Had the phone for a year or two now, but found it won’t turn on. I left it on charge this afternoon for an hour or so, as the battery never makes it through.
I went to look at it, and it was very hot. I unplugged it and left it for a bit. I put it in the fridge to cool down when I got home later, then tried charging again.
I won’t boot. I’ve also tried plugging in with the battery out.
I get it sitting there with a faint red pulse of the LED. Or, I get yellow/green LEDs, then it goes RED, buzzes, and goes around again.
Sounds like the Librem 5 was still turned on during charging. Putting it in the fridge likely affected the charging port with humidity, so you will not be able to immediately charge it after bringing it back into room temperature.
I doubt it. Come back in 12 hours and retry again.
So now it seems to charge for a bit, red light, then the red light goes weird and dim. I have emailed support, as I am worrying its toasted its battery or charging circuit.
Plug the provided USB C charger into the phone. The indicator light should flash red.
If the light remains off, try repeating steps 1-5 but with the USB C cable plugged into the phone in the opposite orientation.
Carefully insert the battery.
The indicator light should be a constant red and should not flash.
Wait 1 second then release the Volume Up button.
Unplug any USB device that might be connected to the phone
Wait at least 1h for the battery to get some charge
Press the power button untill the green indicator light shows and then release the power button
Hi mate, ah ha thank you for those steps! I tried with the charger that I used when it got hot … nothing with the plug either way around. I tried another charger I had at work, and the red LED is now lit, so hopefully its charging?
Its been an hour, tried holding the button down, but nothing happens, just solid red light.
Do I unplug it then try it? Or maybe just give it another hour?
EDIT - Tried unplugging it to turn it on, green light and buzz which seemed good, then it died again. Have gone back through the steps above and will leave it for a few hours this time, see if maybe it didn’t get enough juice.
I’m not actually sure which charger came with the phone. I’ve got a red lead, but not sure if that came with the Pinephone or Librem5, either way, its hopefully a good one.
I had a look on the Purism shop to see if the charger has a picture, not sure which one it is. What does it look like?
My Purism-supplied charger has the Purism logo on it - so it shouldn’t be too hard to work out whether I am using the official charger! My Purism-supplied cable (USB-C M to USB-C M) is black, not red. But I guess I can’t rule out that they changed livery / colour at some point. (The battery also has a Purism logo on it.)
I’m not saying “don’t use third party equipment” but if you were, say, looking for warranty / repair with Purism, I think you have a moral obligation to test first with all the official equipment.
If you can lay your hands on a USB power meter that supports USB-C then that is a way of verifying power negotiation even when the phone is as yet unable to boot.
Found the charger and lead, it was still in the box. Weirdly though, the trick above doesn’t work at all with the supplied charger. It does with this red Pinephone lead though, and its a 1+ phone charger.
I had another go, it seemed to take 2-3 hours of charge, but again, no life won’t turn on.
I’m not sure whether to order a battery to gamble on that, but I think there are issues with Purism sending batteries abroad …
EDIT - just had a look at the Purism shop, and looks like I can’t buy a new battery … great.
What happens if you use the official charger and with the battery removed? (and, as always when having problems, all kill switches in the OFF position)
What happens if you try the above but try to put the phone in serial download mode? i.e. as connected to a host computer. Does the phone show up in the output from lsusb? If so, with what description?
You may be able to order an after-market replacement battery from one of the usual online marketplaces. Or, as @FranklyFlawless said, if you do end up sending in your L5 for repair, have Purism include a new battery when they return it to you.
That is an excellent sign. It means that the phone is basically working.
In that case, I would boot Jumpdrive on the phone (via serial download mode) and examine the state of the phone’s eMMC disk i.e. examine its contents from the host computer.
You’ll only find uuu in the latest versions of Ubuntu or its derivatives. The abbreviation stands for “Universal Update Utility,” so you might also try looking for that in your software repo application.
In any case, you could just write the latest Ubuntu to a USB drive, and use that to perform the flash. It will have uuu available.
