New Librem 5 - not charging

I just got my Librem 5 - and it turned on fine and I put it in computer usb charge cable and everything seemed fine.
The next day - it had appearently totally drained battery (in standby mode - with no sim card installed) - and now, if I connect it to the charger that came with the phone, it lights up red light in top right for a while… and then it shuts off… but nothing happens otherwise, and I can’t turn on the phone :frowning:

What can I do?

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Hi, welcome to the community!

This fails on step 7 - indicator light simply shuts off when I insert battery (with charger attached and a red blinking light - while holding volume up)… I tried several times.

When I disconnect and connect charger with battery IN - the red light is turned on and constant… I’ll try and leave it for atleast 1 hour (again) - and try to notice after how long it the red light turns off.

My advice, in case the phone seems dead: let it charge for a long time, one hour is not necessarily enough, it may need several hours, best to let it charge over night or something. Then unplug the charging cable, then remove the battery and put it back in. Now it should start.

Worth noting here regarding how to start it, or turn it off, or such things: I don’t know for certain but I got the impression that there are several different “long-press” of the power button. Like, one thing happens if you press it for 5 seconds and then release it, but if you keep it pressed for 20 seconds then that may have a different meaning. Note that the numbers 5 and 20 seconds here are just examples, I don’t know the actual time limits but I would like to know. If someone knows about where that is documented, all the different ways to press the power button (how many seconds to hold it for different purposes) and what they mean, and all the different states the device can be in, like if there is a “maintenance mode” or things like that depending on how the power button was pressed, please link to that, it would be very useful.

Edit: the page that @fsflover linked to says something about pressing the power button for “15 to 18 seconds”, so that is something. But I would still like to find some more documentation of the power button behavior depending on how long time the button is pressed, if there is something more to read about that somewhere.

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See:

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Hi, @KlavsKlavsen. Note that actual suspend functionality has not been implemented yet, as Purism are first working to extend the active time. The phone is more like a laptop at this point, in that when it’s on, the battery will drain at a more or less constant rate.

Depending on level of activity, we other users have noted anywhere from about 4 hours (active use) to 14 hours (lying untouched with all the kill-switches off).

So, it’s unsurprising that your battery had completely drained overnight. We’re all looking forward to the implementation of some kind of suspend in the L5.
Cheers!

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Thank you for your help - I got it charging (after battery out+in) and started with the ~20sec hold of powerbutton :slight_smile:
And now I know not to expect that it has any sleep mode - so proper shutdown is key when not using - or charging every ~8 hours.

I must say I had hoped/expected that suspend (with GSM modem working) was something I thought was already in place in the Linux kernel… so kinda sad to see such a step back with this hardware… Crossing my fingers here - 24 hours of battery with “normal usage” is needed, before I can use it as my regular phone (which I charge while sleeping).
Any ticket I can follow for suspend support?

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https://source.puri.sm/Librem5/linux-next/-/releases <- I’ll track that atleast - then I can see what gets into the release atleast :slight_smile:

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This might answer some of your questions regarding suspend.

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My L5 is charging normally, but I wanted to measure the level of drain and put some small USB gadget in the line (which USB A connector), see the photo: 4.94V but 0.00 charging:

What could be the reason?

What is it supposed to measure? Is it “V” as in “Volt”?

Would it be more relevant in this case to measure current, in ampere (A) or mA or something, to see how much current is flowing? In the your left picture there is a green “A”, maybe that means the current is 0.00 A? Maybe it is 0.004 rounded down to 0.00 A? And it switches to show voltage instead of current when it thinks the current is zero? Just guessing.

In any case, great idea to try to measure like that.

When you look closely to both images, you can see that the 4.94V (right image) is measured Volts.
The left image shows the measured current in A(mpere). Mind the green “A” in the left image. :wink:

Sorry to not have said that. The gadget switches by itself between “V” and “A” every second and with the L5 it does not show any current, only 0.00. When I use it with my BQ E4.5 Ubuntu mobile the “A” values is between 0.12 and 0.9x.

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The battery is full?

(If you watch the charging current via the phone itself, you can see that the current tails off as the battery percentage rises e.g. above 80%.)

Cool gadget. I have been tempted to get one of those myself.

I assume that the gadget supports USB PD. The other (related) concern that I have is that if your gadget is USB-A connector only then what is the adapter (USB-C to USB-A) doing to charging? You really need a gadget that supports USB-C so that you can take the adapter out of the equation.

I would guess that your Ubuntu mobile does not support PD. So the behaviour of the Ubuntu phone is just a vanilla USB 2.0 basic current draw of 100mA? (and perhaps has a maximum of 500mA) I don’t own a BQ E4.5 however so this is just guessing about its capabilities.

With the Ubuntu mobile it goes up to 1A. But this gadget does not know anything about PD and such protocols. Perhaps better is to craft a special USB cable (i.e. open the wires) and attach a real Volt/Amper instrument which I do have at home.

Then I have major doubts that it can be used when charging the Librem 5 and still give meaningful results.

Depends what you mean by “better”. :wink:

Off the shelf that will probably do the job: https://www.amazon.com.au/MakerHawk-Multimeter-Voltmeter-Capacity-Resistance/dp/B07DCSNHNB

I don’t think much of the ‘case’ of this one however.

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I checked this and a few other gadgets here in Germany: they all do not have an USB-C input if I’m not mistaken

With the understanding that I don’t own one of them … the pictures show the top side with USB-C in and microUSB (presumably in), the bottom side with USB-C out and presumably microUSB out, the left side with USB-A in, and the right side with USB-A out. Yes?

Your setup is wrong and might lead some other people to wrong conclusion(s). But first, please do not repeat such experimental kind of setups as Librem 5 might not be pleased, all at once, with what you are trying to achieve (as shown within one of the uploaded pictures with 0.00A value, when connected to power supply, using original charger).

USB-OTG-Adapter (white LED “switch” is on, device recognized) you are using (USB-C => USB-A3.X) isn’t made for the purpose related to power delivery. It is related to data exchange with external USB-A storage medium and not for usage with power supply that exceeds easily 0.9A which USB-A3.0 would provide (though direction of usage already wrong, as shown in your post). But as warning and as “of course” that you might want to change this direction of usage, as wrongly shown in your post, and put this Anker USB-OTG-Adapter directly to Librem 5 charger but none can provide warranty it will survive (it should if of very good quality), having in between your measurement device and charge your Librem 5 over the used Yootech USB-A => USB-C cable.

hama 054178 isn’t available any more (perhaps) but YZXSTUDIO ZY1278P or currently the newest one AVHzY C3 testers should work fine, without confusion, but only if you are not about to give up as those are not cheap.

5A UCB-C in (close to USB-A male) port and the 5A USB-C out (the other one) port is what kindly recommends @irvinewade, please take another look here: https://www.chargerlab.com/wp-content/uploads/2019/06/aa-17.jpg (two quality USB-C => USB-C PD cables also needed), would work flawlessly too. Actually and again direction of usage form particular device/adapter/tester is what counts too, not always, but your post shows what matters (should be important) and we learn from there, therefore :+1:, I hope (no matter my writing style here).

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Thanks for your explanations and warnings. At the end I bought this gadget here in Germany which seems to work fine using on both sides the original Purism cables (I own two L5 and two chargers): https://www.amazon.co.uk/Voltmeter-Bluetooth-Multimeter-Multi-Function-Detector/dp/B07DCS11GM

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