Power issue with the Pro

[Freitag]

I've received the Pro for doing some light dev/messing around with, and to use as a daily sms unit. I got time to pull battery contact protector strip, and plug the unit in last night, all much like the 'regular' pinephone. I did notice that the battery was at 50%, which I thought would be expected, it needing a top off. I also noted it was draining, slowly, as I set up wifi et cetera -pretty much wifi and the pine64 arm wallpaper. Weird, but I can swap batteries if need be was my thinking, were it the battery. I started the update process, and let it do its thing, not checking it again until this afternoon, leaving the phone connected to a vanilla wall power usb plug that is surge-protected. There is now no response to button presses, no change if I swap to the battery from the non-Pro model, no friendly red/green led when the usb cable is connected. My first thought was, hell, failure to update, any number of reasons, I can install the OS myself, not a big deal. Upon further examination, this may be the case, or there are any number of other possibilities that I can think of. The older pinephone will boot up with either battery, so I am going to fully charge both, leaving the Pro unpowered overnight, and see what happens in the morning. Honestly, the battery shouldn't, in my mind, be the issue, if the unit is connected to external power, be it PC or wall plug. I hope I've given a detailed enough description, I am doing my best to not work on other things while typing this. Battery troubleshooting aside, does anyone have any thoughts?

[Freitag]

I will add, my direction for when I next have time, with a fully charged battery -first try a fresh install of jumpdrive to try to (using etcher) write the OS image. This would be my preferred method. If this fails, but I do have power, I'll try to boot from OS on sd card. Manjaro, plasma, fresh off of github.

[Freitag]

New information. With a fully charged battery, system will start. Updating repeatedly fails. Battery is draining to the tune of 15% in ten minutes or so when connected to a 2.1A wall charger. System will boot from sd card, system will not start with sd card w/ Jumpdrive -to fix the failed update issue. I would like to get the phone fully up to date to see if this is what is behind the battery drain issue, but this is looking to be moot. The usb/external power connection on the Pro seems a little finicky, something I've not seen before. I will leave the Pro connect to the wall charger for the day, anticipate it will fully drain the battery by my return. The four battery contact pins are not damaged, if that will help.

[biketool]

Not sure about PPP but PP a few months ago had one image(Alpine I think) that was needed to get all of the parts to factory test and firmwares loaded, until then I had a brick PP upgrade board.  That said I got my Alpine(pmOS?) silkscreened special PP with an OS loaded on it.
Have you contacted P64?

[Freitag]

And still more information. My lack of detailed reading led to the poor comprehension re jumpdrive not being the tool for writing to emmc for the Pro. The phone still will not completely update, and if left to it's own devices, pun intended, will either hang during update, or perhaps looping through updating -though this would be new to me. The battery is still draining far too rapidly, I have now twice found the phone with the battery completely drained, after which the phone will not boot with a charged battery., but will boot from sd card, and thereafter will boot from emmc.  When I can dedicate time to pinephone only, I will dd the latest iso image and see if this is the fix. Would still appreciate any outside eyes, as I am sure to be missing something.

---

Not sure about PPP but PP a few months ago had one image(Alpine I think) that was needed to get all of the parts to factory test and firmwares loaded, until then I had a brick PP upgrade board.  That said I got my Alpine(pmOS?) silkscreened special PP with an OS loaded on it.
Have you contacted P64?

I have not yet been in touch w/ pine64; was thinking I would at least get the OS current before moving in any other direction.

[Freitag]

And yet more information. I updated from the terminal -had been holding off on this due to some issues w/ the PinePhone, non-Pro, thus my desire to write the iso w/ dd or one of the software tools. This worked, but am still seeing 'offline update failed ' message. Will investigate more as I have time. The power drain issue, some of it seems to have been system requiring manual restart, and me not being there to confirm/restart, thus the battery continues to drain. Will continue to watch to see if this is the only instance in which there is abnormal power draw. Hits me 'bricked' is likely not the correct term, defective due to hardware issue would be more correct. I am attempting to troubleshoot through all the possible user snafus and software possibilities before I contact Pine64.

[Tim_D]

I've received the Pro for doing some light dev/messing around with, and to use as a daily sms unit. I got time to pull battery contact protector strip, and plug the unit in last night, all much like the 'regular' pinephone. I did notice that the battery was at 50%, which I thought would be expected, it needing a top off. I also noted it was draining, slowly, as I set up wifi et cetera -pretty much wifi and the pine64 arm wallpaper. Weird, but I can swap batteries if need be was my thinking, were it the battery. I started the update process, and let it do its thing, not checking it again until this afternoon, leaving the phone connected to a vanilla wall power usb plug that is surge-protected. There is now no response to button presses, no change if I swap to the battery from the non-Pro model, no friendly red/green led when the usb cable is connected. My first thought was, hell, failure to update, any number of reasons, I can install the OS myself, not a big deal. Upon further examination, this may be the case, or there are any number of other possibilities that I can think of. The older pinephone will boot up with either battery, so I am going to fully charge both, leaving the Pro unpowered overnight, and see what happens in the morning. Honestly, the battery shouldn't, in my mind, be the issue, if the unit is connected to external power, be it PC or wall plug. I hope I've given a detailed enough description, I am doing my best to not work on other things while typing this. Battery troubleshooting aside, does anyone have any thoughts?

