I'm posting here because this is the only place I can think of to turn to where people are both knowledgeable and helpful.
I have a Pixel 3 XL, which I've had since November, and has worked without incident until yesterday. One of my main reasons for choosing this phone was the alleged support for root, but I haven't actually rooted it because the guides that I've seen up to this point still seem to indicate that there is some loss of functionality involved.
Yesterday I went for a walk to visit an old neighbor. The phone was at about 80% charge when I left, and working fine. At some point during the visit, I pulled out my phone to check for any messages, and couldn't see the screen. I thought it might be because it was bright outside, so I put it away again. A little later, I checked it again and still couldn't see, so I went indoors to look. Nothing. The screen was completely blank, and the phone wouldn't wake up from the fingerprint sensor or the power button. I tried holding the power button down for 10 seconds, then 30 seconds, then a minute and more, and nothing. I figured maybe the power had drained and it was off, so I'd check it out later. A little after that the phone rang, but the screen was still off and I couldn't answer it.
To fast-forward a bit, at present the phone is *almost* functionally a brick. If I get a call, it rings and vibrates, and if I swipe from the right spot on the screen I can answer the call. Also, alarms that I had set on the phone still rang this morning. Unfortunately, that's it. Without any indicator lights it's hard to know for sure if the phone is on or off, and no amount of holding down the buttons seems to do much more than maybe reboot it. I cannot reach the phone using Airdroid, Teamviewer, or Find my phone, so there seems to be little or no network communication happening.
I called Google, and their suggestion (after trying to get the phone to ring with the Find my phone option) was to try to erase everything. While I don't think that will work, I also don't want to try. I don't want to wipe out the phone without saving everything on it! They gave me the standard line about "most of your things should be backed up," but that's not true of apps that weren't installed through the play store, along with all of the associated data for those apps. They told me to take it to one of their partner companies, "ubreakifix," to have someone look at it, but the person at the store said they wouldn't be able to look at it for a few days, and that wiping out the phone is the first thing they'd do anyway. They say I just need to send it back to Google, and that they'll either fix it or, more likely, send me a replacement, but that they'll wipe it out too.
I find this incredibly frustrating. Without removable storage, everything is locked up inside the phone when something like this happens. Without root, I don't have the access authority to fully backup apps and data. Without a removable battery, I can't even fully power down and restart the device! On top of all of that, even if I get a replacement, there's no guarantee that this won't happen again, since I have no idea what caused it this time. I didn't drop the phone. I didn't spill anything on it. I just put it in my pocket like I do every day.
So here are my questions to you, the members of the developer and modding community: Is there anything else I can do? Does anyone know if I can pry the thing open and attach a cord somewhere internally to access the on-board memory? Is there a way to determine for sure if the issue is the screen, the motherboard, or something else, short of sending it out to never see again? Am I the only one who finds the attitude of wiping out a phone as the default practice for any difficulty to be incredibly frustrating? I would be grateful for any suggestions or insights that you may have to share!
Thank you for reading this, and I hope to get some good news.
Not sure if it's similar to your situation or not, but a few weeks ago I rebooted my phone because it wasn't syncing with my Fitbit. I rebooted it and walked to the kitchen. Came back and hit power button, nothing happened. Fingerprint sensor, nothing happened. If I pressed and held the power button I could feel a brief vibration like it does when the power menu slides out, but the screen was off. I didn't get any calls or anything so I can't say if I could have answered them like you did.
I pressed and held the power button for 5-10 seconds trying to induce a reboot and nothing happened. I tried power and volume down to get to bootloader and nothing happened. I held power again for about 30 seconds and it rebooted, but it erased all my wifi networks. Other than that, everything was normal. I was on the Q beta so it could be related to that.
If you happen to have USB debugging turned on and your PC is authorized you can try using these commands to force the backup to run and backup your SMS, calls, apps/data (for the ones that are supported). I know it's not much but worth a shot.
Code:
adb shell
bmgr run
bmgr backupnow --all
I usually run that before opting into/out of a beta, flashing/factory resetting, etc.
