"Problem Reading Your Battery Meter" - Google Pixel 4 XL Questions & Answers

I had a 50% battery issue last June. I asked Google if I fell underneath the extended warranty. I did not. I had UBIF replace the battery and paid out of pocket.
Phone was working fine, until this past weekend. I've received a message "Problem Reading Your Battery Meter". This pops up a ? on the battery icon. The phone sometimes gives me a normal battery meter and I can charge for a bit. Other times, I can't get it to charge at all. The phone has ran dead a couple of times already. When it's dead, I've been able to plug into power and the black screen will sometimes show ? on the battery, and others it will start charging. Once I reach 1 or 2%, I can then power up the phone. Sometimes, it charges completely. Other times, it will bounce back and forth between question mark and charging.
I am not sure if this is a battery issue or motherboard. I read about a similar issue on the new Pixel 6 that was related to the DEVELOPER OPTIONS > ANIMATIONS settings. I did have the animations set to .5. I tried changing back to default and it seemed that made a difference for one charge cycle. After that, back to the behavior described above.
I'm at a loss. The phone has worked just fine for me. If it's a motherboard issue, those are going for around $500. At that price, I might as well get a new phone. A new battery is $100, but I've got no guarantee it's a battery issue. Has anyone ran into this? What was the fix? Thanks!

CNLiberal said:
I had a 50% battery issue last June. I asked Google if I fell underneath the extended warranty. I did not. I had UBIF replace the battery and paid out of pocket.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Take it back to UBIF and have them diagnose (free). Worst case is they confirm the MB and you will know for sure. There are billions of chitty chinese bunk batteries in the supply chain.

In my case, it was the motherboard pin connector. I read that this is somewhat a common problem. Started with the same message as you and the ? but most of the problem did not show and the phone charged fine. As time went on, the problem was happening more frequently to a point that it was all the time. When the ? sign appears, the phone does not charge so I had to use it for a week plugged in. You can use it plugged in, but when you unplug it, it will shut down.
I took it to a good repair shop and they showed me under the microscope that in fact the MB connector was wrecked. So, as I am in chile, because of cost of repair (better bite the bullet and buy a pixel 5a 5g for a little extra money) I lost my phone over a 7usd badly soldered by factory piece.

Today I took the phone into my local uBreakiFix. They had the phone for about 4 hours. Their website was having issues so I saw no status of my repair. They texted my wife that the phone was completed. I went in and they said that they were able to get Google to replace the battery free of charge. The phone is showing battery percentage correctly now.
What's strange to me is that I contacted Google chat a week or two ago asking if this would fall under the Pixel extended warranty, and they said it would not (I gave them my IMEI). So why is it suddenly covered when UBIF asks them? What's even stranger to me is that when I took the phone to the same store (and I believe even the same tech) back in June, they said that the battery _was not_ covered by the extended warranty. I had to pay $100 (+ tax) back in June 2021 to get the battery replaced. So, either UBIF truly did put in a new battery free of charge, or the connector was loose on the current battery and they just popped it back in. I guess we'll see in time.

I'm having the same issue with the "?" Showing up. I've got an appointment with ubreakifix this afternoon. Sure would be nice if this falls under the extended warranty. I will update later today with what ubreakifix says.

mattwheat said:
I'm having the same issue with the "?" Showing up. I've got an appointment with ubreakifix this afternoon. Sure would be nice if this falls under the extended warranty. I will update later today with what ubreakifix says.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
So what did they say?

CNLiberal said:
So what did they say?
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
It was covered 100% by Google. It was the battery that had gone bad. It's a known issue and google will replace the battery free of charge.

