Fautly power button - Repair or Alternative device recomendations - OnePlus 3 Questions & Answers

My OnePlus 3 appears to have developed an intermittent fault with the power button.
For the past week, I have found that a short press to the power button will not always turn the screen on or off as it should. A slightly longer press usually works, but it is difficult to avoid getting the power menu, or opening the camera instead. I am running the latest Lineage 15 nightly build (20181023). I tried rolling back to an older build but it made no difference.
Has anyone else seen a similar problem? How easy would it be to fix?
My insurance company has offered me a Samsung galaxy S7 edge or a Sony expera XZ as replacements instead of a repair. (They where not clear on the exact model or spec of either). Are either of these phones any good for rooting, alternative ROMs and the like?
Thanks.

Update to add: The power button has now stopped working completely. I guess this means that if the battery ever goes flat then I won't be able to turn the phone back on again without repairing it.
I also found an iFixit guide on how to replace the affected components and a vendor selling the parts. I guess this means that this is a fairly common problem.
https://www.ifixit.com/Guide/Oneplus+3+Power+&+Volume+Button+Flex+Replacement/76019

I have the same problem. Seems very common.

Hello, adding some info for people whose power buttons have given upp and find this thread:
I've lived without a functioning power button my OP3 for over a year now and it barely bothers me anymore.
First off: To turn on the phone plug it in to a computer while pressing the volume down-button. You're now in recovery mode and can choose "reboot into fastboot" from the menu. When in fastboot, open terminal on the computer and run fastboot reboot (you can find guides for setting up adb/fastboot here on xda, just google)
There's one thing to note here, I think you have to have at a earlier point connected the phone and the computer and chosen "always trust this device" for you to be able to run the command. I'm also not sure if you need to have unlocked bootloader previously.
To lock the phone during daily use, I use nova launcher which has "screen lock" as an action, I've added it as a "swipe action" for the app drawer-icon.
But in general, just make sure the phone doesn't die, keep a power bank and maybe up the power-save setting to start at 20%. It's quite aggressive and with power save + flight mode my phone has survived over 24 hours on 10% battery.

Related

[Ghetto Fix] for broken power button issue (t989)