Hope this helps!
Thanks for the quick reply.
It sounds like your experience wasn't entirely like mine, but it does bear similarities. I'm curious about it erasing your wifi networks...might that be a factor in why mine isn't getting online? It wouldn't explain everything, but suppose wifi and/or wireless data is turned off (for some reason), and the phone could theoretically still be functional without seeming like it.
I have a micro USB cord with a little adapter to USB-C that I use for charging. I tried plugging the whole thing into my computer (I've got a chromebook with me right now), but it didn't notice anything being there. I don't know if this cord works only for charging, or if it works for data too, and similarly without the screen turning on, I don't know if the phone is set to allow connections, although it should be. I'll try to get a different cable this evening and see if I can get further. If adb works, I'll definitely try those commands.
Thank you again, and any other thoughts are still very welcome!
fury683 said:
Not sure if it's similar to your situation or not, but a few weeks ago I rebooted my phone because it wasn't syncing with my Fitbit. I rebooted it and walked to the kitchen. Came back and hit power button, nothing happened. Fingerprint sensor, nothing happened. If I pressed and held the power button I could feel a brief vibration like it does when the power menu slides out, but the screen was off. I didn't get any calls or anything so I can't say if I could have answered them like you did.
I pressed and held the power button for 5-10 seconds trying to induce a reboot and nothing happened. I tried power and volume down to get to bootloader and nothing happened. I held power again for about 30 seconds and it rebooted, but it erased all my wifi networks. Other than that, everything was normal. I was on the Q beta so it could be related to that.
If you happen to have USB debugging turned on and your PC is authorized you can try using these commands to force the backup to run and backup your SMS, calls, apps/data (for the ones that are supported). I know it's not much but worth a shot.
Code:
adb shell
bmgr run
bmgr backupnow --all
I usually run that before opting into/out of a beta, flashing/factory resetting, etc.
Hope this helps!
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
FireflyII said:
Thanks for the quick reply.
It sounds like your experience wasn't entirely like mine, but it does bear similarities. I'm curious about it erasing your wifi networks...might that be a factor in why mine isn't getting online? It wouldn't explain everything, but suppose wifi and/or wireless data is turned off (for some reason), and the phone could theoretically still be functional without seeming like it.
I have a micro USB cord with a little adapter to USB-C that I use for charging. I tried plugging the whole thing into my computer (I've got a chromebook with me right now), but it didn't notice anything being there. I don't know if this cord works only for charging, or if it works for data too, and similarly without the screen turning on, I don't know if the phone is set to allow connections, although it should be. I'll try to get a different cable this evening and see if I can get further. If adb works, I'll definitely try those commands.
Thank you again, and any other thoughts are still very welcome!
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Cords are kind of goofy. If you have a machine that supports C-C or an A-C cable, I would use that. In my experience they work much better without adapters. Also with a Chromebook, about the only thing you'd likely see is the photos folder if it was in PTP mode (I think). The Chromebook may also have a notification about it providing power to the USB device, but I'm not 100% sure. I don't think the microUSB->C adapters can do data, or at least the C->microUSB adapter I have (my Bose headphones are the only thing I keep in my bag that charges with microUSB anymore) does not do data.
Does the phone do anything when you press the power button? Does it vibrate at all, or if you keep holding it does anything come on the screen (Google logo, recovery, fastboot, etc). I'd try getting into Fastboot and see if the screen itself works. If it does, that might be a good sign. Hopefully you can then get into recovery and do a reset. I would suck to lose all your apps and data and stuff but it would be better than the brick it is now, I guess. You can go here and double click the device to see what is backed up and when it was last backed up: https://drive.google.com/drive/u/0/backups. I know that won't help you with non-Play apps like you said in your OP but it is better than starting over 100% from scratch.
If you can approximate the location of the buttons you could also try swiping down to the notification shade and tapping the quick tiles you might have in your top row. For example I have Flashlight as my far right one. If you can guess roughly where it might be you can see if the flashlight comes on, which might help determine that the screen is the issue, etc. Double tap power button to see if the camera opens (vibrates when it does) etc.
