and the power button became non-responsive, with the screen off, and the e-ink display on but also unresponsive. Did not turn on when connected to a charger. However when I connected it to my pc it did register in device manager as MTP device, so I knew it was still alive. Removed the sim and held the power button down for 10 seconds then it rebooted.
Hope this helps anyone else with a similar problem.
Failing that it would probably have to be left to discharge (might take a while if nothing is running) then powered back on with charger attached.
I have similar problem. My phone got hot while not charging (about 15% of battery) and crashed. Then forced reboot (hold power button for about 10 seconds) helped while phone was connected to Yota charger, battery was dead, but phone booted (EPD on, did not check rest) and got to about 81%. After removing it from charger, same thing happened again, no luck with forced reboot this time. Phone was blazing hot and did not respond, then crashed again. No response after connecting charger or forced reboot. Any experience with this issue appreciated.
SuperTukan said:
I have similar problem. My phone got hot while not charging (about 15% of battery) and crashed. Then forced reboot (hold power button for about 10 seconds) helped while phone was connected to Yota charger, battery was dead, but phone booted (EPD on, did not check rest) and got to about 81%. After removing it from charger, same thing happened again, no luck with forced reboot this time. Phone was blazing hot and did not respond, then crashed again. No response after connecting charger or forced reboot. Any experience with this issue appreciated.
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Click to collapse
It seems a battery issue. Have your Yotaphone a valid warranty?
casaprocida said:
It seems a battery issue. Have your Yotaphone a valid warranty?
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I am not sure about my warranty, bought it off AliExpress, I guess I could try to send it to manufacurer (i heard Russia provides repair service).
EDIT ( t + 2 days): I managed to start my Yota again. I connected it to computer and after about 5 minutes, magic happened and phone started all by itself. I will try to find out more, will update this as soon as I find something
Man, you are more lucky than me, I have a dead yotaphone lying around here. It also died after connecting it to a bad power source.
In my case it was the usb-port of a monitor.
When I checked the usb-port with a cable with a volt/amp display I saw that it was going on and off very quickly.
But so I would say be careful where you connect your yotaphone to, it does not seem to handle weird power sources all too well.
tomgaga said:
Man, you are more lucky than me, I have a dead yotaphone lying around here. It also died after connecting it to a bad power source.
In my case it was the usb-port of a monitor.
When I checked the usb-port with a cable with a volt/amp display I saw that it was going on and off very quickly.
But so I would say be careful where you connect your yotaphone to, it does not seem to handle weird power sources all too well.
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Click to collapse
I actually thought about burning charging circuitry a lot. I wonder, if you would be able to test wireless charging. With some luck, it is independent enough to not be affected by burning micro usb charging route (depends where high voltage safety is implemented). If this make any sense to you, please give this a try (I think IKEA is place to go, they should have working wireless chargers in their model setups) and report back. If I am wrong in any aspect, I'd appreciate any correction with explanation.
SuperTukan said:
I actually thought about burning charging circuitry a lot. I wonder, if you would be able to test wireless charging. With some luck, it is independent enough to not be affected by burning micro usb charging route (depends where high voltage safety is implemented). If this make any sense to you, please give this a try (I think IKEA is place to go, they should have working wireless chargers in their model setups) and report back. If I am wrong in any aspect, I'd appreciate any correction with explanation.
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Sorry for the late reply, did not see the quote, but it does not work with wireless charging either. I think the battery still has a lot of charge too. Thing is that the Motherboard also gets hot after a while when I try to charge it. I'm pretty sure my motherboard is dead. But I have another Yotaphone now, so maybe in the future I will test with every separable part replaced.
I use the charger from my iphone. It works great, although with the yotacharger also works well. Attention that I have a YotaPhone YD201 with Russian base and european compilation. Like I said the Iphone charger works great and doesn't warm my Yotaphone 2 . It might be a solution for your problems with charging.
Hi XDA,
After being a long time reader, it's time to ask you guys for some advice. My S7E still works great after 1.5 year of quite intensive usage. So far so good.
