At the moment I have to charge my battery with an external charger, which is not ideal. Here are some facts about my problem.
cat /sys/class/power_supply/tps6598x-source-psy-0-003f/uevent showsPOWER_SUPPLY_ONLINE=0
POWER_SUPPLY_PRESENT=0
Even though you can flash new images, it might still be worth to try charging with a different cable, and with a different charger, and with the cable rotated the other way. I had a cable that seemed to work one way but not the other.
You could also check that “sudo dmesg -w” says when the charging cable is connected. For me, that shows the following lines repeated a few times:
[29910.728018] bq25890-charger 3-006a: Upstream supply changed: 1.
[29910.728041] bq25890-charger 3-006a: Disabling OTG_EN pin
Maybe also check for any messages involving “bq25890-charger” in the journalctl log.
Plug a USB-A to C cable (important!) in and try both orientations. Does it react in any way? LED, dmesg?
While plugged in, reboot the phone. Does the red LED shine at any point?
Unplug it, turn the phone off (in this order!), wait 10 seconds, plug the cable back in. Does it start to boot? Try both orientations.
The Librem 5 is a bit fussy with the cables used. I have one cable here which charges my Pixel and does not charge my L5. Another cable I own charges both. Try different cables until you find one which works.
Hello @dos, thank you for your message in the other thread. I’ll answer here to avoid derailing the other thread too much.
Here are my answers:
So the phone seems to have two states when turned on: state G (as in GOOD) where plugging a charger will work, and state B (as in BAD) where plugging a charger won’t work.
TLDR: in state B there’s no difference whatsoever if the charger is connected or not. Specifically:
If I plug a USB-A to C cable in state G, the led turns red and I hear that clic-cloc sound saying it’s charging. Nothing in dmesg. In state B, nothing happens, no led, no sound, no dmesg. Orientation does not matter.
Rebooting while plugged in: in state G, the led goes red → green → yellow → red and then I see the encryption password prompt. In state B, the led goes off → green → yellow → off and then I see the encryption password.
Plugging while the phone is off: so sometimes it starts booting, sometimes it doesn’t. I haven’t tried waiting for ten seconds before plugging (usually if I want to charge and it’s in state B, I turn off, plug immediately (which turns the led red) and, in case it didn’t turn on automatically and I need the phone to be on, switch back on.
Next time it’s in state B I’ll check if waiting ten seconds after turning off and before plugging in makes a difference.
The main problem I have with this situation is that it’s REALLY slow to charge so basically during the day my phone is either out of battery or running out of battery, because I’m not near a power source frequently enough.
Meanwhile, I ordered a replacement USB-C board, which will hopefully solve this issue.