If I think of anything else to try I'll let you know.
fury683 said:
Cords are kind of goofy.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Agreed. I was a little annoyed at the tech I went to for telling me that "the charging cable is a data cable, they're the same thing."
As a brief update, I got ADB installed and running on the chromebook in anticipation of trying the commands. Plugging in the phone yields nothing in adb. However, I also tried with someone else's phone (after enabling developer mode and USB debugging) to see if it's the computer, and it doesn't see that phone either, so maybe I'm missing something else in how it works.
fury683 said:
Does the phone do anything when you press the power button? Does it vibrate at all, or if you keep holding it does anything come on the screen (Google logo, recovery, fastboot, etc).
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Pressing the power button doesn't do anything noticeable. No vibration, and nothing on the screen. If I touch the fingerprint sensor I get the little vibration of acknowledgment that usually means that the phone is unlocking. A further complication comes from the fact that the first time after rebooting, the phone requires a code and won't unlock just from the fingerprint. I found that when I pick up an incoming call (by touching the right part of the screen), the number buttons (for dialing) respond as well. I don't think they're in exactly the same place on the lock screen though.
fury683 said:
If you can approximate the location of the buttons you could also try swiping down to the notification shade and tapping the quick tiles you might have in your top row.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Yes, that would help if I could figure out where those are on the screen. I don't remember for sure what order things show up in, though, and I don't know if that menu even comes up if the phone isn't unlocked. Double-clicking the power button doesn't do anything either, whereas it usually vibrates a little and launches the camera.
I still plan on trying to get a different cable later, but if I can't get something from ADB on a different phone either, I might need to wait until I can use a different computer.
Another update:
I went and bought a new USB-C cord and hooked up the phone. ADB does, indeed, recognize that there is something there, however it gives me this:
error: device unauthorized.
This adb server's $ADB_VENDOR_KEYS is not set
Try 'adb kill-server' if that seems wrong.
Otherwise check for a confirmation dialog on your device.
A little searching turns up suggestions to delete one or two files (which I did), and....disable/reenable and accept the incoming connection on the phone! Well, I can't exactly do that. Any ideas on what to do from this side?
Thanks again!
FireflyII said:
Agreed. I was a little annoyed at the tech I went to for telling me that "the charging cable is a data cable, they're the same thing."
As a brief update, I got ADB installed and running on the chromebook in anticipation of trying the commands. Plugging in the phone yields nothing in adb. However, I also tried with someone else's phone (after enabling developer mode and USB debugging) to see if it's the computer, and it doesn't see that phone either, so maybe I'm missing something else in how it works.
Pressing the power button doesn't do anything noticeable. No vibration, and nothing on the screen. If I touch the fingerprint sensor I get the little vibration of acknowledgment that usually means that the phone is unlocking. A further complication comes from the fact that the first time after rebooting, the phone requires a code and won't unlock just from the fingerprint. I found that when I pick up an incoming call (by touching the right part of the screen), the number buttons (for dialing) respond as well. I don't think they're in exactly the same place on the lock screen though.
Yes, that would help if I could figure out where those are on the screen. I don't remember for sure what order things show up in, though, and I don't know if that menu even comes up if the phone isn't unlocked. Double-clicking the power button doesn't do anything either, whereas it usually vibrates a little and launches the camera.
I still plan on trying to get a different cable later, but if I can't get something from ADB on a different phone either, I might need to wait until I can use a different computer.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
fury683 said:
If you can approximate the location of the buttons you could also try swiping down to the notification shade and tapping the quick tiles you might have in your top row. For example I have Flashlight as my far right one. If you can guess roughly where it might be you can see if the flashlight comes on, which might help determine that the screen is the issue, etc.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Guess what? I found the flashlight. I called the phone, answered by swiping the general location, and tapped around the screen listening to touch-tones until I had a decent sense of where the number pad is on the screen. After hanging up, I touched the fingerprint reader, tapped my password into what might be the location of the numbers, and then dragged down from the top of the screen to get to those tiles. Tapped a little here and a little there, and lo and behold, the flashlight toggles on and off!
