Can't get my phone to charge

[Barry Admin]

A few nights ago my phone was slow to charge, then the next day it ran out and I can't get it back on again.

I don't have anything backed up on it and am panicking a bit.

It's a Xiamoi MI 9, was absolutely fine.  However, the charging lead is fucked and I'm hoping that's the issue.

I bought two cheap Type C leads off Amazon ages ago and could never get them to work.  I could only get this bent, fucked cable to work, and I had to jam the phone down the back of the sofa so it was at a certain angle lol.  But it did work, until Jelly would swish past it.

I've ordered a new cable so am praying that sorts this out, but again, the charging port is a bit fucked or something.  The cheap cables never fit in snugly, and the official one isn't much better.

So any suggestions?  Is there any way I can get all my photos and stuff off there if the new cable doesn't work?

[Wolfie]

I'm in a similar boat. I used the little funny key thing that you use to open the SIM tray to scrape in and around the charging port (as gently and thoroughly as possible, this is probably a gamble) and I did remove some sand and shit from it. I also got a new charger and it now charges with about 95% reliability whereas it was maybe 50% before.

My tablet is similar, need to wedge the cable against a small book. Charging ports are total shit.

Is it one that can use wireless charging? Sorry if that's a dumb question. I don't know if mine is, never tried it but that's probably the longer term answer to this stupid design flaw. Good luck with it, it's well annoying but new cable and a clean should do the trick.

As for getting your stuff off it, plug it into your comp and fiddle and fiddle until it charges, then turn it on. That's your only reliable way that I can tell. Do you use Google Photos or One Drive? Might find it's auto uploaded your camera roll unless you turned it off.

[Dr Rock]

My port got fucked (ahem) so now I have to charge it wirelessly on a charging tray. It's just as good, depends if your phone can be charged that way.

[touchingcloth]

Does it have a removable battery? If so, maybe as a worst case you could buy a cheap second hand version of the same phone and use that as a surrogate battery charger.

[beanheadmcginty]

Yeah, all my phones stop charging at some point in their life and it's always the USB that's burnt out. Get a wireless charge pad, Google says your phone supports it. I have a few of them scattered around my flat wherever I tend to loiter so that I can just put my phone down and it'll be charging wherever I am.

If you do attempt to clean fluff out of the USB port, I recommend using a wooden cocktail stick. I used a metal needle once and it shorted something out.

[first skeleton on mars]

yeah you could charge it wirelessly, got one of these copper coils things in the back



if it were me I'd buy one of these to be on the safe side but you can likely find a cheaper generic if you care to

[Small Man Big Horse]

One of those Wifi charging pads helped save my phone, but after about a year of my clumsily dropping it on the floor about once a week it stopped working. I took it to a mobile repair place on Walthamstow High Street and now I can charge it using a lead again, so it should be fixable if the Wifi charging pad isn't an option.

[Sebastian Cobb]

People have gone through the charging stuff so I guess the next step is the backup problem. Easiest way is through google drive but you might not want to use google for that. Dropbox is doable too.

If you want to shunt files between a computer and the phone rather than the cloud, I sometimes use webwormhole.io to do that (can also copy between two computers). I dunno if I'd trust it for something very secret but it seems to work.

[QDRPHNC]

Regarding backing up, if there is sensitive stuff you'd rather not put directly on Google Drive, you can also save it to an encrypted password-protected zip file and store that on Drive.

I gave this same advice in the recent SSD thread, but are you sure the cheap cables you're buying are actually carrying enough power to charge your phone? And I also second cleaning out the charging port with a wooden toothpick - I've had to do this a few times with my Pixel 4, and it's amazing how much pocket fluff can get packed in there.

[Endicott]

Walthamstow would be a bit of a trek I reckon.

[Dr Rock]

Yes but it's mobile

[Barry Admin]

Fucking hell, I had no idea a wireless charging thing would work with this phone, that's absolutely amazing, thank you for all the advice.

I did try cleaning out the charging port to no avail. The new lead arrives tomorrow and it's Xiaomi brand so I'm really hoping that does the job!  Didn't know about the "not enough power" thing QDRPHNC mentioned and these were really cheap cables, so very hopeful now, thanks again all.

(Removed this thread in a panic the other night for a while as an hour after I put it online, my Mum had a scammer message her and it seemed like it was totally related.  Scared the shite out of me lol.)

[Barry Admin]

Well the new lead worked for a while, but now it's too difficult to get that to charge also.

So I bought a wireless charger for like 8 quid (couldn't find the official one in stock anywhere, and there are problems getting them shipped to NI anyway.)

It doesn't work.

The instructions say it needs a "USB QC 3.0 Plug."  Before I throw any more money I don't have at this, is it worth trying to get this plug?  I tried plugging the wireless charger into my puter, and it seemed like it was working, but no joy.

The red light on the charger starts to flash blue when I put my phone on it, but then no charge gets in there?   My phone has completely run down and can't be switched on again, would that impede the wireless charger at all? 

[beanheadmcginty]

How long have you left it on the charge pad for? Sometimes takes a while to soak up enough juice to even acknowledge that it's charging if the battery is really empty.

[Ferris]

The wireless chargers can take a significant amount of time to charge, especially compared to a cable. Like 12+ hours instead of 2.

My phone does this "stop charging" business every 6 months or so, and I use the (plastic) toothpick thing from my pocket knife to properly go to town on clearing the charging port. The plastic means it's functionally impossible to damage the copper contacts while still being able to give it a right good going over.