I DEFINITELY have thoughts. There's a catch though. As I just got my PPP a few weeks ago and as I KNOW that it's a work in progress (between alpha and beta,) I bought it with THAT foreknowledge and I want to figure out how to get in touch with whomever organizes any effort going into fixing problems. Would you be so kind as to help me find my way to them? I have truly apologize that my first question is an answer to your question. But, seeing as how I also have the battery issue, have a BRAND SPANKIN NEW PPP and STILL need to follow the instructions I was given about dd'ing a <800 KB file to my 8 MB SD... Yeah, I gotta fix myself so I can ACTUALLY HELP!

[Freitag]

I've received the Pro for doing some light dev/messing around with, and to use as a daily sms unit. I got time to pull battery contact protector strip, and plug the unit in last night, all much like the 'regular' pinephone. I did notice that the battery was at 50%, which I thought would be expected, it needing a top off. I also noted it was draining, slowly, as I set up wifi et cetera -pretty much wifi and the pine64 arm wallpaper. Weird, but I can swap batteries if need be was my thinking, were it the battery. I started the update process, and let it do its thing, not checking it again until this afternoon, leaving the phone connected to a vanilla wall power usb plug that is surge-protected. There is now no response to button presses, no change if I swap to the battery from the non-Pro model, no friendly red/green led when the usb cable is connected. My first thought was, hell, failure to update, any number of reasons, I can install the OS myself, not a big deal. Upon further examination, this may be the case, or there are any number of other possibilities that I can think of. The older pinephone will boot up with either battery, so I am going to fully charge both, leaving the Pro unpowered overnight, and see what happens in the morning. Honestly, the battery shouldn't, in my mind, be the issue, if the unit is connected to external power, be it PC or wall plug. I hope I've given a detailed enough description, I am doing my best to not work on other things while typing this. Battery troubleshooting aside, does anyone have any thoughts?

I DEFINITELY have thoughts. There's a catch though. As I just got my PPP a few weeks ago and as I KNOW that it's a work in progress (between alpha and beta,) I bought it with THAT foreknowledge and I want to figure out how to get in touch with whomever organizes any effort going into fixing problems. Would you be so kind as to help me find my way to them? I have truly apologize that my first question is an answer to your question. But, seeing as how I also have the battery issue, have a BRAND SPANKIN NEW PPP and STILL need to follow the instructions I was given about dd'ing a <800 KB file to my 8 MB SD... Yeah, I gotta fix myself so I can ACTUALLY HELP!

Tim,

If I understand, and I apologize if no -I am an insomniac, so sometimes my mind doesn't function as well as I would like, you are seeing the same battery drain issue. Is it only occurring during the update process, or all the time? Were you able to update from the terminal (sudo pacman -Syyu)? I noted above, I was able to update this way, but still get a message about offline updates not occurring, and the option to repair/update. I have a half dozen other projects I am working, so the PPP is languishing. None of this really gets you the answer you want, contact details for whomever is fronting the Pro's bug fix, for lack of a better term, program. Again, apologies, I don't have better answers for you.

[Tim_D]

Tim,

If I understand, and I apologize if no -I am an insomniac, so sometimes my mind doesn't function as well as I would like, you are seeing the same battery drain issue. Is it only occurring during the update process, or all the time? Were you able to update from the terminal (sudo pacman -Syyu)? I noted above, I was able to update this way, but still get a message about offline updates not occurring, and the option to repair/update. I have a half dozen other projects I am working, so the PPP is languishing. None of this really gets you the answer you want, contact details for whomever is fronting the Pro's bug fix, for lack of a better term, program. Again, apologies, I don't have better answers for you.
[/quote]


I know that there is an issue with the battery recharging as it should. I also am aware of an update that is meant to stop gap the issue. I've downloaded the file ~722kB for an 8 GB mmc. I've yet to install it. I'm moving glacially slow due to the fact that currently my ONLY internet is through my phone! It's sadly been that way for a LONG TIME and shows no likely change on the horizon.

[Tim_D]

[quote pid="109174" dateline="1650171296"]

I DEFINITELY have thoughts. There's a catch though. As I just got my PPP a few weeks ago and as I KNOW that it's a work in progress (between alpha and beta,) I bought it with THAT foreknowledge and I want to figure out how to get in touch with whomever organizes any effort going into fixing problems. Would you be so kind as to help me find my way to them? I have truly apologize that my first question is an answer to your question. But, seeing as how I also have the battery issue, have a BRAND SPANKIN NEW PPP and STILL need to follow the instructions I was given about dd'ing a <800 KB file to my 8 MB SD... Yeah, I gotta fix myself so I can ACTUALLY HELP!

Tim,

If I understand, and I apologize if no -I am an insomniac, so sometimes my mind doesn't function as well as I would like, you are seeing the same battery drain issue. Is it only occurring during the update process, or all the time? Were you able to update from the terminal (sudo pacman -Syyu)? I noted above, I was able to update this way, but still get a message about offline updates not occurring, and the option to repair/update. I have a half dozen other projects I am working, so the PPP is languishing. None of this really gets you the answer you want, contact details for whomever is fronting the Pro's bug fix, for lack of a better term, program. Again, apologies, I don't have better answers for you.
[/quote]

Yeah, I lost my onscreen keyboard even on the command line. With over 200+ updates and that, I very badly want to start from scratch. Catch is, I've got enough net to tell me I need them, but it won't even let me download them!