So at this point, I'm not *sure* that I've logged into the phone, although it seems plausible, and confirmed that behind the darkness there is something running. If you're right about the wifi having been forgotten though, it may be hard to check on whether it's connected. I don't suppose you could share a screenshot of giving ADB permissions so that I have an idea of where on the screen to tap if the message is popping up. If I could get that to accept and then get into the phone with ADB to back up my files I would be far more at ease with sending the phone off for repair!
Current status: slightly less of a brick than before, but still a ways to go!
Unfortunately the flashlight will toggle on even when locked. Also, depending on your lockscreen notification setting you would not be able to grant your computer adb access without the screen unlocked. Try holding the button combo to get to bootloader with the phone plugged in. That way you can hear a sound through the chromebook if it disconnects and reconnects. If you get that use fastboot devices to see if it is recognized. From there you could try to flash factory image without wipe and see if it helps.
wangdaning said:
Unfortunately the flashlight will toggle on even when locked. Also, depending on your lockscreen notification setting you would not be able to grant your computer adb access without the screen unlocked. Try holding the button combo to get to bootloader with the phone plugged in. That way you can hear a sound through the chromebook if it disconnects and reconnects. If you get that use fastboot devices to see if it is recognized. From there you could try to flash factory image without wipe and see if it helps.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Hm. I hadn't realized that the flashlight works from the lock screen. Any idea what else works from there? Is it possible to toggle wireless data, wifi, airplane mode, etc from the lock screen? I've been tapping around the area where the flashlight control is, but I don't know what, if anything, is being accomplished.
By a combination of button presses and the fastboot reboot-bootloader command, I'm reasonably certain that I'm getting it to boot to the bootloader (at least it tells me on the chromebook that it was successful in that), but there's still nothing on the phone's screen and I'm not sure what to do from there. How do I flash an image without wipe, and what would that accomplish? Ideally at this point I'd just like a way to either perform a backup or outright copy files from the phone to the computer, and I need a way to grant the permissions to allow that.
Thank you for helping!
FireflyII said:
Hm. I hadn't realized that the flashlight works from the lock screen. Any idea what else works from there? Is it possible to toggle wireless data, wifi, airplane mode, etc from the lock screen? I've been tapping around the area where the flashlight control is, but I don't know what, if anything, is being accomplished.
By a combination of button presses and the fastboot reboot-bootloader command, I'm reasonably certain that I'm getting it to boot to the bootloader (at least it tells me on the chromebook that it was successful in that), but there's still nothing on the phone's screen and I'm not sure what to do from there. How do I flash an image without wipe, and what would that accomplish? Ideally at this point I'd just like a way to either perform a backup or outright copy files from the phone to the computer, and I need a way to grant the permissions to allow that.
Thank you for helping!
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
@FireflyII
To install the factory image without wiping data or internal storage edit the flash-all file. remove the minus w (-w) before update.
- Then connect your phone to the computer
- Open a Command prompt in the Platform-tools folder.
- At the command prompt type flash-all
If it is successful your phone should boot into the OS
Do you have a USB keyboard handy? I just connected mine via the USB adapter in the box for my phone, rebooted and used it to put in my PIN and get into my phone. After rebooting I tapped the fingerprint sensor to show the PIN screen and typed my PIN on the numpad (had to turn numlock on) and pressed enter and it went to my home screen.
I swiped my notification shade down (two long swipes to get it to show the settings icon) and was able to use TAB to get to the settings gear (19 taps of tab...) and press enter to get to settings. From there you could try getting to the USB Debugging settings. Here are some screenshots to help with that:
Scroll to the very bottom of settings and pick System if you've already enabled Developer Options:
{
"lightbox_close": "Close",
"lightbox_next": "Next",
"lightbox_previous": "Previous",
"lightbox_error": "The requested content cannot be loaded. Please try again later.",
"lightbox_start_slideshow": "Start slideshow",
"lightbox_stop_slideshow": "Stop slideshow",
"lightbox_full_screen": "Full screen",
"lightbox_thumbnails": "Thumbnails",
"lightbox_download": "Download",
"lightbox_share": "Share",
"lightbox_zoom": "Zoom",
"lightbox_new_window": "New window",
"lightbox_toggle_sidebar": "Toggle sidebar"
}
If you haven't enabled it before you have to go to About and scroll to the very bottom and tap Developer Options 7 (I think?) times. I can't remember if it requires a PIN to enable or not.... someone else might need to sound off on that one.
