Strange error is making my Note 5 unusable.

[Misterb]

I have had my phone for a few days, and it was worked great, but randomly this morning for no apparent reason- it is having issues. I charged it all night with the factory cable plugged in to the port on the bottom of the phone. It had 100% when I took it off the charger. I used it fine for a couple hours, and then all of a sudden I started getting an icon up at the top of the screen. Almost looks like a battery with a red x. The phone then just started doing the same beep it does when you plug it in to charge, but it does it over and over and over again. I've rebooted several times, but it keeps doing it. The screen powers on every time this happens too. I have tried plugging it in to the charger, but I get an error that the charger isn't compatible. Huh? It's the exact cable and plug that came with the phone.

I don't know what to do. The constant beeping is driving me nuts, and the screen turning on every time is just going to kill my battery, and I can't even charge it now.

 

[SpookDroid]

Sorry to say this, but it sounds like the USB port might be faulty. I wouldn't try to debug this further than cleaning the port with a medium-hard brush and/or airblowing it to clean out debris. If that doesn't help, then I'd go straight to the store to get a replacement while you can still get new units and not refurbished ones.

 

[rustypixel]

I had something similar happen to me once when placing the phone on the free wireless charger. It looped the start-charge animation (the expanding ring) and beeped. It looped the animation and sound over and over and I watched it for a few minutes out of curiosity. It stopped as soon as I took it off and hasn't happened since.

 

[Misterb]

Sorry to say this, but it sounds like the USB port might be faulty. I wouldn't try to debug this further than cleaning the port with a medium-hard brush and/or airblowing it to clean out debris. If that doesn't help, then I'd go straight to the store to get a replacement while you can still get new units and not refurbished ones.

How would it be giving me the charging error if the usb port is bad, even when it isn't plugged in?

 

[Misterb]

I had something similar happen to me once when placing the phone on the free wireless charger. It looped the start-charge animation (the expanding ring) and beeped. It looped the animation and sound over and over and I watched it for a few minutes out of curiosity. It stopped as soon as I took it off and hasn't happened since.

That's interesting. Just for clarification, I'm not using a wireless charger. Just the charger the phone came with. I even tried the charger from my old Note 4. Same thing. Like I say though... I'm getting the issue even when the phone isn't plugged into a charger.

 

[SpookDroid]

How would it be giving me the charging error if the usb port is bad, even when it isn't plugged in?

If the USB port is faulty it might be causing false contacts (same thing if it was dirty and conductive particles were 'jumping' the port's terminals), causing your port to think it was connected but since it's not drawing any charge because it's not really connected, it shows the charging error icon (battery with a red X). And also having these terminals shorted might cause the actual charger not to be recognized.

In my case, it happened with an S3 that kept going into Car Mode on its own after it got wet (changed the USB port, problem gone) and with a Note 3 that kept turning the screen on by itself and then realized it briefly 'thought' it was charging. Cleaned the port with a brush, never happened again.

 

[Misterb]

Thanks for the info. Boy, I hope this doesn't turn out to be a theme with these phones. I only had mine for a few days. I'm also very careful with my phones, and have never had a port go bad on me like that.

I took it to Verizon, and they verified it had the issue. Problem was, they didn't have any replacement 64 gig models in the store. Not any store within 500 miles, and there are quite a few of them around me. They were trying to tell me I'd have to mail my phone back to Verizon, and THEN they would mail me back a replacement. Um, excuse me? How is a small business owner supposed to continue to take calls, texts, etc. when you have me out of commission for around 4 days minimum? Not happening. Their solution was to tell me to return it and go to Best Buy and get a 64 gig model. I did that, and luckily they had ONE left. I made lemonade out of the situation, when I asked off the cuff if they had any specials. I ended up going back home and finding a BlackBerry Curve in a drawer from like 2007 that they let me trade in for a $200 gift card! So, I'm glad it ended up this way, but it sure was frustrating to lose more than half a day sorting this out, and now I still need to finish getting my new phone all set up.

 

[SpookDroid]

Glad something good came out of it, but yeah, the frustration of not having your device work and that you have to spend time handling the situation does suck.

Now just don't insert the pen in backwards haha (Sorry, had to take the shot )

 

[Misterb]

Glad something good came out of it, but yeah, the frustration of not having your device work and that you have to spend time handling the situation does suck.

Now just don't insert the pen in backwards haha (Sorry, had to take the shot )

Yeah, it was frustrating, to say the least. So funny to see different reps at verizon and their problem solving skills (or lack thereof). I mean, the one guy did have the only workable solution, which was oddly to return it and go buy it somewhere else, but one guy was trying to get me to buy a wireless charger. He put my phone on it, and it was charging, but of course he didn't have an answer for me when I told him that the phone's screen stays on all day and beeps at me constantly, and so unless I wanted to carry around that wireless charger with me, it wasn't an option, and never would be an option. Too funny how he was also trying to tell me it has a "real neat feature" that stops the phone from charging once it is full. I told him I had heard of that, and asked if it was the same feature that charges your phone fully until about 3 AM, and then stops charging and you wake up to a battery that's at 85% or whatever. He says with a straight face "yeah, but if you jiggle it, the phone will start charging again". Me: "So, I have to remember to get up around 4 in the morning every day to jiggle the phone? Him: hangs his head.

Verizon really should have a better solution for someone in the situation I found myself in. Brand new phone that went bad after just a few days, and I was on the losing end.

 

[SpookDroid]

Truth is they should have let you keep the phone while your replacement arrived (or like T-Mobile does, overnight you one). But hey, at least you got the 200 bucks. They should also have given you some sort of credit or bonus for the trouble.

 

[Daddy3fish]

I have the same issue started after my phone did a system update. I read on other websites that a hard reset would fix the charging icon initiation. The factory reset did not help in my case. I had to go back to the carrier in which they ran a diagnostic on the phone and stated that the USB port has become unusable for some unknown reason. They said they had gotten reports of this error affecting Samsung as well as LG phones.

Posted via the Android Central App

 

[Dhanikz]

Thanks for the info. Boy, I hope this doesn't turn out to be a theme with these phones. I only had mine for a few days. I'm also very careful with my phones, and have never had a port go bad on me like that...

Try not to charge your phone overnight. The fast charge takes 1.5hrs max. It could be a battery issue as well.