Related

Tilt wont turn on or charge. Shows red light when plugged

Noobie addicted to flashing. The headline says it all. After about 5 -6 different flashes (mostly different ROMs), it wont turn on. And instead of the yellow light that shows when charging, it's a red one, and pushing the power button does nothing. PLEASE HELP!!
Ditto.... And I haven't had time to do any flashing (plenty of time for streaking, tho). lol. When did yours have this problem? Mine just happened last night. I have babied this one like there is no tomorrow, so there's no reason for it to just quit.
FWIW, mine happened the first night I owned it when it was completely standard (ie no flashing at all). All I did was plug it in to the charger. When I woke up the next morning it was as you described. The store reps tried every combination of new charger, new battery and new SIM card with my phone but in the end they gave me a new phone.
This is bizarre - the same thing happening to all of us on the same night?!?
I woke up late this morning because my phone alarm didn't go off. Upon inspection, I realized that it hadn't charged and was completely dead even though it was plugged in all night.
Now plugging it into the wall or into a USB port results in a red light, no charging. I can't even turn it on although it's directly connected to power.
I've flashed several ROMs, but I've been running Dutty's 7B since it was released two weeks ago or so - I doubt that's a factor.
Help? Anyone?
Ummm, ok this is really fawkin freaky...add me to the list. Running dualtouch 1.1. Hung up the phone, went back to it an hour later...dead as a doornail. Wouldnt charge, got the red LED. Luckily I'd only owned it for 27 days, so I returned it to my local AT&T store and got a new one....too many people on the same night for this to be an isolated incident...same as other users, babied it like, well, an overpriced cellphone . Methinks there is something afoot!!!
Deleted by author
Add me to the list.
Ok, this just happened to me just now...
MY 400$ PHONE JUST QUIT!!!!!
Not even 4 days old and it just gave out...
My standpoint (im a techie nerd) is this:
I charged my phone on my moms blackberry charger (~500mA)
The kaiser needs 1A to charge, so i only had half the power i was told...
When I had 89% I really had 44% and it drained really fast. So when I got home it was around 53% meaning I only had about 2% battery left (understand?) and when i pulled it out of my pocket...nothing, it wouldnt turn on SO I FREAKED OUT!!!!!!
I called HTC and they said to try a new battery, so I am going to go to the ATT store tomorrow and try another battery.
O and the reason is,
when Li-ion batterys get really low, they cease to produce the charge needed to keep the miniport active, thus resulting in any attempt to charge as futile.
Thats why you need to take out the battery and 'jump start' it by stripping a usb cable and putting the corresponding wires on their terminals (red + back -)
which will forcefully charge the battery and allow the miniport to become operable again. At which point you can resume using the HTC OEM charger (1A output at 5v) to resume the full charge. No other charger will suffice.
Im am going to try this now, you guys too and report back!
Dismissed!!!!
But my battery is fully charged...
tyeo098 said:
Add me to the list.
Ok, this just happened to me just now...
MY 400$ PHONE JUST QUIT!!!!!
Not even 4 days old and it just gave out...
My standpoint (im a techie nerd) is this:
I charged my phone on my moms blackberry charger (~500mA)
The kaiser needs 1A to charge, so i only had half the power i was told...
When I had 89% I really had 44% and it drained really fast. So when I got home it was around 53% meaning I only had about 2% battery left (understand?) and when i pulled it out of my pocket...nothing, it wouldnt turn on SO I FREAKED OUT!!!!!!
I called HTC and they said to try a new battery, so I am going to go to the ATT store tomorrow and try another battery.
O and the reason is,
when Li-ion batterys get really low, they cease to produce the charge needed to keep the miniport active, thus resulting in any attempt to charge as futile.
Thats why you need to take out the battery and 'jump start' it by stripping a usb cable and putting the corresponding wires on their terminals (red + back -)
which will forcefully charge the battery and allow the miniport to become operable again. At which point you can resume using the HTC OEM charger (1A output at 5v) to resume the full charge. No other charger will suffice.
Im am going to try this now, you guys too and report back!
Dismissed!!!!
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Sorry to tell... but when this happening you need a repair. I got this problem 2 times with my Wizard. It's a hardware problem.
I did all the tricks you can mention but at the end it needed a repair.
I had some luck after the second time i got a compleet new MOB from T-Mobile SHOP Sales-Manager (Utrecht).
It sounds like the problem is with the Kaizer... so far everything overhere is OK.
I use only the org. loader and USB-port on my computer. Don't use a other loader than that !!!!
Just wanted to add my name to this list...
