Galaxy S4 won't charge

[vasekvi]

I noticed after the att update that there is a screenstate regulator on the phone. When the phone screen is off, it draws 1900mA. When the screen is on it goes down to 1200mA. Verified this with 3 different genuine 2Amp Samsung chargers and cables.

I suppose Samsung did this to keep the temperatures down.

Sent from my SAMSUNG-SGH-I337 using Tapatalk 2

 

[adamdupre12]

Thank you Ritsuka, I thought it was just me. My phone charged so slow when connected to my laptop but very fast when connected to the wall. Thank you!

 

[samw5]

same boat here. batt charges fine in cradle.

phone is recognized by USB while in bootloader screen.
same issue with new spare batt so it's not a batt issue.

interestingly batt seems to be charging if we put the phone in bootloader mode.
wife s3 had the same issue. had to wipe it a couple of times to get it to work.

in both cases this seems to have happened when using a generic car USB adapter. neither had any issues with charging from these adapters before, just decided to stop one day.

I'm going to try a hard reset on my s4 but as far as I can tell it's some failboot firmware issue... shame on Samsung for not being on top of this!

 

[samw5]

update on this... factory reset the device - relocked bootloader and unrooted the phone (again Odin works fine as the USB connection did work while in bootloader mode). The phone still doesn't get recognized by Windows via USB and does not charge after the factory reset.
What a waste of time and hassle... I love the phone but it's 2 months old and already busted.... I've had 2 iphones before that and kept them for years w/o one single issue. Love Android but this really makes me rethink the switch

 

[ki0s]

Hey guys, Ive been having the same problem,
3 weeks ago my company moved from iPhone 5 to TMobile Samsung Galay S4's
We purchased 8 retail boxed handsets from a local cellular distributor.
The 8 handsets were distributed among the company as business handsets.
The handsets were paid for in full (over $4000 of handsets)

2 of these handsets are having the exact same issues that this entire thread is reporting. As of last week, I got home late, 5% charge left on the handset and plug it into the Genuine Samsung AC adapter that came with the unit. After hearing the low battery noise, I realized the phone was not charging. In a frenzy, i grabbed one of the other Genuine chargers and noticed that no connection was being made. I tried an apple AC adapter, tried swapping cables, tried other AC blocks and tried other cables to no avail. Thinking this was an issue with the charger or the cable I decided to start and test combinations. No combination with the AC adapter provided a charge to the phone. During the trials, the handset ran out of battery and died. Attempting to plug a cable into the phone put the phone into a vibration loop.. The same vibrating loop identified by the last 100 posts.

The handset will power on to the Samsung splash screen for 1/2 a second, show a white line horizontally on the bottom edge of the screen and will then power off and loop into a continuous cycle of 1 vibrate, 6 second wait, 1/2 second Galaxy S4 splash screen followed by a horizontal white line, device shows black screen and then continues its vibrate loop. Frustrated that I couldnt charge my brand new handset I panic'd and began my research.

As a last hope, I took the cable and plugged it into the side of my 2012 MacbookPro. The device instantly showed a charging symbol with a green line on the battery, followed by the device turning on and charging. The device charged slowly due to the limited current provided by the MacbookPro usb2.0 ports. Although leaving it plugged in for the remainder of the night brought me to an operable 74%, I was infuriated at the charging issue and couldn't understand why the device would charge on the laptop but not with an AC adapter.

For the past week Ive been charging with my macbook. As of yesterday another colleague began to experience the exact same issue. Now 2 of the 8 phones we purchased were defective and unable to properly charge. After 6 hours being transferred through the Samsung support tiers i got frustrated. I needed to reach an executive but the Tier 1 and 2 supports personnel were not as technically savvy. Furthermore a Tier 1 rep cannot forward the call to a Executive Rep, only a Tier 2 rep can ask Executive rep for assistance. The Samsung executive reps are the ones that train the rest of these tiers with troubleshooting and issues. When a Samsung Executive rep identifies an issue, they can help push the issue ticket into the right hands.

