Phone does not turn on anymore

Hardware Librem 5
1

I have taken the L5 out of the box after 3 mothns. I run all updates from Purism store. Then it asked me to restart the phone so I did. When it shutdown it didn’t turn back on. So I pressed the power button to turn it back on and green LED lit up and it vibrated for quarter of a second. Nothing comes up on the screen. And then green light comes on and phone vibrates again. It is completely stuck in this process.

I have tried taking the battery out and also plugging in the charger but nothing helps. I have emails purism support about this problem 1 week ago and didn’t get any response.

Is there anything I can do or is the phone completely kaput?

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2

I have taken the battery out again and this time I get Green, Orange light and then vibration. And then it just keep repeating the process. Still nothing on the screen.

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3

  1. After power then green/orange light, wait five seconds. If you don’t see anything, the phone has almost certainly booted OK, but has not lit the screen.

  2. Hold power button down five seconds, then release.

  3. Go back to 1.

You may have to repeat this a number of times before the screen lights up. Doing this in a dark room can help you see if the screen is lit before it actually displays anything. This also helps if you had the screen brightness very low before restart.

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4

I have already tried that. The phone keeps trying to start but then shuts down and tries to start again.

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5

You can reflash the Librem 5.

6

How do I reflash the phone?

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7

Follow these instructions:

If the script fails to download images due to issues with Jenkins, use these alternative instructions:

8

I see many apt commands. Will this work on rpm distribution?

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9

I do not know, the instructions assume you are using Debian or any of its derivatives, especially PureOS.

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10

So this will either not work or I risk messing up my OS. Great.

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11

You can use a PureOS Live USB or similar if you do not want to affect your currently installed operating system(s).

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12

I have tried the re-flashing process Purism’s website Reflashing PureOS - Purism user documentation

but it doesn’t seem to be doing anything. At stage 4 after I re-insert the battery while keep holding the Volume UP button and then releasing the Volume Up button the script keeps saying “Searching…” for 30mins now. Nothing is happening.

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13

It should not matter as the librem5-flash-image script is made in Python. As long as you have Python as well as uuu installed, it should work.

Have you installed the udev rules with sudo ./scripts/librem5-flash-image --udev?
The Librem 5 will not be recognized without them installed.

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14

Yes I have. It’s in my command history.

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15

Yes but uuu has to be an adequate version. (In the middle of my one and only reflash, reflashing from amber to byzantium, uuu crapped out because uuu was too old. Easy fix. No drama.)

And the Python script may have (has?) Python package dependencies.

Are you using a Debian family distro? non-Debian family distro? or PureOS Live Boot? (Strongly recommended to avoid the second of those three options.)

Regardless, if you use the lsusb command on the host computer after you put the phone in Serial Download mode connected to the host computer via USB do you see

Bus 999 Device 999: ID 1fc9:012b NXP Semiconductors i.MX 8M Dual/8M QuadLite/8M Quad Serial Downloader

?

(Bus number and device number will differ from what I have shown.)

That will at least tell you whether what you are doing with the phone has worked - and should fault isolate a mass of random variation including: USB port version and type, USB cable and cable type, USB cable orientation.

NB: No need to run any scripts at this stage. If you don’t see the above then no relevant script will ever work - so if you don’t see the above then that’s what you need to tackle first.

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16

I’m using Linux Mint.

I don’t know how to put the phone in Serial Download mode. what is that?

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17

Ok, I have tried again and this time I used USB-C to C cable that came with the phone and the flashling finally worked. Although the official guide says to use USB-A to C which didn’t work for me.

Anyway I’m glad it’s back in working condition.

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18

Is it possible that this cable is for charging only and not for data transfer?

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19

Maybe who knows… it’s one of those that has 3 different ends. USB-C, Micro-USB and Lighting one for Apple devices.

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20

For completeness only as you have now succeeded …

Family-wise, that is fine. I should have mentioned also that it has to be a reasonably up-to-date release of your distro of choice.

That’s the magical procedure in the instructions that starts with …

Press and hold the **Volume Up** button while performing the following actions:

I think the official guide may go beyond the strict requirements. It would surely work if you use the Purism-supplied USB-C to USB-C cable.

I personally have only ever used USB-A to USB-C because I have no USB-C port on my host computer and that has always worked. (I use a cable that came with a portable disk that has a USB-C interface. So that cable may be no good for charging a battery but obviously is required at least to provide basic power e.g. 500 mA and obviously provides data, otherwise it wouldn’t be much good as a cable for a portable disk.)

An advantage of USB-A to USB-C over USB-C to USB-C is that the former only has two orientations while the latter has four. Of course if all USB-C-related stuff on the planet were standards-compliant then the orientation wouldn’t matter. Unfortunately in the real world …

In any case, the instructions do or did say that if you are having problems getting the phone connected to your host computer (never mind about flashing anything) then try different USB ports / cables / orientations etc.

That sounds overly complicated. I guess there’s a compatibility issue there somewhere.

Indeed.

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