I've had my Tilt about 2 days. I haven't flashed it, but I have run several cabs on it...I didn't have it on charger when I went to bed, when I woke up, it was off. The only thing I did different than the rest of you was I tried to turn it on before I put it on the charger and it came back on saying that the battery was critically low or whatever, so then I stuck it on the charger and it seems to be ok now.
I could see it being a hardware issue, just seems weird that so many people had it on the same night, and under such different circumstances.
Also, first post...this site is great and you are all smarter than I ever hope to be
okay lets try this...remove batt....let phone sit for a few minutes. plug into power source without batt. unplg again....then plug again. while plugged into power source...put batt in...then remove...then in again. then hit the reset button. ofcorse this has nothing to do with anything. but if it was me i would try anything lol....lets see what happens.
rzanology said:
okay lets try this...remove batt....let phone sit for a few minutes. plug into power source without batt. unplg again....then plug again. while plugged into power source...put batt in...then remove...then in again. then hit the reset button. ofcorse this has nothing to do with anything. but if it was me i would try anything lol....lets see what happens.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
lol....good one.
No wait....I must hold back the epicaricacy, don't want this happening to me as well
A moral dilemma you have caused here with your post...
(Good luck to everyone who's experiencing those problems )
H.
lesevich said:
lol....good one.
No wait....I must hold back the epicaricacy, don't want this happening to me as well
A moral dilemma you have caused here with your post...
(Good luck to everyone who's experiencing those problems )
H.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
lol also...does the phone come on with just the power cable plugged in and no batt? im curious to know about that. the latest version of kaiser tweak has a bunch of power settings. if the phone does come one...load up kaiser tweak and get in there to see if you can mess with the settings to fix this issue.
rzanology said:
lol also...does the phone come on with just the power cable plugged in and no batt? im curious to know about that. the latest version of kaiser tweak has a bunch of power settings. if the phone does come one...load up kaiser tweak and get in there to see if you can mess with the settings to fix this issue.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Well, speaking for those of us with the problem, the phone won't come on WITH the battery installed and the cable plugged in... I GUESS I could try it w/o the battery... would that even work normally?
I'm desperate.
drokkon said:
Well, speaking for those of us with the problem, the phone won't come on WITH the battery installed and the cable plugged in... I GUESS I could try it w/o the battery... would that even work normally?
I'm desperate.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
key word desperate!! lol anything works when you're desperate...give it a try. if not then we'll move on to hard resetting and see where that leaves us.
This same thing happened to me a week ago. I hope you guys have your phones on contract from AT&T, because I took mine back to the store after 2 months of use (took great care of it, no drops etc.) and they put me in contact with customer support.
Great experience with support - they will ask you to take battery out, examine the battery contacts, ask if it was dropped or put in water, ask if you tried another battery and finally ask about hard reseting. Since the device doesn't even power on in this case, hard reset isn't an option.
The tech rep imediately told me it sounded like a hardware problem and shipped me a new phone overnight. They send you a reconditioned phone (it looks brand new) without a battery or stylus or back cover. You use your old battery, cover and stylus and send back your brick with the enclosed shipping label. As long as it gets back to them in 14 days and is deemed by them not to have been dropped or damaged, you don't get charged for the replacement device. Worked like a charm for me...but we'll see in a few months time if this same problem crops up again. Fingers crossed...
P.S. They will initially quote you $12 to upgrade to overnight shipping, but make sure to tell them that the phone is for business use and you need it quickly and they should upgrade the shipping for free. Worked for me!
By the way - I never flashed a different ROM on the original phone. (Stock AT&T ROM but soft reset before bloatware intallation) So don't think it has anything to do with flashing too many or the wrong ROM!
Red light.......
I called HTC and they said something got smoked inside.......I called warrenty dept. and they shipped me a replacement.......I think this is weird too.....oh well such as life.......
Did you have to ship the smoked one back?
Kind of a dumb question yes, but if no, poke around inside to see if you cant get it working again.
happened to me too. i'm pretty sure its a hardware issue.
This happened to me as well. I'm glad there is a thread to address the problem!
The one thing I noticed that is different about this new kaiser I have is that the battery is made by DynaPack, the battery in the kaiser that has this issues was a Samsung battery.
May this be the culprit?

