Battery won't charge.

[Liveandkicking]

Hello,
Not sure if it's a software or hardware issue, but I'll start here first.

I retrieved my phone a couple weeks back and it will only work when plugged in and even then will not connect to my wifi.  It appears that I can not get the battery to charge and thus, it won't progress to allow wifi.  All ideas are welcome and thank you for your help.

[bcnaz]

Do not take offense, but the first question that must be asked, did you remove the isolating tape behind the battery ?

[tchouli]

just got my pinephone manjaro -
took the back off, took out the battery, removed clear strip, put the battery back, cover back
it will not charge
the charging red light comes on then goes off and nothing else happens
have tried to charge on 3 different laptops

if I remove the battery and replace it and try again
same thing happens
red charging light comes on for about 10 seconds and then
nothing more

any help is appreciated - pretty bummed right now
thanks

[bcnaz]

Apparently some people are reporting their phones have arrived without an operating system installed.

I think the operating system controls the charging,  so that could explain what you are seeing when you try to 'power on' your phone.

The phone does try to boot first from a bootable sd card, if one is installed.

> download an operating system from the wiki or the forum,  use Balena Etcher to flash a micro-sd card with the OS you downloaded.
Insert the sd card into the upper slot,    the lower slot is for your sim card,  > (located next to the battery)

Try again turning on your phone,  it may take a couple of minutes,  but it should boot to your 'log-in' screen.
The log-in for Mobian is  1 2 3 4   -    for Arch and Manjaro, it is  1 2 3 4 5 6

Hope that helps

---

And a 8gb or 16gb micro-sd card is plenty big enough for "testing" the operating systems.

[tchouli]

Apparently some people are reporting their phones have arrived without an operating system installed.

I think the operating system controls the charging,  so that could explain what you are seeing when you try to 'power on' your phone.

The phone does try to boot first from a bootable sd card, if one is installed.

> download an operating system from the wiki or the forum,  use Balena Etcher to flash a micro-sd card with the OS you downloaded.
Insert the sd card into the upper slot,    the lower slot is for your sim card,  > (located next to the battery)

Try again turning on your phone,  it may take a couple of minutes,  but it should boot to your 'log-in' screen.
The log-in for Mobian is  1 2 3 4   -    for Arch and Manjaro, it is  1 2 3 4 5 6

Hope that helps

---

And a 8gb or 16gb micro-sd card is plenty big enough for "testing" the operating systems.

thank you I will try that

[fsflover]

I think the operating system controls the charging,  so that could explain what you are seeing when you try to 'power on' your phone.

Not, it does not: https://xnux.eu/howtos/pine64-pinephone-...arted.html

[wibble]

I think the operating system controls the charging,  so that could explain what you are seeing when you try to 'power on' your phone.

Not, it does not: https://xnux.eu/howtos/pine64-pinephone-...arted.html

It's a bit more nuanced than that depending on what sort of charger you're using - see https://xnux.eu/devices/feature/anx7688.html for details. In summary if you're using a basic charger that follows the Battery Charging specs it should work well without OS support. If you're using a nice Power Delivery charger it'll need OS support to get past its lowest charge rate.

[oflaherty]

have tried to charge on 3 different laptops

Not sure if the new versions fixed this, but I've got a Braveheart and it won't charge at all plugged into a usb 3 port, and plugged into a usb 2 port it doesn't draw enough power to charge, though it discharges slower.

I just use a usb wall adapter.

[kern707]

I hope I am not too late to the party, but maybe it will help somebody who reaches this thread:

It seem to be that just any usb charger block will not do for charging the PinePhone, for an example- when I have tried to use a standard apple iPhone charger, it was too weak, and the PinePhone was discharging more than it was charging while plugged into it.

Then I have tried another charger, which had a bit of a higher amp output (a generic brand which I used for charging an iPad back in the day), this time it worked, I could see on the "PowerSupply" app that the device is in charging mode, and the battery state went up as it was connected to the charger.

So to verify that this is not a charger issue, try to charge the device with a second (or maybe a third) different charger(s).

my 2 cents

[bcnaz]

Perhaps charging deserves its own thread ? ?

The fact that the Pine phone does not recognize a usb-c charger was mentioned sometime back, I attempted to use a brand new usb-c charger
a few weeks ago and thought that charger was defective before reading that post.

Laptop usb ports do not seem to provide enough power to charge the phone while the phone is turned on.

A 2amp charger seems to be enough, but a 3 amp charger does seem to work better.

Phone power consumption will vary between distro's and even from one update to another. (Also from each different phone edition)

Not as a technical statement, just from my own observations.