Worth a try if you have an equivalent item. Nothing worse than an phone that won't charge.

[Barry Admin]

How long have you left it on the charge pad for? Sometimes takes a while to soak up enough juice to even acknowledge that it's charging if the battery is really empty.

Ooooh, hours.  Hours and hours.  I might give it another go, but I was worried it might cost a fortune.

My phone does this "stop charging" business every 6 months or so, and I use the (plastic) toothpick thing from my pocket knife to properly go to town on clearing the charging port. The plastic means it's functionally impossible to damage the copper contacts while still being able to give it a right good going over.

Worth a try if you have an equivalent item. Nothing worse than an phone that won't charge.

Might give this another go. 

[Ferris]

Wooden toothpick works just as well I think. A minuscule amount of dust/fluff removed makes a significant difference.

[Barry Admin]

It's worth another go at this point.

[DJ Bob Hoskins]

100% of the times this has happened to me, the cause has turned out to be fluff. I've had times where I've scraped the lint out really thoroughly with a paperclip, only to find that the problem persists, and in all of those cases it turned out I'd simply missed a bit of stubborn compacted fluff. You really need to go at it (ideally with a plastic toothpick as suggested above).

[touchingcloth]

We've got two wireless chargers, one with a USB-C connection and the other with micro USB.

The micro USB one will charge it from any port going - laptop, PC, battery pack, port on the back of the telly.

The USB-C one only seems to work if plugged into a high-capacity laptop charger, and won't work if connected to the USB ports in my laptop or my puny phone charger plug.

Sounds like Barry might have a similar charging pad to that. So I don't think you need a separate cable, but you might need to find a more powerful port. Lots of laptops charge via a USB-C cable these days, so do you have someone who owns one that you could borrow for a test?

[Steve Lampkins]

The instructions say it needs a "USB QC 3.0 Plug."  Before I throw any more money I don't have at this, is it worth trying to get this plug?  I tried plugging the wireless charger into my puter, and it seemed like it was working, but no joy.

Those wireless chargers usually need a bit of power because they are really quite inefficient. Does it say how many watts are required? Usually a computer USB port gives out 5v at 0.5 amps (times the voltage by the amps to get the wattage, so a USB port only gives about 2.5W). I would guess that the charger needs at least 10W (So 5v @ 2amps, but best to get one that is QC 3.0 standard).

[Barry Admin]

Thanks for the replies!

Well my electric ran out earlier and the puter came back on with the date set to 2081 and I Was logged out from everything.  And I need to contact my Mum or she starts to panic cause she's old lol.

Anyway this has been a nightmare few hours as two factor locked me out of everything. 

So I did actually borrow a wireless charger off my neighbour, and it's clearly much better than the 8 quid one I got.

It's lighting up, but again, no charge seems to be getting to the fucking phone. 

This is the one I got: https://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/174504649287

While I have the lend of this for the next hour or two, I'll think about how I can get a better power source into it, but I think I'm fucked tbh. 

[Barry Admin]

The only other real option I have is a Safemore power tower thingy. 

This:  https://www.safemore.com/product-page/origin-3l

I think it's that one anyway.

[Barry Admin]

Those wireless chargers usually need a bit of power because they are really quite inefficient. Does it say how many watts are required? Usually a computer USB port gives out 5v at 0.5 amps (times the voltage by the amps to get the wattage, so a USB port only gives about 2.5W). I would guess that the charger needs at least 10W (So 5v @ 2amps, but best to get one that is QC 3.0 standard).

The phone/charger is meant to use 20w?

Can you point me to something that's worth a go, plugwise, please?  I can't make head nor tail of much of this.

[Falkner Hinton]

Barry, don't plug your wireless charger into your computer, plug it into the wall with a plug like this

https://amzn.eu/d/2QeSp30

[Steve Lampkins]

The phone/charger is meant to use 20w?

Can you point me to something that's worth a go, plugwise, please?  I can't make head nor tail of much of this.

When it comes to power, I'd rather spend a bit more on a reliable brand, like Belkin.

One of these that has a USB-A connector, for example.
https://www.belkin.com/uk/products/chargers/wall-chargers/?prefn1=excludeFromSearch&prefv1=false&start=0&sz=12

The eBay product image shows that it takes as input 5v/2a, so that's only 10W.

I would guess that this 18w would work https://www.belkin.com/uk/usb-a-wall-charger-18w-with-quick-charge-3.0/P-WCA001.html
Do you have any brick and mortar stores local with decent return policies? They could probably give advice, too. Belkin is a big enough brand that it is probably widely available.

EDIT:

Barry, don't plug your wireless charger into your computer, plug it into the wall with a plug like this

https://amzn.eu/d/2QeSp30

You see that the USB-A part of this product is also 18w, so probably hitting the max for USB-A. If the input for the charging pad is USB-C, you could potentially use a USB-C charger with a USB-C to USB-C cable, but maybe easier to play it safe with the provided cable and a USB-A wall charger.

[Falkner Hinton]

Can I just ask a quick question about recovering your photos etc? Should we assume that you weren't automatically backing things up with something like Dropbox, or Google photos? What I'm getting at is are all the things you'd like to recover only stored on your phone?

[Barry Admin]

Thanks a lot Steve and Falkner!

I can't buy anything else for a week or so, and today's panic is kind of over now I got logged into my email again.

So I think I'll try and get one of these plugs for the wireless charger and see if that works next week.  It does seem like mine and my neighbours chargers are both recognising my phone, but just don't have enough juice.   

Photos aren't stored anywhere else as I only just got a computer again very recently.