Red light of death fixed!!! (sticky???)

I think I just figured out how to fix it!!!!!!! I was tinkering around and got my red light brick to turn on!!!! I'm not sure exactly what fixed it so here's everything I did-
1. Removed the storage & sim cards.
2. Took off the backplate.
3. Removed the battery.
4. Bent these 2 pins up a little bit:
5. Put the battery in at an angle, so that the power leads were connected, but the metal shielding plate on the back of the battery was not touching:
6. Hit the power button (with the battery still "halfway" installed) Bam, green light of life.
Somebody please confirm this. Meanwhile I'll be copywriting this process so anyone who performs it owes me 10 bucks
So my replacement Tilt isn't working either, so they're overnighting me a third one. In the meantime, I haven't sent back my original (RLoDed) Tilt, so I thought I'd play around with some of your theories.
skuzz said:
Another thought I had. After the tilt goes into red brick death mode, has anyone tried plugging it into power, battery installed, and then holding down power+camera(all the way) and then pushing in the reset button on the bottom? This may trigger it to go into flash mode - although I kinda doubt it'll work. Worth a shot! Might be able to reflash it back to life! Holding down power and camera while it boots is how you manually force it to get in the Red/Green/Blue firmware flash mode. If it let us do that much when the device bricked we might have a snowball's chance in hell of getting them working. I didn't think of trying it before I returned mine tho. D'oh!
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
I didn't know what to try besides installing the battery and SIM card and trying to push down the power, camera, and stylus buttons (I knew I was doing it correctly, because I had to use this to return my second Tilt to factory specs). No response whatsoever! This thing is deader than a doornail. Except for the red LED, of course... that works REALLY well whenever it's plugged in.
sWuRv said:
I think I just figured out how to fix it!!!!!!! I was tinkering around and got my red light brick to turn on!!!! I'm not sure exactly what fixed it so here's everything I did-
1. Removed the storage & sim cards.
2. Took off the backplate.
3. Removed the battery.
4. Bent these 2 pins up a little bit:
5. Put the battery in at an angle, so that the power leads were connected, but the metal shielding plate on the back of the battery was not touching:
6. Hit the power button (with the battery still "halfway" installed) Bam, green light of life.
Somebody please confirm this. Meanwhile I'll be copywriting this process so anyone who performs it owes me 10 bucks
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
I appreciate your enthusiasm, but the only thing I can confirm is that this did NOT work on my RLoDed Tilt. Tried it several times in various ways. I think you just seriously lucked out!
As such, I'd also have to vote against stickying this... for now.
Best of luck, all... if not actually in fixing your RLoDed Tilts, then definitely in avoiding the $500 service fee if AT&T discovers we voided our warranties.
alright i will confirm this too....my phone was truely RLOD..... i did the same thing that these guys did just jammin the battery in and out and it "jump started the phone"
exact process used
Moto Razr charger
hold down power button
"bounce" battery on and off the contacts for the battery a good 100 times or so
green light apeared after the red light started to flicker a little bit..... tis as if you were giving the phone CPR or something
im not going to call this a fix all i know is that the phone was RLOD and now it is working....battery is at 54% right now and i will post back in a bit to see if it has risen at all....
no smell arising from device
running origional rom but have had other roms on there (alex's)
hard SPL still installed on device
SPB phone suite is the last software that was installed on the device
reg tweaks installed as well, the usual ones no sms, hsdpa enabled blah blah blah
that is about all i can provide....the unit was on the computer overnight charging....when i woke up it was RLOD....and i was sad....i did have the ATT store replace the battery for me as well dunno if that had anything to do with the issue...
in the time that it has taken me to write this the battery is now at 55% so it is charging.....on wall charger with MOTO razr charger
ok lets take a little closer look at what happened within the past little bit....
after gettin the device all up and running it was behaving very oddly.... it would go through multiple attempts to connect to the data network for various reasons....after showing that it was at 55% on the charger it went back down to 54%... i pulled it off the charger and took it into the other room to do something......within 10 min it was down to 46%....now having a data connection my blackberry connect should have a valid network connection....but it did not... not sure why...
the best that i can conclude is that it was trying to connect to so many things all at the same time that it exhausted its self that fast....
so the question is how many people out there that have RLOD are running the BB connect software on there devices and have made REG edits to the data connection time outs and the HSDPA mod availability
editing those settings together may confuse the device and make it think that it has to connect to too many things at one time....
just another thought process that i thought that i would throw out there...
here are some things on the my device that would use the DATA connection and automatically initiate the connection on the device rather than you opening a program forcing it to connect such as Internet explorer
GPS update
HTC home weather tab
SPB weather tab
Blackberry connect
SPB insight....RSS Reader
text messages going in and out....my phone sees quite a few of those
Edit/Delete Message
There have been a few other people who have now fixed their RLOD's. Confirmed it was done by messing about with the battery. If you have revived yours, please post your method in here so we can compare them and eventually pinpoint the fix. Thanks.
i had the same prob..took out the batterly wiped the four contact points on the phone (might of pushed them down or up) and put battery back in and worked..
I believe sWuRv was onto something. My Tilt had the RLOD today. I tried everything, even what he suggested above to no avail. So I called warranty and got my replacement on it's way, express shipping waved and all. So I decided to everything I could think of to try and get the thing back on so I might be able to back up my data again.