Symptoms:
Extreme Case: Once phone is plugged in or battery inserted, phone vibrates constantly and never progresses further through the boot cycle.
Moderate Case: Phone is able to make it to Samsung logo, or sometimes even further, but never fails to reboot and remain stuck in this cycle.
Preliminary Case: Phone randomly reboots for no reason, or when power button is gently touched (not hard pressed)
Problem:
1) Either phone button is sticky for some reason (ewww) and gets stuck, causing phone to reboot.
2) Or, (more severe cases) the internal switch is beginning to malfunction (common) and needs to be replaced in order to really fix the problem.
Fixes:
1) If the button is sticky, simply clean it you sicko and quit being dirty. Plenty of guides on how to open the phone on Youtube. (This is not really a big issue though)
2) Faulty hardware is going to require some major work to be completely fixed.
Ghetto Fix:
Intro: My phone is showing preliminary issues of the common switch malfunction issue. I read around and it seems that Samsung just failed with that portion of the hardware. My brother's phone, on the other hand, was an extreme case and was basically a brick in my room for a few months until I decided to fix it. It's not a profound fix, so I'm sorry for those who really want this issue solved. If you do, I recommend either replacing the part yourself or taking it to a shop to repair it for you. This fix is for those of you who might have an fully functioning galaxy s2 laying around, with the exception of that stupid button.
1) You will need to know how to open up your phone. There are many guides on Youtube. Be very careful doing so.
2) Ghetto Button Fix (Two Options) *From here on I will have to make a distinction between the two senses of "power button" I am talking about: There is the power button on the logic board (LB Power Button [my term]) and the one on the outside of the phone---the (P Power Button [my term]) is the one you see and press when your phone is put together and working fine--the (LB Power Button) is the switch attached to the logic board
a. The first ghetto fix will work if your case is not too severe, and it will look less ghetto. When you open your phone and separate all the parts, you are left with a good view of the (P Power Button)--you will notice that a small rubbery rectangular portion of the power button--file that off completely to prevent the (P Power Button) from touching the logic board power button (LB Power Button).
*Note: This will not be a fix for more extreme cases because the (P Power Button) can still reach the (LB Power Button). This will only make it less likely for the two to make contact when you do not want it to. Also note that the issue is not with the two making contact, it is a faulty switch. Anything from a quick jolt or vibration, or even gravity can be enough to set it into a looped cycle.
b. If the first one doesn't work, then simply remove the power button (P Power Button) entirely. With my brother's phone, I simply removed the button and reversed it. This way, there is no way for the two to make contact, even when pressed. We gorilla taped it into position.
*Note: The issue with this fix was that the phone could not be turned off (unless you take off the tape and access the switch to turn it back on). I gave him my extended battery to ensure he would not run out, and Installed a custom Rom which allowed him to use the volume keys to wake his phone from sleep (this might come stock in previous versions of andoid--dunno though), and change the power key/lock screen key to long pressing the home button. That way there is no need for the power button as long as the phone is on. (We used Beanstalk Rom 4.3) for this and it has been working flawlessly. **Since installing custom roms and rooting only requires reboot, it is still possible with a phone with a power button issue.
3) How to stop the boot cycle: It might be quite obvious, but just to state it--in order to stop the reboot cycle and "unstuck" the power switch, simply press the power button down a few times patiently until it remains stable. **Pressing it harder does not increase your chances! Remember to be gentle because you are working with a switch that is already faulty!
*Note:When the power button is removed, you can use some non-metal pointy object to press down the power switch inside the phone. You want to do this carefully, as you will notice that even the slightest touch of the switch, even if you don't press the button down, will send it into loop. Once you get the phone on and stable. Seal up the hole and the phone should be fine as long as it doesn't shut off.
Forgive me, I don't know how to make tutorials. Tried to catch everything I ran into along the way, but I noticed it's quite wordy. Hope this helps someone!
itsfredo said:
Symptoms:
Extreme Case: Once phone is plugged in or battery inserted, phone vibrates constantly and never progresses further through the boot cycle.
Moderate Case: Phone is able to make it to Samsung logo, or sometimes even further, but never fails to reboot and remain stuck in this cycle.
Preliminary Case: Phone randomly reboots for no reason, or when power button is gently touched (not hard pressed)
Problem:
1) Either phone button is sticky for some reason (ewww) and gets stuck, causing phone to reboot.
