Plan A: When my phone has become unresponsive, I’ve had success with pressing and holding the power button for a long time (15-30 seconds), waiting for a few seconds to check for activity; if nothing, then doing another long press (usually, 3-5 seconds IIRC). This controls the firmware of the device and is independent of problems with software (unless there’s an issue with the firmware, obviously, but that’s not a common issue to inadvertently find yourself in).
I’ve been able to do this with a hot phone while camping in hot weather (e.g. when the phon is very hot to the touch and the notification LED blinks constantly while powered).
Plan B: Try Plan A with the battery removed. If it works, it doesn’t necessarily mean that the battery is bad. It likely means that things just got in a funky state. Happens sometimes.
Plan C: Thoughts and prayers. Just kidding. Maybe there would be answers elsewhere in the forum or contact support@puri.sm.
That means the battery is fully charged. Definitely try @JCS 's “Plan A”. Keep the power button a LONG time, then release, then a short time to turn the phone back on. You shouldn’t need to remove the battery.
Yes. On boot, the light blinks red (or orange), and if I pick up the L5 very gently BTW, pwr goes off. Boot again, log in, and move L5 even a bit, and pwr gos off, light still blinking, boot again…
Maybe I can send it back and they hotwire the pwr or use a good USB-c female.
Yes, sounds like the connector is loose. With no battery installed, you are reliant on a solid connection with the USB-C cable - and, without a solid connection, just bumping it will cut power.
The cable has rarely been removed and when I did, made certain I was pulling and pushing keeping it straight and not pull up or down.
At night, I left L5 plugged into Hoyoki dock to charge. Then power off.
In the morning, I’d power on. Green light comes on, then out then nothing.
I must unplug from Hoyoki, Power on again, and make it to desktop.
Then I plug in again, and on mini-micro-screen, select Display and join with Hoyoki.
So I powered off @ night and unplug from Hoyoki and plug L5 to it’s supplied power adapter.
Same issue. Enter encrypt PW and wait. Nothing. Screen usually goes from black to A dark grey the n the unlock is available. Such is not the case. I have to unplug power adapter from L5, Plug it back in again, and I can get to the desktop.
By the way; the Hoyoki Puri sells is not recognized by Puri L5.
Example: I unplugged from power adapter, took L5 for a drive. Went into foodery and turned phone on. Nothing. Removed and replaced battery (I leave the back off now for convenience). Then I can boot L5.
Weird eh! I have a re-flash coming up - I’ll come back to this if it continues.
I had this issue. I had a spare battery and it happened to have about 50% charge.
I have purchased a battery charger and always keep my spare battery charged.
That is not a option here because, if I understand it correctly since Puri, and other companies cannot ship lithium batteries on their own and must be in a phone. My L5 is the life of the battery, or updates.
Earlier developer iterations of the L5 prior to release of the Evergreen version had different physical dimensions, but I don’t recall if the battery was different.
You might find some other sellers (who can ship to your location) if you search the internet a bit.
It doesn’t have to be in a phone to ship; the order simply cannot be a battery on its own. I have ordered a spare battery in conjunction with other miscellaneous items in the store, and the package shipped just fine.
Edit: The item was shipped to me via US-based ground courier. However, I have had similar experiences when ordering from Olimex (based out of Bulgaria) via air freight.
Nov '22 https://www.aliexpress.com/item/33059035109.html.
I got this charger as recom by Quareno, i think Nov '22
Thank you. I have ordered the charger from aliexpress. It is very reasonably priced.
The web site mentions that the charger is only for 3.8V LI ion batteries and not 4.2V,
but the order says I got 4.2V Universal Wall Travel Charger.
Bit of a worry as the Librem 5 battery says it is 3.8V
I know it’s long, but it’s informative - thanks in advance for your valuable time.
It may be a Canadian thing. @irvinewade suggests air verses ground may differ.
But I would like to have 2 or 3 on the ready. As it stands now, I need to remove the battery and replace
P.M. Pwr L5 off. (Battery power at 76% - All kill switches are off.
Plugged pwr adapter into L5 Orange light comes on.
A.M. Still plugged in, boot L5.
green light comes for 2 seconds, goes out and nothing else happens.
Still not On, unplug pwr adapter. Try boot and orange light comes on. Nothing else happens - orange light goes out.
Plug pwr back into L5 Try boot, green light comes on.
Can log onto desktop.
Pwr @ 100%
Due to psycho screen, just holding L5 by two sides a little gently tight, loads 2 or 3 programs, 1 after the other. Sound Record opened this time and could not, would not swipe up, down, left or right or open the burger bars. Press to lock screen, open screen and it swiped up and out.
UPDATE:
Leaving the phone alone for 10 minutes and trying to tap anything is useless since it’s frozen.
The cure, is to log out of screen and back in again.