I started fooling with the battery, like sWuRv suggested but I moved it all around at 45 degrees or so pushing the power on button. I noticed while it was plugged to the USB with red light on that every now and then the red light would flash when I moved the battery so the contacts moved (while holding the battery at that 45 degrees). I started getting the light to go yellow but it would not stay. So I unplugged from the USB and kept trying it while pushing the power button. It eventually started and I was able to back up to my SD card. One thing I can tell you is that this process caused the phone to get hot and smell like electronics burning a little. There is definitely a power problem inside.
I have no idea how or why this worked but it did. I think I will still take the replacement even though I have to figure out how to swap my fancy invisible armor clear protector skin.
I'll try and update on whether this phone dies again or what until I get the new one.
rlod
I tried messing with the battery in a variety of ways for 30 minutes with no sucess. RLOD stayed solid.
RLOD
Holy shoot............After bouncing my battery up and down about 40 times my phone came to life!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
Reseating the battery and/or sim/storage cards is hardly a revolutionary procedure. Its Cellphone 101.
you guys are LIFE SAVERS. I have been on this forum for about a month now and I finally found a reason to post. I haven't posted because I always find my answers. I just wanted to thank everyone, as I have been on the phone with Amazon.com (where i got my tilt), went into an AT&T store and was on the phone with HTC tech support ALL day trying to resolve my red light issue. Unbelievable that all I needed to do was give it some "battery CPR":
UGHHHH. Well i found reason to make post #2. The fix lasted less than 5 minutes.
this did not work for me
These stories remind me off all the bad batteries/no powerup of my Motorola Q and those of others. My mother is on her 4th Q and I know its the battery, but the store just swaps out the whole phone. I've seen batteries last as little at 2 weeks, especially if let run down to empty at any point.
My questions are, is this just a bad battery problem? Does anyone with RLoD have a spare battery to try? If these batteries fail in the shorted condition, will they over draw power from the phone and mess up the charging circuit?
Roto
"Not the Mama", OR, NOT THE BATTERY
rotohammer said:
These stories remind me off all the bad batteries/no powerup of my Motorola Q and those of others. My mother is on her 4th Q and I know its the battery, but the store just swaps out the whole phone. I've seen batteries last as little at 2 weeks, especially if let run down to empty at any point.
My questions are, is this just a bad battery problem? Does anyone with RLoD have a spare battery to try? If these batteries fail in the shorted condition, will they over draw power from the phone and mess up the charging circuit?
Roto
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
I certainly don't believe it's a bad battery problem. I had 2 spare batteries, fully charged with separate docking charger - none of the 3 batteries made any difference once I got the RLOD.
cushcalc said:
I certainly don't believe it's a bad battery problem. I had 2 spare batteries, fully charged with separate docking charger - none of the 3 batteries made any difference once I got the RLOD.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Very good, thanks for the insight!
I finished a call yesterday and then dropped my phone on to the pavement cos I was a bit drunk... Anyway this caused my phone to go from working fine (all be it with pants battery life) to just flashing the red light. Fixed it today. I tried the methods prescribed in this thread without success although I did not persevere for very long. I then put a spare battery in to the phonea and bingo the orange light comes on, phone boots up and it's now happilly charging. Note that I charged the old battery for several hours before trying the fix. Pity nobody seems to know what the problem actually is. I wish HTC would let us know....
sWuRv said:
There have been a few other people who have now fixed their RLOD's. Confirmed it was done by messing about with the battery. If you have revived yours, please post your method in here so we can compare them and eventually pinpoint the fix. Thanks.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
I had a similar problem with my old iPAQ hw6515, and a Motorola V3. The contacts on the battery don't spring forward as well on an older phone as they do when it was new. I shimmed the battery. I did this by taking a business card and holding it against the opposite side of the battery from the contacts I traced the battery's profile and cut it out. I scotch taped my new shim to that side of the battery, then re-inserted it. This forces the battery up against the contacts better and in many times resolves inoperable phones, failure to charge, and spontaneous rebooting issues.
-Jay
My replacement tilt (first one had a bad USB connector) died Sunday.
Had it on the charger, looked down, red LED. Back of phone was pretty
warm. Pulled the battery, SIM, memory card, slammed the battery onto the
battery contacts rapidly 5-6 times, put the SIM, memory, battery back into
it, and it charged up. Did a hard reset. Battery was 100% charged, I turned
it completely OFF when I went to bed. Got up, battery was 0% drained!
Red LED again. Did the rapid thingy with the battery again, orange charge
light came on.
Called at&t warranty replacement. When I told her I had a red LED, she didn't
even ask me to do anything else. She just asked for the IMIE number and shipped me another one.
Maybe the 3rd one will be the charm LOL.......
I'm beginning to think that HTC doesn't stand for "high tech computes" but
"high tech CRAP"....
Maybe you guys got the margin of error productions? I know its really unlikely that you could get them again after a replacement but it is possible, and it maybe your computer. What do you think could be making this things go crazy? Overly protective anti-virus, I know, I know but it could do things secretly and screw around like mine does and wont let me into sites I have been on before on the same app no changes . . . Well I hope you luck.
ok I just tried everything you guys said, but it didn't work for me
so as some of you have stated it must be the battery, so what I did is put it between my hands for about 1 minute and put it in and it worked again!
really weird... must be the heat?
well hope that helps the research
Cheers
Jay