2) Or, (more severe cases) the internal switch is beginning to malfunction (common) and needs to be replaced in order to really fix the problem.
Fixes:
1) If the button is sticky, simply clean it you sicko and quit being dirty. Plenty of guides on how to open the phone on Youtube. (This is not really a big issue though)
2) Faulty hardware is going to require some major work to be completely fixed.
Ghetto Fix:
Intro: My phone is showing preliminary issues of the common switch malfunction issue. I read around and it seems that Samsung just failed with that portion of the hardware. My brother's phone, on the other hand, was an extreme case and was basically a brick in my room for a few months until I decided to fix it. It's not a profound fix, so I'm sorry for those who really want this issue solved. If you do, I recommend either replacing the part yourself or taking it to a shop to repair it for you. This fix is for those of you who might have an fully functioning galaxy s2 laying around, with the exception of that stupid button.
1) You will need to know how to open up your phone. There are many guides on Youtube. Be very careful doing so.
2) Ghetto Button Fix (Two Options) *From here on I will have to make a distinction between the two senses of "power button" I am talking about: There is the power button on the logic board (LB Power Button [my term]) and the one on the outside of the phone---the (P Power Button [my term]) is the one you see and press when your phone is put together and working fine--the (LB Power Button) is the switch attached to the logic board
a. The first ghetto fix will work if your case is not too severe, and it will look less ghetto. When you open your phone and separate all the parts, you are left with a good view of the (P Power Button)--you will notice that a small rubbery rectangular portion of the power button--file that off completely to prevent the (P Power Button) from touching the logic board power button (LB Power Button).
*Note: This will not be a fix for more extreme cases because the (P Power Button) can still reach the (LB Power Button). This will only make it less likely for the two to make contact when you do not want it to. Also note that the issue is not with the two making contact, it is a faulty switch. Anything from a quick jolt or vibration, or even gravity can be enough to set it into a looped cycle.
b. If the first one doesn't work, then simply remove the power button (P Power Button) entirely. With my brother's phone, I simply removed the button and reversed it. This way, there is no way for the two to make contact, even when pressed. We gorilla taped it into position.
*Note: The issue with this fix was that the phone could not be turned off (unless you take off the tape and access the switch to turn it back on). I gave him my extended battery to ensure he would not run out, and Installed a custom Rom which allowed him to use the volume keys to wake his phone from sleep (this might come stock in previous versions of andoid--dunno though), and change the power key/lock screen key to long pressing the home button. That way there is no need for the power button as long as the phone is on. (We used Beanstalk Rom 4.3) for this and it has been working flawlessly. **Since installing custom roms and rooting only requires reboot, it is still possible with a phone with a power button issue.
3) How to stop the boot cycle: It might be quite obvious, but just to state it--in order to stop the reboot cycle and "unstuck" the power switch, simply press the power button down a few times patiently until it remains stable. **Pressing it harder does not increase your chances! Remember to be gentle because you are working with a switch that is already faulty!
*Note:When the power button is removed, you can use some non-metal pointy object to press down the power switch inside the phone. You want to do this carefully, as you will notice that even the slightest touch of the switch, even if you don't press the button down, will send it into loop. Once you get the phone on and stable. Seal up the hole and the phone should be fine as long as it doesn't shut off.
Forgive me, I don't know how to make tutorials. Tried to catch everything I ran into along the way, but I noticed it's quite wordy. Hope this helps someone!
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Or you can remove the power button from the board completely and the outer assembly from the case. Essentially a hole use a paper clip to short the pins to power on/off
Or you can remove one of the volume button and replace it with the lower button
mecha2012 said:
Or you can remove the power button from the board completely and the outer assembly from the case. Essentially a hole use a paper clip to short the pins to power on/off
Or you can remove one of the volume button and replace it with the lower button
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Thanks for this. This would be a better and more permanent fix in the sense that it would almost guarantee the switch will not act up.
The only thing is, I've seen tutorials on how to take off the button from the logic board and it requires some pretty crazy equipment. More specifically, in the tutorial I saw, the guy used a hot air gun to melt the solder and some other fancy equipment.
Also, would using a paper clip be a danger to the entire logic board?

