A50 power button issues

[Mooncatt]

My daughter's A50 power button stopped turning the screen off and on, or performing any other functions. Most online answers to this indicate a hardware problem. What's throwing me is if the phone is off, pressing and holding the power button will start the boot cycle. If powered off and holding it and the volume down button while plugging into a PC, the phone will enter what I think is a custom OS downloader screen and can reboot from there by pressing the volume down button.

This seems to be more of a firmware issue than hardware. She said there wasn't any recent OS updates and that it started happening during normal use. Anyone have any suggestions before I go nuclear and factory reset the phone? I tried to reboot into safe mode to test, but can't do that because all the instructions I found require using the power button while in a powered up state to do it.

 

[mustang7757]

Couple things

Does the power button feel tactile, maybe remove a case if has one or clean with rubbing alcohol around it .

Try safe mode for a day

Another thing make sure it's not a shortcut to another function usually in settings>advanced features>side key

Your pull down notifications panel even locked pulled all the way down has power button

 

[mustang7757]

Showing a screenshot in settings>advanced features>side button what you can change it to , sometimes it's default to an assistant or another shortcut