I had a dead phone a few days ago, i.e., I could not turn it on or get any indication it was charging when I plugged it in: it was the functional equivalent of a paper weight. It’s fine now, but I want to know what happened to try to prevent any repeats and to be prepared if there are. Here is the sequence of events:
Initial state: Galaxy Note 8. 18 months old. No issues ever. No discernible degradation of performance so far. No battery issues so far. Never rooted. No apps installed outside of the App store. Have not received Pie yet, but OTA updates otherwise current.
1) I installed Net Guard No Root Firewall from the Play Store on Wednesday afternoon. I experienced no issues, and did not find anything to indicate there are any issues when I searched later on, but I mention this even if it might be a red herring just to document everything.
2) Wednesday evening I experienced a sluggish response playing a game (Boggle, if it matters), so I rebooted the phone. At the time, I had it plugged in and charging. Battery level was at 55%. Phone case did seem a little warm, but nothing that I would have paid any mind to, since I was playing a game while it was plugged in. I have a widget that reports battery temperature, so I am quite good at estimating based on the way the case feels. Based on the feel, I am confident that the battery was around approximately the 100 - 101 degree Fahrenheit range, and not more than 102 at the time.
3) Upon coming back up, the phone immediately rebooted all by itself. This repeated in a loop approximately five or six times. I don’t recall for sure whether or not I intervened to power it up from an off state (either because it shut itself off, or I powered it down) during this time period. Sorry, I was taken aback and not paying attention that closely to that. Finally, it remained shut down, and I was unable to start it from the power button, or to get the phone to respond in any manner from the buttons.
4) I plugged it back in to give it an opportunity to charge some more. Nothing lit up, nor was there any indication on the screen that the phone was charging. The case felt nice and cool, although it’s normal for it not to really generate any discernible heat when turned off and charging.
5) The next day, I realized that I would still get haptic feedback if I pressed in the location the virtual home button was supposed to be. Otherwise, the phone was still dead the same as since Wednesday evening.
6) After work, I brought it into a phone repair shop. I chatted with the guy a few minutes, and since they were closing within an hour, he asked if I could bring the phone back in the next morning. I said sure. Then I demonstrated the haptic feedback. He seemed to think he knew what it was (something related to the display, he thought), and that it could be repaired for the likes of $220 or $230 dollars or so.
7) The next morning, I return to the repair shop, where a different guy is working. When I tried to demonstrate the haptic feedback, I was no longer getting any!
8) The guy took the phone to the back to see if it would charge. He told me it was showing that it was charging with the phone turned off: something that I had not seen the previous day and a half. Unfortunately, I was not in the back with him to see for myself.
9) He told me he could try flashing my phone for me to bring it back. Though still a little worried about the unknowns, I consented.
10) 30 minutes later, I returned. All seemed well with the phone. My installed apps and all my local data and files were still in place. I uninstalled the only app I had installed within the past couple of days, and started using the phone again normally. I did not see a repeat of the anomaly I had observed with Boggle on Wednesday night. Behavior with respect to temperature/battery/power appears to be completely normal. Settings -> About Phone -> Software Information shows Android Version 8.0.0, and Android security patch level January 1, 2019. Software Update shows “Download updates manually last checked on 2/28/19” and “Last update information installed on February 10, 2019”. I have not rebooted the phone since I brought it home from the repair shop--I’m still a little skittish about that.
I never did get a satisfying explanation about what probably may have happened from the phone repair guy. He seemed to just be following a cookbook recipe. It does not make sense to me why I would have haptic feedback at the virtual home button location the day after the phone shut off, but not the following day, or why the phone guy said he saw the phone was charging when he plugged it in, but I did not see that the previous day, or why flashing the phone should fix things, given the sequence of events described above. I had been wondering if there could be a weak connection or solder at a battery connection, power switch, etc. (or a partially malfunctioning switch), or a degraded component on a circuit board which could cause intermittent issues, but to be honest, that’s kind of outside of my expertise, and I certainly would never trust myself to open up the case and poke around.