After many disconnected calls and persistence I was able to get in communication with an associate of the Samsung Executive Care team. Although he was aware of charging issues and faulty AC adapters he was not aware of the circumstances and details of the problems we are having. A 45 minute conversation with him and pointing him to this forum showed that this is a real issue that affects real consumers (business phones in my case.)

Samsung Executive Care was nice enough to fedex me a second battery and a battery charger that operates separate to the phone. The external charger works well and includes a 2nd battery, I just swap batteries when I get home instead of charging through the phone. [If you choose this route make sure to shut down the phone properly before pulling the battery to avoid software issues] . This requires me to power down the phone and swap batteries daily (something I am willing to deal with). He offered to exchange the phone, but I prefer to hold on to it for a little while longer for testing.


The CurrentWidget is invaluable at identifying which chargers work and which ones don't. Furthermore a charger that appears to be connected may in fact not be charging your phone and/or discharging your phone these GS4's require around 550 ma of current to gain a decent trickle charge, the car charger in my vehicle showed a connected power source, but at the 340 ma it was charging the discharge was faster than the rate of charge. Therefore eventually powering down the phone from 5% to 0% while still plugged in. Is that where the glitch is?

This seems to be the place with the largest saturation of people that have like issues and are active in the community. I found other people in other forums with the same issue. I strongly recommend you call and report the issue.

-ki0s

EDIT: Plugging in the phone back to the macbook still charges it! Tested all 3 of the genuine Samsung AC adapters and cables i have... Still using the battery swap with external battery charger. Strongly reocmmend having one of these, makes life easy!

 

[samw5]

right on... another thing to try that seems to be working apparently is to 1) plug the phone into the charger then force the reboot via recovery (press power and vol up then select reboot). Phone will actually get out of the boot loop and load normally then charges though it still doesn't appear to show charging but the batt % will go up.

I've called AT&T yesterday (and Samsung), looks like it need to be replaced with a refurbished unit. I just hope that I'll be able to remove my $35 screen protector w/o damage.... what a shame, thing is 2months old!

 

[wg1234]

A few days ago I got a software update from Samsung, I installed it and didn't notice any difference. the next day I had a message in the notification area saying that there's a firmware update I installed that also. At night I put my phone on charger but when I woke up my phone wasn't charged, I just thought that I forgot to switch the plug on or something, until I tried again, the phone wouldn't charge.

I tried turning it off and on and taking the battery out, after doing that loads it started working. Now when I next connected it to the charger, it doesn't charge. The charging 'lighting' bolt displays where the battery indicator is (to represent the charger is plugged in) but it doesn't increment (up, in green when charging) and the red notification light comes on, on the phone.

I've tried 3 different chargers that are able to charge other phones. I also am trying the Official Samsung charger that I got with the phone. I've tried it from the mains and from the usb connected to the computer. Right now I have it plugged into by pc via the usb cable and my PC is not picking up that my phone is plugged in.

below is posted from the day after the above account.

I called Samsung who said that I could take it to a shop that does repairs for them to look at. I took the phone there today and the guy was saying that the charger port has got green on it and that it is probably water damage, before even opening it up. I said I have never have had any water on the phone. I've had a screen protector and a case on since it was new, this is my second s4 the first was replaced as faulty by the store I bought it from. I've had this s4 from about the 12 June, so just over 2 months. The guy looking at the phone went on about you can get water damage from taking it to the gym, etc, can't remember all that he said, then he said he had 6 Samsung's in today and 5 of them had water damage. He told me to come back in an hour and a half so he could open it up and check it. I came back and anther person was collecting there water damaged phone from them. Anyway they told me that the charger port was corroded, I asked to see and the guy went to the back to open it up and bought it back out and showed me the connector area and it had a little bit of white on it, he said that they would change the charger connector block ribbon and charge me ?25 if it works if not then they would put my old one back on.