Samsung Galaxy Nexus running Lineage - On/Off button fails

I have a Samsung I9250 which I've unlocked, rooted and loaded with Lineage. The Lineage version is 13.0-20171126-NIGHTLY-maguro. The recovery is TWRP and the root is through SuperSU FREE (CM) v2.79-SR3. The On/Off button doesn't usually work. If the phone is off then pressing On/Off has no effect. Occasionally it works for no reason I can see, it seems to be random, but for the most part it simply doesn't have any effect. If the phone is on then the same is true. Turning it off from the On/Off button is usually impossible. I get round this through Settings>Display & lights>Wake on plug. This means I can activate the phone by connecting it to a PC using its USB cable. This will activate the phone immediately if it is off. It doesn't help with turning it off and I am usually reduced to taking the battery out. The phone is effectively useless although it is clearly NOT bricked. When I can turn it on it works fine.
I don't know if this is a hardware or software problem. If it's a software problem I don't know if the fault is in Lineage or TWRP or SuperSU. I noticed that the problem existed before I installed SuperSU. Has anyone else come across this problem? I'm reluctant to bin the phone because I spent such a long time getting Lineage on to it, but, if I can't turn it on or off it's not really a phone. Any help would be greatly appreciated.
@erich_vogt it's more a hardware problem, you can buy a new button (find link of online stores in accessories section or google.it).
for easyness you don't need to plug charge/usb everytime, you can set volume button waker, find in settings > button (don't remember where correctly, it will be somewhere there) then use volume switches to wake it.
erich_vogt said:
If the phone is off then pressing On/Off has no effect.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
There have been power button bugs, but only in the OS. If it's not turning on from off, then I think the switch is broken! A common failure in old phones, which is why "volume button to wake" is important, to reduce load on the power button.
Thanks very much for offering to help.
I already had the option for the Volume control buttons to wake the phone turned on. It's here - Settings > Buttons > Volume Buttons > Wake up device. This worked for a while then stopped. I disassembled the phone to look at the On/Off button. I tried turning the phone on directly from the metal contact pad beneath the plastic button. This worked. When the phone had booted I checked to see if there was another nightly update for Lineage. There was the 3rd of Dec update. I downloaded and installed the nightly update using TWRP. It reported a successful install. The phone rebooted and never got past the Google boot-up screen. I waited for a few minutes and the took the battery out and tried turning on again from the metal contact pad. The phone booted but again got stuck (or seemed to) on the Google boot-up screen. I'm afraid that's it for me. This doesn't appear to be related to anything I have done or not done. The phone is just taking up too much time and it will have to go the the local recycler. Life is, as they say, too short. Thanks again for your suggestions.
erich_vogt said:
Thanks very much for offering to help.
I already had the option for the Volume control buttons to wake the phone turned on. It's here - Settings > Buttons > Volume Buttons > Wake up device. This worked for a while then stopped. I disassembled the phone to look at the On/Off button. I tried turning the phone on directly from the metal contact pad beneath the plastic button. This worked. When the phone had booted I checked to see if there was another nightly update for Lineage. There was the 3rd of Dec update. I downloaded and installed the nightly update using TWRP. It reported a successful install. The phone rebooted and never got past the Google boot-up screen. I waited for a few minutes and the took the battery out and tried turning on again from the metal contact pad. The phone booted but again got stuck (or seemed to) on the Google boot-up screen. I'm afraid that's it for me. This doesn't appear to be related to anything I have done or not done. The phone is just taking up too much time and it will have to go the the local recycler. Life is, as they say, too short. Thanks again for your suggestions.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
3rd dec nightly has problem with booting, get back to older than it.
Reset volume button waker, if it stopped working. I never had problems with volume buttons.
I'd second the idea of it being software. I've had problems with all builds after 20171112. I get the impression there was something overlooked when the developers unified the builds for different GNex variants.
If you still have the phone, try that 20171112 build.
I don't know how to roll back to an earlier build. The phone will not boot. If I try VolumeDown+On/Off to try to get into TWRP Recovery mode nothing happens. The adb bridge option is turned on but if I connect the phone to my PC with a usb cable it does not appear in Device Manager as it used to. If I run ".\adb devices" it is not listed so clearly adb cannot find it. I don't know what else I can do.
erich_vogt said:
The phone will not boot. If I try VolumeDown+On/Off to try to get into TWRP Recovery mode nothing happens. The adb bridge option is turned on but if I connect the phone to my PC with a usb cable it does not appear in Device Manager as it used to. If I run ".\adb devices" it is not listed so clearly adb cannot find it. I don't know what else I can do.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Ah, ok. Sorry, I thought you could still do more than that, but it was rebooting and unusable in that sense.
That's well beyond any help I can offer you. I hope you got any data off it.

Screen froze, asked for reboot, now nothing

My wife was typing and the screen froze, she pushed the power button was the reboot or power off box appeared. She selected reboot and the screen went dark and now nothing comes on no matter how long the power button or power + power up or power down is held. I plugged in the charger and the battery icon does not appear. Could the connection from the motherboard to the screen have come loose? It seems strange that it would die coincidentally after requesting a reboot. Another other suggestions before I try to sell it as a paperweight on Ebay?
lmacmil said:
My wife was typing and the screen froze, she pushed the power button was the reboot or power off box appeared. She selected reboot and the screen went dark and now nothing comes on no matter how long the power button or power + power up or power down is held. I plugged in the charger and the battery icon does not appear. Could the connection from the motherboard to the screen have come loose? It seems strange that it would die coincidentally after requesting a reboot. Another other suggestions before I try to sell it as a paperweight on Ebay?
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
It depend on if you had TWRP Recovery installed on your tablet. Was this an original setup device or a custom ROM? If it was custom, you should have the necessary files to reinstall from scratch. If you know you do have TWRP Recovery installed (IIRC, it would not show up as an installed app) then to access it you need to push POWER, HOME button (middle front panel)and VOLUME +(up)at the same time! This will get you into recovery mode. Then, you would have to reinstall your custom ROM and gapps from backups. If you don't have these you may still be able to repair it via a Windows PC connection with the right files.
When you post probs you are having, the more info that you include, the better chance you will get a solution for it. I have three smp600 tabs, all configured the same way with multiple backups for each on SD cards as well as Google Drive cloud. So, I can have any tab restored fully in under an hour. Whatever you do, good luck, but it takes a lot to truly "brick" one! ;-DeanoD=
Sent from my SM-P600 using Tapatalk
Thanks. It was running stock Lollipop with no custom recovery. When I was taking the back off to see if a connection was loose I could hear audio but I did not find a loose connection so it's still dead.?