Story of my brick

All started with the phone randomly turning off itself. Sometimes even when I got a call. It became more often in time, so I was looking for solution. Most of the people said to send back the phone, but I didn't want to bother, and also I bought it new from Ebay. Somebody said, that the new Cyanogen mod solves the problem, so I put it on the phone. Well, the mod was okay, but the phone still turned off sometimes. I didn't really bother until one time the phone was plugged on the car charger, and I was listening music from that(battery was around 70%). It turned off again, and when I tried to turn on, I couldn't.
I removed the battery, put it back, and I could turn on the phone for like 10 seconds, and it died again, and showed red led, like the battery is low. It was still on charger, but it didn't make a difference.
I got very angry, because I assumed that the replacement battery I bought a few months ago from ebay was faulty(1700mAh), so I got home, and put in the old 1100mAh battery from my drawer. It worked fine, and I even plugged back on the car charger, listened music, used gps, etc.
I got out of the car, and took the phone with me as well, and like 30min later I hear somebody calling me. I took the phone out, but it was off. Tried to turn on, but only saw the red light flashing, no answer. I realised, that it might not be the battery then! I got home, plugged on the charger, but as I expected, no reaction. I left the battery like that, and ordered a new 2200mAh branded one from ebay, while I was waiting for that the phone just sat on my table waiting. After 2 days of idle, I plugged in the usb charger to the pc, and the g1 on the other side, and it turned on! It started to charge the battery from 0%(the battery was 100% when I took out from the drawer), so I quickly wrote a text to a guy, and left it there to charge. 15 mins later I see the phone dead again. Next day the "superbattery" arrived, I was so happy, I put it in. But: no reaction at all! Tried all button combinations as well.
So here I am now, some people said it has short-circuit, and that discharged the battery(batteries are not extended in size, i bet it would work with an other g1), and I also read it can be the motherboard.
Any ideas what could cause the problem, and how can I replace it?
Warranty conditions: the phone was new from ebay, modded with cyanogen, and should be under T-mobile warranty. It was unlocked as well, and O2 simcard was used. I never had any contact with T-mobile whatsoever.
The phone doesn't have serial number on the white patch on the back(strange), that according to HTC warranty policy makes the warranty void. IMEI number cannot be checked, because phone doesn't turn on. I'm not sure if T-mo would help me, neither HTC. Please let me know if you have ANY idea how to fix the phone, or get a replacement, or convince T-mo or HTC to fix it!
All help is appreciated about everything!
Bump Bump Bump
Bump Bump Bump
You're not getting replies, because your options are limited. If you are handy, you could buy a trashed G1 with broken screen off ebay and replace your main circuit board. Otherwise, you will need to get stock firmware on the unit and attempt to return the phone, which seems unlikely without a serial number, as you say (sounds stolen to me?).

Bionic won't turn on...