I'm getting put off Samsung now after this experience and the poor quality of there customer service/repair service as well as there phone. I've never tried Apple but I might give them a shot. btw I also had an S2 that ended up having a charger problem and only works with one of my chargers otherwise it won't charge, I remembered this when I tried to use it as my backup phone. Two Samsung phones that wouldn't charge, Samsung need to get there quality control in order or sort out these problems without hassle. I'm getting charged to maybe fix a common problem with the S4. The guy showed me what would be replaced, I just looked on ebay and they can be had for between ?6 - ?10 quid could there be problems with using these? just wondering if it ever happens again or if I should take my phone back and change that part myself? would it affect any of the remaining barely exsistant warranty. Does the warranty cover anything? as I'm sure it sounds like every phone is water damaged just by using it in normal every day to day life.

I just looked at my note they writ on there that it's liquid - corrosion on block

 

[Mohab Azmy]

Confirming that I have another case of the same issues everyone else is describing. This isn't looking good. Might be a recall item.

 

[Julie Atchison]

Re: Galaxy Note 2 won't charge

This is the second time in 1 week my phone has gone dead without warning (well, I was asleep). Anyway, it seemed fully charged, but now I've moved it to 3 locations to charge it, and it's just slow as heck. I have a business, I can't have a dead phone for 40 minutes. Also, when I leave it plugged into the charger, I get a mesasage "Phone is fully charged, disconnect charger". Why? Is there a problem in overcharging it? This is more than a nuisance, it may be a reason to take the phone back. What's going on with this problem? It seems like lots of people have the same issue. Is there something else I should do? Thank you.
JA

 

[Darnell0216]

Re: Galaxy Note 2 won't charge

This is the second time in 1 week my phone has gone dead without warning (well, I was asleep). Anyway, it seemed fully charged, but now I've moved it to 3 locations to charge it, and it's just slow as heck. I have a business, I can't have a dead phone for 40 minutes. Also, when I leave it plugged into the charger, I get a mesasage "Phone is fully charged, disconnect charger". Why? Is there a problem in overcharging it? This is more than a nuisance, it may be a reason to take the phone back. What's going on with this problem? It seems like lots of people have the same issue. Is there something else I should do? Thank you.
JA

It's telling you to stop wasting electricity, lol. How long after you unplug it is your phone dying? Have you tested your battery for swelling to see if it's gone bad? Is any one particular app eating a larger than normal chunk of battery life?

 

[jspp73]

Less than two months after getting my Samsung GS4 (GT-i9505), the microusb/charging port malfunctioned. It started with this intermittent connection/disconnection problem, then zero detection by the charger and my PC along with that grey battery icon/vibrations every 5 or 10 seconds (when the phone is turned off), very slow charging even though the charger or the PC does not detect my phone, until ultimately it won't charge at all. I tried removing the battery and restarting the phone for a few times, poking the microusb 'tongue' with a toothpick to realign it, a factory reset - nothing worked. So i brought it to a service center and they replaced the micousb charging port with a new one. Just today, the problem recurred. I removed the back cover to take out the battery and I noticed that a small portion near the lower back of the cover (just around the hole where the microusb port is located) was a bit wet. I remembered taking out my phone for a few seconds under a light drizzle just to check if i had any notifications. Apparently, a drop or two of rainwater managed to get into the port. I let it dry for a few minutes, restarted the phone a few times, removed the battery, plugged and unplugged the cable, and still nothing worked. After a while, I Rajean Blais' post and tried to do the same, albeit without an air duster. I just removed the back cover and the battery and started blowing through the charging port hole (like using a harmonica, hahaha!). This time it worked! Thanks for your post, although I admit I looked and felt stupid for a few seconds blowing through that hole. Thanks!

 

[BrianmCRI]

I'm another one to report same charging issues. It must be a design flaw somewhere.
For me, it started the first time I ran the phone dryout of battery power. Plugged it in the Samsung factory wall charger and experienced the "vibrating loop" others have reported, where the phone vibrates a short burst every 5 seconds in a continuous loop. Once I got a short screen display, but most of the time it shows a black screen (like it's dead) and the RED LED on the upper righ that normally comes on when the phone is turned off but charging DID NOT show up.
I had the phone replaced, where I resued the original battery, and the new one behaved exactly the same. So then they (Verizon) replaced the battery (all this unde a factory warranty coverage), and the new battery worked perfectly, for a few days. Then, as others have noticed, when the battery was run down to low or no power, the phone (with this new battery) started acting the same way.
Today I called Tech Support and got a guy who came across this and sai is has soemthing to do with the power capacity coming out of the charger. He told me to see if I plug it into a PC or Laptop USB port, if it will start charging..... I did, and it worked. He said that it appears to kick off when the charging source is a lower MA type, like 500 MA. But i ti's the 1A or 2A type, it goes into this state of "vibration loop" and the charger does not kick in. He said to charge it up to about 10% or more, then move it to the standard (higher power) wall charger, and it should kick in.