Broken power button workaround to turn on.

So I have a OnePlus 3 since it was released and my power button started not working properly about a year ago.
And today I found out that the power button was not working at all anymore no matter how hard I pressed.
At first it was clicking twice instead of once (shortcut to open the camera), or I had to press it very hard to make it work.
I found some workarounds (double tap to wake, double tap to lock, etc).
So when the device is powered on, it's fine I can do everything I need.
The problem is when I need to poweroff the device (changing sim card) or when it runs out of battery.
On some other threads people say to hold the volume down button and to plug the phone to a computer.
But it doesn't work for me, when I do that the device goes to the bootlogo (before the romlogo) and is stuck there.
Any help or idea appreciated.
Also I am not willing to change the power button because it seems hard to take apart the device according to this tutorial : https://fr.ifixit.com/Tutoriel/OnePlus+3+Power+and+Volume+Button+Assembly+Replacement/76019
I am on Lineage16 if that can help.
I feel you. I have broken power button since august... Found workarouns like you. But for me, power button starts to work after one or two weeks so i think it is software issue. But about replacing power button you are really wrong. OnePlus 3 is one of the easiest phones to repair. The thing is, you dont need heat gun to warm adheasive... You just take out screws and pop out the screen. This is kinda one of the reason why i took my phone so i can change battery with no problems or do any other repair by myself. But in the past 3 year i did not need to take apart my phone ?*. You can look up jerryrigeverything he tears down oneplus3 and shows everything step by step. Its indeed really easy, compared to other phones.
Plz answer this then I have replaced power and volume ribbon cable twice with new ones and my power button still not working volume is fine though and I want to unlock bootloader but without power button I can not select the option to do so?

S8+ constantly restarting

Last Saturday night my Verizon S8+ suddenly began to freeze. It would do it with many different applications so I don't feel it is associated with one in particular. It then would restart and would hang at the Samsung splash screen. I was able to boot into maintenance mode and then select safe mode. It would boot to safe mode and would function as expected but then without warning restart again. I took the phone in to a local repair shop who said it could be the battery. Replaced the battery and it seemed to work but then started the boot loop again. Since the battery didn't fix the issue I did get a refund. At any rate after letting the phone sit on the wireless charger overnight it did appear to have fully charged and I was able to boot it up normally. There are some pictures that I needed to get off the phone so I plugged it in to my PC and started copying files over. After about 3 minutes it restarted on it's own and the whole boot loop process again. Now be aware that I know just enough about what I'm doing to be dangerous so here is what transpired next. I started pushing a combination of the power button, the bixby button and the volume up and down buttons and managed to get into the downloading a custom OS menu (see attachment 1) I didn't feel comfortable with this so the screen clearly said if you want to download a custom OS press the volume up key otherwise press the volume down key to cancel. Well I must have fat thumbed the volume down key and by accident pressed the volume up key. Upon rebooting it tried to perform a software update but would give an error message file not found. After several attempts to bypass this screen with a combination of pushing the buttons I was able to boot the phone into recovery mode (see attachment 2) and that is where it is right now. Good news is it hasn't tried to reboot so obviously it in a boot area ahead of whatever was causing the issue to begin with. I also note that the blue charge light indicator seems to be glowing from dim to bright as if I am charging the phone but I don't have the cable connected. So that's my story and I'm sticking to it. I am hopeful that one of you Android technical gurus could advise me of a way to recover the functionality of my phone through this menu? I have attached a couple of screen shots relevant to my issue. Please help and thank you in advance for any assistance.
Jim

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