New Pinephone Pro won't boot, not even in recovery mode

[bcnaz]

Can you provide more details ?

Have you changed the eMMC  such as wiping the bootloader or something. ?

1)  I did put a fully charged battery in before turning on my Explorer Pro for the first time.  --> ( I don't know if that was necessary-- but I did it ) 
          A  two second power button press to start --->  I tried out the factory installed O.S.  ---> and I did not like it.

2)  I put in an sd card with the newest Mobian/bookworm (For P.P.Pro) flashed to it. --->  I turned on the phone with a 5+ second power button press.
      The phone then booted from the sd card.
        
     From the mobian operating system ---> I was able to kill the evil Manjaro on the eMMC,  ---> now it boots straight to the sd card.

Last I added the sim card,  and then put in the APN settings  --->  earlier I even wrote a post  here on the forum using my new Explorer phone,
talk, text, and data are working,  and charging appears to have stabilized or at least improved.

*  I doubt your problems are anything major,  the simplest answer is probably correct,  Maybe just an incorrectly flashed sd card ?

---

 
NOTE :  Explorer Edition  (Mobian bookworm)

The boot indicator light is not currently working  !

The operating system still does boot,  but just no boot indicator light.

A bit un-nerving looking at that black screen,  and waiting,  be patient,  it still boots.

[dknabe]

I have the same issue.
Device ran out off battery over night.
I'm not able to charge tried different chargers and also plugging into a computer while holding the RE button down.

Same problem here!



PinePhone Pro was working fine with KDE Plasma (updated emmc to latest version), and also was booting fine from SD card with Mobian yesterday. Left it plugged in overnite. In morning, phone won't boot and battery dead.



I checked battery voltage and it's 2.83V, no matter how long I leave it connected to various chargers. I'm starting to suspect a PinePhone Pro charge controller hardware failure.



Does anyone have further debugging suggestions?



Thanks!

[dknabe]

Update. Problem probably mitigated.
The issue is the PinPhone Pro will not charge unless the phone is booted and on. WHAT???
So when I left it off overnite plugged in, thinking it was charging, it was actually discharging. And since the battery was dead, the phone would not boot to charge the battery. Go figure!
The solution is to press and hold the RE button and then plug USB into charger. That will then allow the battery to charge with the OS not booted. Go figure!
Excellent video here.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VEJEt4ejLgU

[jmhbnz]

Update. Problem probably mitigated.
The issue is the PinPhone Pro will not charge unless the phone is booted and on. WHAT???
So when I left it off overnite plugged in, thinking it was charging, it was actually discharging. And since the battery was dead, the phone would not boot to charge the battery. Go figure!
The solution is to press and hold the RE button and then plug USB into charger. That will then allow the battery to charge with the OS not booted. Go figure!
Excellent video here.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VEJEt4ejLgU

Good news for some with this issue! 

Unfortunately the issue with my handset appears to be different.  I have confirmed the battery is fully charged by installing it in my original pinephone where it reports as 90%.

No combination of buttons will boot the pro using this battery, though I can see the device in mask rom mode in lusb.

Checking the sd card this appears to be flashed correctly. When I plug it back in to my linux desktop post flashing I can see the expected boot filesystems etc. Below is the command I used to flash the sd in case someone can spot something incorrect with it:

Code:

sudo dd if=archlinux-pinephone-phosh-20220124.img of=/dev/sda bs=1M status=progress conv=fsync

Starting to think my handset may have a genuine hardware issue. I have opened a ticket with pine to return this unit and get a replacement shipped. While I'm waiting to hear back if anyone has any other recovery style procedures I could attempt I'm happy to try them and report back.

[dknabe]

Confirming that this solution works. After waiting an hour or so, was able to boot Mobian from SD card and get back to normal operations.
I guess PinePhone needs to update their firmware to correct the charging inconsistencies.

[Zebulon Walton]

I just verified this (modem & wifi powered both being directly by the battery) the hard way. I was installing some updates in Mobian via ssh but despite the phone being plugged into a power adapter, the battery suddenly failed and cut off both the modem and the wifi connection. Neither adapter showed up as even being there. The phone otherwise kept running off the AC line. (I always use "screen" when doing updates this way so was able to get back into the session directly on the phone, though needless to say downloading of updates was interrupted.)

This was an aftermarket battery. I installed the original Pinephone battery and was able to go on my merry way. (Fortunately the modem firmware was not corrupted when the battery failed.) Guess I should spring for a genuine Samsung battery if I can find one. These cheap aftermarket jobs seem to have a very short lifespan.

[tckosvic]

I found my PPP phone unbootable after being on wall charger (not to pc connection) overnight.  Nothing gets it to boot.  I started separate thread on this. Now adding comment to this thread.  I assume that battery is drained not overcharged due to wacky charge/boot procedures. 

I ran RE button + USB connection procedure per youtube video.  Still nothing.  It is still on wall charger connection USB with SD removed and cover off for several hours since RE push and USB connect.. 

Anyone with any further steps to take???

thanks,      tom kosvic

[anhu]

I found my PPP phone unbootable after being on wall charger (not to pc connection) overnight.  Nothing gets it to boot.  I started separate thread on this.  Now adding comment to this thread.  I assume that battery is drained not overcharged due to wacky charge/boot procedures. 

I ran RE button + USB connection procedure per youtube video.  Still nothing.  It is still on wall charger connection USB with SD removed and cover off for several hours since RE push and USB connect.. 

Anyone with any further steps to take???

thanks,      tom kosvic

Sorry to hear.  The RE button and USB thing worked for me.  Note that I had to leave it plugged into the computer USB overnight to get even 50% charge.

[8BitKid]

I'm also having this problem. Within the first 24 hours, it got incredibly hot while the battery discharged rapidly. I've reached out to support, and the only advice so far has been to make sure I'm using a 5v/3a charger.

[thag]

So I just received the pro yesterday. I've only handled it a few times, and just downloaded the mega iso to try and test new distros. But I havn't actually made any changes, the phone won't boot anymore. Initially i thought it was the battery so O left it on the charger for several hours. No change there, still refuses to boot. After a quick search I discovered the recovery mode by hitting the power and volume up at the same time. This also does nothing. I get no indicators, no change in the display. No lights or leds. Nothing. Battery in or out, on a charger, nothing changes. It will not boot.

Fully charged last night. Today didn't boot. I did the reset button trick. It goes through boot sequence, but then fails at "Hostname Service" and reboots. 
I just got it yesterday, and it worked great out of the box...