I read the post that suggests the cable might be loose at L5/Pwr I read that a long time ago and have been very careful and before even setting it down, I ensure there is nothing under L5 and cable that could bend the cable plug up or down. The cable is not bend-friendly, ie, so stiff that the loop can raise the cable so that too is taped down so as not to apply pressure on cable to raise/lower above/below the plug. Ergo, if it is a poor connection, it’s inside the L5, and sicne it was a possible reason for issues I simply left phone on desk and very gently tapped the connection joing of pwr adapter ate L5 and screen blanked out and I moved the cable 2MM and it came back again.
But once I get it docked and don’t touch the L5, I can send/receive texts - meh!
Hence, the need for 2 - 3 batteries. Also, I saw the announcement “Librem 5 Battery Life has been Doubled” but this L5 never got that memo. 2 hours and it drains 20% /w switches on. Another reason to carry a spare battery.
This battery when charging, stops at 100% still orange/redish light on I guess to let everyone know it’s still charging, is charged or ?.
I guess it’s time to bend over and Flash this L5. and begin again. I just don’t have the time lately.
As for another battery, again, another simple thing like buying part a that Puri uses is like trying to find the right bumper/screen protectors. nadda
First things first, that sounds extremely inconvenient. I do have 1 backup battery to bring with me when out for extended trips, but I’ve yet to use it. The above method to double your battery life occurs after enabling automatic suspend.
Have you already enabled automatic suspend? Settings → Power → Automatic Suspend → On Battery Power?
I haven’t looked at the circuit schematics to confirm, but the harware killswitches (HKS) should have no effect on battery drain as the power management chip (PMIC) isn’t powering the corresponding circuits.
The bootloader automatically turns on the L5 when power is applied, so the LED notification dot is expected to illuminate. My L5 LED starts green with an associated vibration pulse, but occasionally does flash orange before powering the screen. If the notification LED on your L5 remains orange, there may be something stalling the boot process. I’ve had this happen before but cannot recall the details; it may have been following an unsuccessful shutdown/hard-poweroff. Perhaps @dos can clarify, but I think the only way to debug L5 bootloader issues is by connecting over a serial connection.
After automatically booting when power is applied, the L5 has a full-disk encryption (FDE) passphrase timeout, after which it will power off. I’m assuming you didn’t enter a passphrase after the device powered on in step 2, so this is expected.
How long did you babysit the phone after turning it on to see if the display would illuminate?
Hmm. This doesn’t seem right and, unfortunately, not unlocking FDE and reaching the kernel implies that meaningful logs can’t be retroactively reviewed after you’ve booted the phone. This occurs even after a gracceful shutdown?
Out of curiosity, how much free disk space is on your internal storage (i.e. not the microSD)? Running low on space can cause confusing/frustrating performance issues at the very least, and running out of space can cause havok (like when software can’t get the resources it needs and cannot even write an error log, etc). This has caused my phone to soft-lock a few times.
Sure, the USB-C power connector may have a poor connection, but I would imagine that you’d first notice obvious issues with charging status bouncing on/off when trying to charge the device.
The red notification LED should remain on while charging and turn off once it reaches 100%. If the device is warm, you may notice the red notification LED flashing instead (and may continue flashing after the battery is 100% charged).
I don’t understand. You can’t find the right battery? Or are you referring to the international shipping restrictions mentioned previously?
From this and also your past posts, @Sharon don’t you think you got a hopelessly defective phone? Have you contacted support by e-mail? You should probably return it.
When I had issues with my wifi card they told me to return the phone for repair and I was very happy with the service.
Long answer below:
I started out with Puri by installing Pure OS (POS) beside Ubuntu, and PopOS onto a workstation. That works great with the help of the dedicated Forum folk.
Then I saw the ad about their phones. I believed it. I bought a place in the queue, a phone ready to ship as a bonus for a friend/co-worker.Long story in brief he didn’t have a need for it and still has no digital mobile phone. It became mine.
As with many web sites, ‘support’ is of labyrinth with reams of FAQs, Forums (or what ever they are called this week), & Docs.
After a short time, I realized it has more issues than I could handle.
Then I saw a reply that included support@ so I emailed. Interpreting the reply, warranty expired. I thought the forums was support. There was no sense arguing about it because the email was firm. I’m not allowed to send email unless it is about a actual bug.
Was it under the 30 day warranty - yes, in the forums. So, I adopted the waif, made it my own, and during spare time, learned that the phone is a work in progress. I accepted the idea that it will be a long while before it can stand up to the digital phones where one doesn’t need to learn another language, read stuff after stuff to find a solution that isn’t there - yet.
In the end, it’s my own fault. I often preach Caveat Emptor, as the saying goes, and should have paid more attention to me.
The people in the Forums are very good. They’re quick to help, explain, and move me a little further through the proverbial tunnel that still blocks the light - if there is a light
~s
ps. I powered off last night and plugged in the pwr adapter. Starting I get a green light, after that it goes out leaving a non-responsive digital device. I know what tweak to do now.
I have mentioned I will do the ‘flash’ thing, when I have all the steps and docs in hand and a day to get through it. It’s grape harvest time so I’m torn between that and fun things like tweaking a phone.
I just don’t have the time lately.