I would be grateful to learn what actually happened, or at least hear reasonable conjecture as to what probably happened, and get a better sense of how likely this is to recur, how to prevent this from happening again, what to do if it does, whether it is probably safe to reinstall the app I installed last Wednesday, etc.
Initial state: Galaxy Note 8. 18 months old. No issues ever. No discernible degradation of performance so far. No battery issues so far. Never rooted. No apps installed outside of the App store. Have not received Pie yet, but OTA updates otherwise current.
1) I installed Net Guard No Root Firewall from the Play Store on Wednesday afternoon. I experienced no issues, and did not find anything to indicate there are any issues when I searched later on, but I mention this even if it might be a red herring just to document everything.
2) Wednesday evening I experienced a sluggish response playing a game (Boggle, if it matters), so I rebooted the phone. At the time, I had it plugged in and charging. Battery level was at 55%. Phone case did seem a little warm, but nothing that I would have paid any mind to, since I was playing a game while it was plugged in. I have a widget that reports battery temperature, so I am quite good at estimating based on the way the case feels. Based on the feel, I am confident that the battery was around approximately the 100 - 101 degree Fahrenheit range, and not more than 102 at the time.
3) Upon coming back up, the phone immediately rebooted all by itself. This repeated in a loop approximately five or six times. I don’t recall for sure whether or not I intervened to power it up from an off state (either because it shut itself off, or I powered it down) during this time period. Sorry, I was taken aback and not paying attention that closely to that. Finally, it remained shut down, and I was unable to start it from the power button, or to get the phone to respond in any manner from the buttons.
4) I plugged it back in to give it an opportunity to charge some more. Nothing lit up, nor was there any indication on the screen that the phone was charging. The case felt nice and cool, although it’s normal for it not to really generate any discernible heat when turned off and charging.
5) The next day, I realized that I would still get haptic feedback if I pressed in the location the virtual home button was supposed to be. Otherwise, the phone was still dead the same as since Wednesday evening.
6) After work, I brought it into a phone repair shop. I chatted with the guy a few minutes, and since they were closing within an hour, he asked if I could bring the phone back in the next morning. I said sure. Then I demonstrated the haptic feedback. He seemed to think he knew what it was (something related to the display, he thought), and that it could be repaired for the likes of $220 or $230 dollars or so.
7) The next morning, I return to the repair shop, where a different guy is working. When I tried to demonstrate the haptic feedback, I was no longer getting any!
8) The guy took the phone to the back to see if it would charge. He told me it was showing that it was charging with the phone turned off: something that I had not seen the previous day and a half. Unfortunately, I was not in the back with him to see for myself.
9) He told me he could try flashing my phone for me to bring it back. Though still a little worried about the unknowns, I consented.
10) 30 minutes later, I returned. All seemed well with the phone. My installed apps and all my local data and files were still in place. I uninstalled the only app I had installed within the past couple of days, and started using the phone again normally. I did not see a repeat of the anomaly I had observed with Boggle on Wednesday night. Behavior with respect to temperature/battery/power appears to be completely normal. Settings -> About Phone -> Software Information shows Android Version 8.0.0, and Android security patch level January 1, 2019. Software Update shows “Download updates manually last checked on 2/28/19” and “Last update information installed on February 10, 2019”. I have not rebooted the phone since I brought it home from the repair shop--I’m still a little skittish about that.
I never did get a satisfying explanation about what probably may have happened from the phone repair guy. He seemed to just be following a cookbook recipe. It does not make sense to me why I would have haptic feedback at the virtual home button location the day after the phone shut off, but not the following day, or why the phone guy said he saw the phone was charging when he plugged it in, but I did not see that the previous day, or why flashing the phone should fix things, given the sequence of events described above. I had been wondering if there could be a weak connection or solder at a battery connection, power switch, etc. (or a partially malfunctioning switch), or a degraded component on a circuit board which could cause intermittent issues, but to be honest, that’s kind of outside of my expertise, and I certainly would never trust myself to open up the case and poke around.
I would be grateful to learn what actually happened, or at least hear reasonable conjecture as to what probably happened, and get a better sense of how likely this is to recur, how to prevent this from happening again, what to do if it does, whether it is probably safe to reinstall the app I installed last Wednesday, etc.
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