Does convergence dock have to be 'activated' in software?

[tgz]

Hi, I have the Manjaro convergence package, just getting started with the phone. I read it's very important to do an update first thing, there is indeed a bunch of wonky stuff going on. I have the dock plugged in and powered, but the screen says "undocked". Was hoping to update through ethernet via the dock at home, that is my strongest known internet variable. Do you have to activate the dock in software?  thanks

Edit: I also note that the battery power is diminishing, although power is plugged into the dock. Which would make sense as the phone is not seeing the dock.

[dsimic]

You may freely disregard the "undocked" icon/title in the Phosh pull-down menu.  There are quite a few open issues in Phosh, but the Ethernet port and charging will work regardless of the displayed docking status.

What kind of charger do you use?  The official dock seems to be limiting chargers that conform to the Battery Charging 1.2 specification, so at most 500 mA (or so) can reach the phone.  If you use a charger that conforms to the Power Delivery specification, the dock should pass most of the power available from the charger to the phone.

[tgz]

You may freely disregard the "undocked" icon/title in the Phosh pull-down menu.  There are quite a few open issues in Phosh, but the Ethernet port and charging will work regardless of the displayed docking status.

What kind of charger do you use?  The official dock seems to be limiting chargers that conform to the Battery Charging 1.2 specification, so at most 500 mA (or so) can reach the phone.  If you use a charger that conforms to the Power Delivery specification, the dock should pass most of the power available from the charger to the phone.

ah! OK, thanks about the icon... needed to reconfigure some things with my ISP, my pinephone was barely operating (needs OS flashed) so combined with that I wasn't sure what was going on. When on my ISP account page it showed that the Pinephone had indeed connected through the ethernet (good!), but I wasn't able to do anything with it because it kept locking up.

I will look into the charger situation.
thanks again!
PS I'm subscribed to this thread but not getting email notices, just happened to check in manually and saw your post. I'll have to see what's up with that...

[dsimic]

I'm glad to be of help.  Reflashing the PinePhone is pretty much straightforward, just boot it from a Micro SD card and use "dd" to write the same image you initially wrote to the Micro SD card to the phone's eMMC.  You really don't need any fancy utilities to do all that.

What actually happens when the phone locks up?  Could you, please, describe that a bit further, so we try to isolate and resolve the issue?

Email notifications on this forum stopped working a while ago, so that's unfortunately a known issue.  I'm not sure why that hasn't been resolved yet, but you can use alerts that are generated when someone replies to a thread you're subscribed to.

[tgz]

I'm glad to be of help.  Reflashing the PinePhone is pretty much straightforward, just boot it from a Micro SD card and use "dd" to write the same image you initially wrote to the Micro SD card to the phone's eMMC.  You really don't need any fancy utilities to do all that.

What actually happens when the phone locks up?  Could you, please, describe that a bit further, so we try to isolate and resolve the issue?

Email notifications on this forum stopped working a while ago, so that's unfortunately a known issue.  I'm not sure why that hasn't been resolved yet, but you can use alerts that are generated when someone replies to a thread you're subscribed to.

thank you, I'm waiting on a microSD card and adapter being shipped before I can proceed with the flashing, I will be looking over these tips.

When the phone was still booting, the screen would just freeze. No response to finger presses or swipes. Initially this would happen within about 2 minutes maybe less, then when I got my wi-fi signal squared away (very weak to very strong, in my apartment, not phone related) I was able to start an update. That was the longest the phone ran, I don't know maybe 5 minutes.

Update did not complete or finished with errors, repeated tries presented a few things which I researched and tried to apply. Meanwhile back to the lockups described above, escape by holding in power button. But, no matter, the phone will now only:
Press in power button, release when red light comes on. Red light will then stay solid, not go into boot sequence, then after a few seconds goes into flashing red. I then have to power down by holding in the power button.

So, waiting on the microSD, unless there's some other way to proceed here!
thanks
Oh yeah, that's too bad about email alerts! I just keep the category page I post in open and refresh it if I'm in that work opportunity space

[dsimic]

I have also experienced the "red/white LED on, no boot" scenario a few times (red LED on Manjaro, white LED on postmarketOS), but I haven't managed yet to debug that further.  It is very annoying.  Hovewer, my PinePhone boots as expected after powering it off and on in such cases.

In your case, it could be either up to a failed or interrupted operating system update that left the phone in an unbootable state, or up to some hardware issue (less likely).  Let's wait until your Micro SD card arrives, so you can reflash the phone and start debugging from there.

I'd also suggest that you use Ethernet connection when performing operating system updates, if the WiFi at your place has the issues you've described.  In theory, incomplete or interrupted updates shouldn't leave the phone in an unbootable state, but it's better to be on a safe side, at least at the current state of the overall PinePhone development.