On the System screen about halfway down there is an Advanced rollup. Expanding that shows Developer Options:
Once you are on Developer Options what I did was touch just above my home button on Apply Automatic Updates. I slid my finger up so that it was even with the VOL UP button, that brought "Enable USB Debugging" to the area just above the home button. Toggle is on the right:
Also to build on what the others have said, if your bootloader is unlocked you could try flashing the factory image (remove -w from the flash-all.bat or sh to preserve data) to see if that gets it going. Hopefully the keyboard helps making things a little easier to move around.
--After I typed all that I realized there is a search bar in settings. Mine doesn't seem to be doing anything, might be a bug in Q. I connected the keyboard to my fiancee's Pixel 3 (not XL) and typing "USB Debug" didn't find anything but she has Developer Options off. Looks like you can search for whatever screen you're trying to get to and it should even scroll to that option if it's not on the screen. Once on a screen you can use the arrow keys to move through them and press enter to go into that screen. Might be a little easier to use a keyboard for navigation than going blind
Hope this helps!!!
If you never rooted or installed twrp you should have factory recovery and could try an ota (would be blind hard button pushing). If bootloader unlocked you could try factory image without wipe. It would be a last attempt I guess. I think adb is available in stock recovery to do backup maybe (Again blind hard button pushing). If you have unlocked bootloader you could try to do a data backup with twrp, though that would be blind screen button pushing, which is not easy.
Somethings we need to know, did you unlock bootloader? What is the state of developer options?
I am only saying a factory image flash to see if your screen comes back. If it does not it must be some issue with the screen, not a software issue. Was the the phone ever dropped? Any reason a connection might have came loose?
Homeboy76 said:
@FireflyII
To install the factory image without wiping data or internal storage edit the flash-all file. remove the minus w (-w) before update.
- Then connect your phone to the computer
- Open a Command prompt in the Platform-tools folder.
- At the command prompt type flash-all
If it is successful your phone should boot into the OS
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
I'm traveling today and will have to try this out tonight. Just to clarify a few things though, where are these files? I've flashed other phones with custom recovery and ROMs before, but not this one yet. Will it be obvious when I download the factory image?
Also, assuming that the process works, where does that put me? I understand how it would help if there is something corrupt that is keeping the phone from working correctly, but in that case I would expect the screen to show something, at least when rebooting. If the display is physically broken and the phone is otherwise working, does installing the factory image and letting it start up mean that it will let me connect with adb? I would expect the result to be either the same as where I am now, or possibly slightly worse if it resets to non-debug-over-usb mode! As I said, I'm up for trying it, but I'd like to know what changes to expect beforehand, if possible.
Thanks again.
FireflyII said:
I'm traveling today and will have to try this out tonight. Just to clarify a few things though, where are these files? I've flashed other phones with custom recovery and ROMs before, but not this one yet. Will it be obvious when I download the factory image?
Also, assuming that the process works, where does that put me? I understand how it would help if there is something corrupt that is keeping the phone from working correctly, but in that case I would expect the screen to show something, at least when rebooting. If the display is physically broken and the phone is otherwise working, does installing the factory image and letting it start up mean that it will let me connect with adb? I would expect the result to be either the same as where I am now, or possibly slightly worse if it resets to non-debug-over-usb mode! As I said, I'm up for trying it, but I'd like to know what changes to expect beforehand, if possible.