I let it charge on the PC to about 70% charge, and then moved it to the wall charger, but I did not see that same result - instead, with the phone left "on" the wall charger was not recognized. I then turned the phone "off" and plugged it in the wall charger, and again it when into the "Vibration Loop" symptom. Moving it back to the Laptop USB port started the charging right away. So, it coudl be the power amperage capacity is the issue, where a lower power (500ma) charger works fine, but a higher capacity (1a or higher) doesn't.... or it coudl be a PC ro Laptop is sending soem signal to the device over the USB port that jump starts it into charging. In any case, this is a problem that can be reproduced and Samsung should be able to come up with an explanation and fix.
:-$

 

[tennesseegal22]

I was having the same issues with my 2 month old S4 phone not charging, and when off, vibrating every 5 seconds while plugged into the charger. I tried your idea and it worked! I checked the pin in the USB port and sure enough it was bent down a little. I took a stick pin and bent it back up carefully, and plugged the charger in and it is charging now. Thanks for saving me a trip to Verizon!!

 

[waltdisneypixar]

I have changed the usb cable in warranty and problem solved
Mine was taking hours to charge or while using it and charging it , the battery was dropping
Now everything okey.


Sent from my GT-I9505 using Tapatalk 4

 

[BrianmCRI]

I have the same problem - "Vibration Loop" and phone not recognizing a wall adapter, however it charges fine when plugged into a PC or Laptop USB port.
I called Samsun tech support. A tier 2 level engineer showed me a way to fix this. Steps as follows:

1) Go to SETTINGS / MORE and select "About Phone"
2) Scroll down to find the "Build Number", and even though it appears it is an "information only" field, tap on it seven (7) times. you will see the phone mode indicate "Development Mode".
3) Pres the back arrow to return to Setting Main Menu
4) Select "Developer Options" from the menu.
5) Find "USB Debugger" and select it (click the check box)
6) Now try your phoen on the wall charger., it should work

You can then return to "Developer Options" and turn "Development Mode" OFF, it will continue to work OK, but it the problem returns keep these instructions to correct it.

Good luck, hope this helps all of you experiencing this problem. Maybe the manufactuirer will have a patch for it sometime.

 

[Aussie Sandi]

Hi there. I am glad that I stumbled across this site! I have been searching for a few days to answers to my charging problem also.
I do not have a Samsung, but a knock off Clone...I am afraid that is what my budget allows.
I purchased the THL W8S a week ago. I was duly impressed with it s features, its 32g , the camera, the clarity, etc.
However, after trying to charge it, I was met with every single problem that has been outlined in this thread....when I plug in to charge, with the charger and cable they included, the percentage actually goes down, not up. I love the phone, but what can I do. Help!
Cheers, Sandi from down under.

 

[Aussie Sandi]

I went back and re-read some of your posts. I am currently trying this....I have turned the phone off, pluggedit into the laptop....and voila! .... its charging.
Fingers crossed. Bit of a nuisance that I have to turn it off to charge it, but until I find another soloution, this is it.
Thanks for all your info people....wonderful site!
Cheers, Sandi.

 

[Hayley Laud]

thanx to who said bend pin up in phone mine is chargin now and has been for past half hour

 

[Aussie Sandi]

Great news. I reset back to factory settings, and all well now for a few days. Charging like crazy. Yay!
Thanks again folks.

 

[Maheshwor Khatri]

I have also same issue. Galaxy S4 won't charge in plug but I have to turn off to charge it from usb.