However, over the past couple of days, I've started to notice that my phone wasn't charged at all after putting it on the charger for 1-2 hours. The first 2 times I just thought that the cable just wasn't in properly, because after I reconnected the cable, it did charge. A few days later it just stopped charging at all. After testing it on a wireless charger of a coworker quickly, I knew the battery itself was fine. I tried a couple of cables, both new and old, but it wouldn't charge. Because I also used new cables, the cable wasn't the problem either.
So then, as a last resort, I tried to push the actual connection part (having the pins on it) within the port on the phone a bit inward. This so the pins in the port would better connect to the pins. And Boom! It started charging. So then I knew where my problem was. But now every time when it stops charging again, I have to do this over and over. This puts stress on the connector, and after repeating this process enough times, it will eventually break.
So here's my problem.. Because of how contracts are setup here, I can't open my phone up myself to simply replace the USB port (namely materials, but also certain skills). Also the repair service that is suppose to do the replacement, basically just sucks. They gave me a phone with a bend LCD back last time. I've fixed it myself afterwards back then. I don't want to send it there, except for screen repair.
So I'm looking for a way to either fix this connector permanently without opening my phone, or a specific type of cable focussed on bad connectors, or whatever might help me in this sitation.
Thanks for all your advices!
Wireless charging is ok. Its not as fast as usb but it gets the job done
tactical bacon said:
Wireless charging is ok. Its not as fast as usb but it gets the job done
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Thanks, but that's only part of the problem. Let's say I need to connect my phone somewhere on the fly for whatever reason. Or are maybe on an airplane or something like that. I'll always need to bring toothpicks to fix the port, up until it breaks.
Mine s7 edge just stopped fast charging one day and PC doesn't recognize the phone anymore. It's still charging slow though.
Kontsnor said:
Thanks, but that's only part of the problem. Let's say I need to connect my phone somewhere on the fly for whatever reason. Or are maybe on an airplane or something like that. I'll always need to bring toothpicks to fix the port, up until it breaks.
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Click to collapse
just use airdroid. can trasnfer files wirelessly.
Well, let me clarify a bit... I know there are workarounds for the issue I'm describing. I could setup SMB and transfer files through that. The heck - I could write my own app, using my own "protocol". Charging can be fixed through wireless charging, thetering can be fixed using the hotspot, adb can also be done wirelessly, and terminal access I could get through an app. I could continue for a while here.
I actually want to fix this specific problem under the given circumstances. Not just dozens of workarounds for specific tasks. Let's say I **** up flashing, and need Odin to restore my device.
there isn't a way to "fix" this without removing a LOT of small, fiddly bits inside the phone. You certainly could get a micro-usb extension cable an leave it plugged into the phone all the time, or MAYBE use a Mophie Juice pack (a battery pack in a case that has a micro usb that plugs into phone and a new port that is on the edge of the case...
Other than that...SOL...
No sorry you can't, its nearly impossible to replace usb port without opening front panel and screen, and there is not a single percent chance to prevent screen from damage when opening front panel and glass, its simply doesn't designed to be opened. Go to samsung care center and give them the fee to replace usb port, if your screen got damaged during repair, they will replace it themselves.
Sent from my S7 Edge using XDA Labs
sbaeder said:
there isn't a way to "fix" this without removing a LOT of small, fiddly bits inside the phone. You certainly could get a micro-usb extension cable an leave it plugged into the phone all the time, or MAYBE use a Mophie Juice pack (a battery pack in a case that has a micro usb that plugs into phone and a new port that is on the edge of the case...
Other than that...SOL...
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Click to collapse
Kinda was afraid of that, thanks for confirming. I like the idea of the case, hadn't thought of that. But the idea of the extension cable got me thinking. I think I'm gonna order some of those magnetic USB cables. They have a small adapter that barely sticks out. Then I simply need a few cables, for work, home and on the road. Because the adapter has no reason on move, it should be alright.
Thanks for your suggestions everyone!
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