Thanks again.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
It sure sounds like something happened to the screen to me. Could be a connector unplugged, bad display, etc. Flashing the factory image isn't going to help any of that.
fury683 said:
Do you have a USB keyboard handy? I just connected mine via the USB adapter in the box for my phone, rebooted and used it to put in my PIN and get into my phone. After rebooting I tapped the fingerprint sensor to show the PIN screen and typed my PIN on the numpad (had to turn numlock on) and pressed enter and it went to my home screen.... Might be a little easier to use a keyboard for navigation than going blind
Hope this helps!!!
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Absolutely! I didn't know that you could use a keyboard to enter the PIN, that is certainly helpful! Thank you also for the screenshots and descriptive locations for things. I've got about another hour or so before I get home and can try these out, but thank you very much!
Happy to help, man. Let me know how it goes or if you need any more help. ?
fury683 said:
Happy to help, man. Let me know how it goes or if you need any more help.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Well, I have something of a new development now. After traveling all day and not knowing for sure if the phone was on or off, I wasn't getting much from it on Tuesday night or Wednesday morning, so I plugged it in, waited until I got the flashlight on, and left it to charge during the day while I attended to other things. This morning the alarm on the phone went off, and I swiped to the side...a bit later it rang again, so I assumed I had done "snooze" and swiped the other way. Again, it rang after a while, but this time I let it go. Once I had a moment, I pulled out the charger and tried the keyboard. Nothing. Now the phone is totally inert--it doesn't ring when called, the flashlight doesn't respond, and no amount of pressing and holding the buttons brings it back. However, almost as soon as I plug it in again, I am able to use the flashlight. Disconnect, nothing. This seems like a power issue to me. Ordinarily at this point I'd open up the phone to check out the battery (okay, honestly I'd have done that a while ago), but the phone is sealed. I found a tear-down guide on ifixit that suggests using suction cups and possibly a heat source to pry the thing open, but I don't have any suction cups on hand and am dubious about finding ones strong enough locally.
So to sum up:
The phone is a brick until I plug it in. At that point the little fingerprint sensor vibrates when touched, and I can toggle the flashlight on and off. I can disconnect the power and still have the flashlight working until I touch the fingerprint sensor again. At that point, it doesn't vibrate, but the phone returns to brick status.
*sigh*
Time to call Google again, I think.
FireflyII said:
Well, I have something of a new development now. After traveling all day and not knowing for sure if the phone was on or off, I wasn't getting much from it on Tuesday night or Wednesday morning, so I plugged it in, waited until I got the flashlight on, and left it to charge during the day while I attended to other things. This morning the alarm on the phone went off, and I swiped to the side...a bit later it rang again, so I assumed I had done "snooze" and swiped the other way. Again, it rang after a while, but this time I let it go. Once I had a moment, I pulled out the charger and tried the keyboard. Nothing. Now the phone is totally inert--it doesn't ring when called, the flashlight doesn't respond, and no amount of pressing and holding the buttons brings it back. However, almost as soon as I plug it in again, I am able to use the flashlight. Disconnect, nothing. This seems like a power issue to me. Ordinarily at this point I'd open up the phone to check out the battery (okay, honestly I'd have done that a while ago), but the phone is sealed. I found a tear-down guide on ifixit that suggests using suction cups and possibly a heat source to pry the thing open, but I don't have any suction cups on hand and am dubious about finding ones strong enough locally.
So to sum up:
The phone is a brick until I plug it in. At that point the little fingerprint sensor vibrates when touched, and I can toggle the flashlight on and off. I can disconnect the power and still have the flashlight working until I touch the fingerprint sensor again. At that point, it doesn't vibrate, but the phone returns to brick status.
*sigh*
Time to call Google again, I think.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Does it provide any power to the keyboard? If you turn the numlock or capslock on you might be able to see if the keyboard is powered.
I just plugged one in and tried it and found tapping spacebar brings up the PIN entry. Get it to boot, tap spacebar enter PIN and hit enter. Like I said, that might not do much if you can't confirm you're in without a screen...
---------- Post added at 02:39 PM ---------- Previous post was at 02:37 PM ----------
Also, have you tried using a wireless charger to see if that does anything differently? Might be useful to charge wirelessly and use the USB port for keyboard if it dies without a charger?