Well, I'm baffled.
Last night I looked down to see my Bionic bootlooping. I let it do its thing and after a few reboots it stopped. Whatever, it's android, it's buggy.
Then when I picked it up, I realized it wasn't even on anymore. I tried to turn it on, nothing. So, I pulled the battery for a minute, popped it back on, and... still nothing.
Long story short, I ended up going to Verizon, trying different batteries, chargers, etc, and I can't get an inch of life out of the phone.
I can see a white LED light up when the phone is connected via the stock USB cable. No other cable will do it, and the wall charger won't do it. I don't know if this really indicates anything or not...
Is there anything else I can even try? It won't even boot into recovery - I never see the red M at all, the screen doesn't so much as even flicker. Unfortunately I bought the phone second hand from an iPhone 4S switcher, so there's nothing I can do to get a warranty replacement.
It's back to my original Droid for now...
I had the same problem Sunday night. Called tech support and they overnight-ed a replacement.
Try holding Volume down + power from the off state for a few seconds then letting go.
Or try Both Volume buttons + Power.
If those do nothing, it sounds like you have a very expensive paperweight. You need a replacement, sorry.
Whatever you do, DO NOT send the phone into Verizon!
Make up some excuse like you lost it or someone stole it or something.
Had my first Bionic do this I said I lost it claimed on my insurance but new one acts up also usually when it's overheating got my old one to fastboot did a complete restore to stock tested it by steaming netflix that lasted for about half an hour now it's just a paper weight!
Sent from my DROID BIONIC using XDA App
Would Motorola honor the 1 year warranty?
cryptiq said:
Would Motorola honor the 1 year warranty?
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
If it covers your excuse, yeah.
Tivo7 said:
If it covers your excuse, yeah.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Based on what details we have from the OP, it doesn't sound like he did anything to damage or modify the phone. So if the phone is stock he should be able to get help from Moto I presume?
what i did was
i had the verizon rep patch me straight through to insurion and got my o.g droid replaced.
I tried to get into recovery with no luck.
Unfortunately I'm not the original owner, so I can't send a receipt or anything Motorola's way. I do have the original box, though, and the original owner had it all of three days...
My phone was rooted to freeze some bloatware, but still on the stock ROM. It was running that way for weeks, so there's no way that would have caused it. I've never seen a phone just... completely keel over before. I'm half tempted to just use my original droid for 2-3 weeks and grab the nexus when it comes out.
If you haven't messed with any system files and you're completely stock, you can take the phone in for repair.
It's rooted, but there's no way for them to tell if it won't boot.
Motorola's live chat rep offered to let me send it in for RMA repair. The fine print says, though, that the repair stops being free the second they see anything that voids the warranty. My assumption is that they'll never be able to tell it's rooted because they will need to just send a refurb if it's shorted out, but should I bother risking it?
c0LdFire said:
I tried to get into recovery with no luck.
Unfortunately I'm not the original owner, so I can't send a receipt or anything Motorola's way. I do have the original box, though, and the original owner had it all of three days...
My phone was rooted to freeze some bloatware, but still on the stock ROM. It was running that way for weeks, so there's no way that would have caused it. I've never seen a phone just... completely keel over before. I'm half tempted to just use my original droid for 2-3 weeks and grab the nexus when it comes out.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Did you try calling Moto? It would be one thing if the phone has been in the market for say 16 months and then the 1 year warranty period would come into question, but in this case the phone hasn't been out for more 3 months so it should be covered. I could see where they would require a receipt to make sure it was purchased from an authorized reseller vs. a grey market seller, but it's worth a shot to give them a call.
Any chance you can get in touch with the person that sold you the phone?
Same thing happened to me...
Was tethering my bionic to PC for web access when it died. It was really hot so I thought it was some sort of safety measure to keep the processor from frying and I tried all of the stuff lots of you proposed in addition to letting my phone lie on a heat sink to relieve some of that heat.
I know you mentioned that you took it to a store and tried all sorts of chargers, but did you try leaving it plugged in to a wall/car charger for a while? That's what did it for me after leaving the batteries out of the unit overnight (I don't think that part is necessary... I was just fed up messing with it and went to sleep hoping it would be magically fixed by some house gnomes) - after plugging the batteries back in that morning and having it still not work, I switch to a car charger (which is rated 1a - higher than the included 850ma charger) and on in the middle of a trip to the Verizon store it simply turned on displaying 5% power on battery.
Odd thing is, before it was tethered the last night, it was at 100% power. So either somehow phone got shorted and drained the battery really fast, or the bionic simply eats so much power with that LTE that even when being supplied power from the PC, it still drains the battery. And from reading some of the other stuff online after googling "white light droid on," it seems that white light indicator is some sort of charge indicator and that the OS won't show if the battery is less than 5%.
hanafubuku said:
Was tethering my bionic to PC for web access when it died. It was really hot so I thought it was some sort of safety measure to keep the processor from frying and I tried all of the stuff lots of you proposed in addition to letting my phone lie on a heat sink to relieve some of that heat.
I know you mentioned that you took it to a store and tried all sorts of chargers, but did you try leaving it plugged in to a wall/car charger for a while? That's what did it for me after leaving the batteries out of the unit overnight (I don't think that part is necessary... I was just fed up messing with it and went to sleep hoping it would be magically fixed by some house gnomes) - after plugging the batteries back in that morning and having it still not work, I switch to a car charger (which is rated 1a - higher than the included 850ma charger) and on in the middle of a trip to the Verizon store it simply turned on displaying 5% power on battery.
Odd thing is, before it was tethered the last night, it was at 100% power. So either somehow phone got shorted and drained the battery really fast, or the bionic simply eats so much power with that LTE that even when being supplied power from the PC, it still drains the battery. And from reading some of the other stuff online after googling "white light droid on," it seems that white light indicator is some sort of charge indicator and that the OS won't show if the battery is less than 5%.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Yeah your computer USB port does not provide enough power to compensate for the draw you will get off LTE. Your phone will eat much more juice than you are giving it. Leaving the battery out allows the phone to fully discharge any built up charges (ever had this with a laptop? Looks like a bad motherboard but you pull out the battery ans hold the power button down to drain the capacitors and then reinstall the battery and instant boot.) Same thing happening here would be my guess.
Leave the battery out overnight or hold the power button down for about 30 seconds. Put the battery back in and let it charge for awhile. Profit?
Sent from my DROID BIONIC using XDA App

Nexus 6 Not Charging

Hi there, first post and I'm very grateful for anyone who reads/responds to this. Long time reader, ex-owner of nexus 4+5.
I'll try to list all symptoms and procedures I've tried here. I recently dropped my phone and smahed the screen - sent off to motorola repair center and it has now been fixed. It arrived in the post 2 hours ago, so I immediately plugged it in (usng the turbo charger).
As expected the battery icon came up, first the solid icon, then it moved on to the charging icon.
Half an hour later I checked it, it was still "charging" but not a drop of power had gone into it. So I tried a different cable with the turbo charger, a lower powered one. Exactly the same response.
When I tried to power the phone on with conventinal method, the screen went blank and no activity was evident.
So I managed to boot into bootloader by holding down power and volume down (i think) button while pluggin it in simultaneously. This worked.
I set up my phone, wifi, sim etc... but notice the batttery icon has not displayed any charge. I go into settings and the battery settings IS MISSING! As if the phone has no battery in it.
So I decide to plug it in via USB to my laptop, no response at all, not even a charging icon. Different cable, same again.
I'm wondering if anyone has any idea what the issue may be, as it's been away for 3 weeks being repaired and I can't afford another 3 weeks without this phone as I'm an android developer and need it to regularly test my apps.
Interesting enough, a piece of paper arrived with the repaired phone stating that a live call and a software update had been implemented on it in the workshop. Leading me to believe that it was fully functional after its repair.
Any ideasand I would be hugely grateful.
Thanks guys.
Just an update -
I've been on the phone to motorola, they are sending a jiffy bag and it's going back to the repair center. This time under warranty.
I'd really like a fix now though :/ although I've tried everything under the sun.
xeon48 said:
Hi there, first post and I'm very grateful for anyone who reads/responds to this. Long time reader, ex-owner of nexus 4+5.
I'll try to list all symptoms and procedures I've tried here. I recently dropped my phone and smahed the screen - sent off to motorola repair center and it has now been fixed. It arrived in the post 2 hours ago, so I immediately plugged it in (usng the turbo charger).
As expected the battery icon came up, first the solid icon, then it moved on to the charging icon.
Half an hour later I checked it, it was still "charging" but not a drop of power had gone into it. So I tried a different cable with the turbo charger, a lower powered one. Exactly the same response.
When I tried to power the phone on with conventinal method, the screen went blank and no activity was evident.
So I managed to boot into bootloader by holding down power and volume down (i think) button while pluggin it in simultaneously. This worked.
I set up my phone, wifi, sim etc... but notice the batttery icon has not displayed any charge. I go into settings and the battery settings IS MISSING! As if the phone has no battery in it.
So I decide to plug it in via USB to my laptop, no response at all, not even a charging icon. Different cable, same again.
I'm wondering if anyone has any idea what the issue may be, as it's been away for 3 weeks being repaired and I can't afford another 3 weeks without this phone as I'm an android developer and need it to regularly test my apps.
Interesting enough, a piece of paper arrived with the repaired phone stating that a live call and a software update had been implemented on it in the workshop. Leading me to believe that it was fully functional after its repair.
Any ideasand I would be hugely grateful.
Thanks guys.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
It seems some hardware issue. As you've mentioned that charger is not helping then I should say, charging IC has some faults
SAW_JOK3R said:
It seems some hardware issue. As you've mentioned that charger is not helping then I should say, charging IC has some faults
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
It's in a jiffy bag ready to go back to SBE for repair. My case has been "escalated". All under warranty, thanks for the input. I think you're right it must be a hardware issue, I've tried everything to get it to work but the batter is basically not being recognised.
I'm more annoyed now at the fact I've paid £100 for a "repair", and will have to wait at least another week for this turnaround :/.
Wow, £100? Were you offered the Motorola insurance when you purchased your phone? I bought it because I wasn't sure if I could get insurance on my phone since it's not yet available with my carrier (Verizon).
rmanaka said:
Wow, £100? Were you offered the Motorola insurance when you purchased your phone? I bought it because I wasn't sure if I could get insurance on my phone since it's not yet available with my carrier (Verizon).
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
I thought £100 was quite reasonable for a new phone with a smashed screen, particularly one as large and high quality as the n6. Not to mention the digitiser being attached.
I'm in the uk, apparently moto care is only available in the US at the moment.
My insurance, once the phone is returned, will be in the form of a ludicrously heavy duty case with built in screen protector!

Categories

Resources