EMERGENCY: Xperia XA2 won't charge, won't back up files, battery at 15%

General
#1

Today my Xperia XA2 suddenly would not charge. I noticed the bottom part of the phone getting really hot, and when I disconnected the USB cable the connector was so hot it physically hurt to touch it. I have tried turning the phone off and leaving it for a while, and tried a different charger, to no avail. I have carefully cleaned the USB socket, though there wasn’t much of anything in it. Any USB cable I plug in that is connected to something at the other end (charger, laptop) very quickly gets hot at the phone connector end.

In desperation and with the battery at 20% I removed both SIM cards and inserted a 64GB VFAT MicroSD to make a last-minute back up (card verified to be accessible in SFOS). At first the backup failed with “Error: cannot load playlists”, which I read here in the forum was due to there not being enough room on the internal storage. I deleted all the music files (which I already have copies of elsewhere) which freed up more than half of the internal storage and tried again. This time the back up ran all the way to the “compressing” stage but then failed with “Error: cannot load” (it does not say what it is it “cannot load”). I tried rebooting but the problem remains the same, and the battery is now at just 15%…

Help!

#2

Your data will not be lost if battery runs below 2% and phone switches off. I guess that the battery management has gone crazy, maybe a hard reboot will help. Did you try to reboot the phone by pressing + holding both Vol up + Power button until phone reboots? This would restart also the battery management, if it went crazy by software crash.

#3

Sounds to me as if the socket is damaged. Replacement is cheap and the board is easy to change.

… tried it because I had problems with my lower microphone. While replacing it, I found out it was just a loose cable.

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#4

I have now - the phone vibrates once, and then three times if I keep holding the buttons, then it reboots. No change. I noticed that the top left power icon is stuck on the “charging” symbol (lightning bolt) regardless of whether it’s actually plugged in or not. I also cannot access the phone over USB from my laptop; lsusb does not list it even if I change the default USB mode to always use MTP. USB connector at phone end still gets hot very quickly. Battery now at 5%…

#5

Where are the “notes” stored? /home/nemo/.local/share/jolla-notes does not exist on my phone…

#6

I have now manually copied the /home/nemo/.local/ and /root/.local/ directories (as well as Photos, Videos, etc) to the 64GB MicroSD card. I hope these contain everything I need, because the battery is about to give up.

#7

Hi,
What Sailfish version? Now, the user dir is /home/defaultuser/.
Notes are in /home/defaultuser/.local/share/com.jolla/notes/QML/OfflineStorage/Databases/, not anymore in /home/nemo/...

Regarding charging, I’d bet for a short-circuit in the phone’s plug.
I’d advice to not plug anything any more.

Than I’d continue in this order:
-Get a inductive charger (wireless) and cherge the phone (I never tried but know it exists)
-Backup on the uSD or, via wifi/ssh
-Only open the phone when you are sure of your backup

Some other places of interrest:
Calendar:
/home/defaultuser/.local/share/system/privileged/Calendar/mkcal/
Messages:
/home/defaultuser/.local/share/commhistory/
Contacts:
/home/defaultuser/.local/share/system/privileged/Contacts/qtcontacts-sqlite/

2 Likes
#8

I’m on 4.3.0.12 and there is no /home/defaultuser/ directory, only /home/nemo/ and a hidden /home/.system/.

#9

Sorry, I miss knowledge in that case. Maybe upgraded since older version?

#10

Definitely; had this phone for almost two years now.

I don’t think the Xperia XA2 supports wireless charging?

#11

Thanks, I have now found the database at /home/nemo/.local/share/com.jolla/notes/QML/OfflineStorage/Databases/8b63c31a7656301b3f7bcbbfef8a2b6f.sqlite I think my back up is complete!

#12

Worth a search on the net, I’d n’t abandon.

#13

I have been using a wireless charging pad on my XA2 for months now https://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/282997086942. That one is from China but I found a UK-based supplier of exactly the same thing (I am in the UK!). It works great. The phone doesn’t know anything about it. The USB plug is rounded so it doesn’t catch on anything and a very thin flat cable does a 90 turn so the pad fits against the back of the phone. You do need to use a gel/rubber type case to protect it. I have tried a couple of wireless chargers and they work fine - just put the phone down! Tip: if you charge at night beside your bed, don’t get a charger that lights up!

It doesn’t help the OP sadly, but in my experience the USB socket is the #2 reason for a broken phone (#1 being a cracked screen. The gel case helps there too.)

I think I searched for “XA2 wireless” originally to help filter out the eBay crap. It was listed as for XA2 and various other Sony phones but I believe it is just a generic USB-C thing.

2 Likes
#14

Even, wondering if EM emissions near the bed are so good…

1 Like
#15

I can tell definitely that a long time updated phone, that had ‘nemo’ as username at installing time, still has ‘nemo’ as username until now.

But all new flashed phones have ‘defaultuser’ as standard user name.

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#16

If you mean from the wireless charging point of view, it is purely magnetic. No different from transformers which are in all sorts of things - the chargers and charging pads are only flat coils of wire inside. IIRC the magnetic field drops away exponentially with distance. Certainly the phone only charges within a mm or two of the charger.

But if you mean EM from the phone itself that’s another long discussion!

1 Like
#17

I never knew that it’s possible to charge a XA2 with a wireless charger! What about a Xperia 10? Can it also be charged by wireless charger?

#18

I don’t know, I’ve only got a XA2, but I don’t think there’s anything special in the phone, hw or sw. When you put it on the charger it just thinks you’ve plugged the cable in; when you take it off again it thinks you’ve unplugged the cable.

It would be a question of the dimensions of the charging pad (needs to be smaller than the phone!) and a suitable case to protect it as it would flap around and be quite delicate otherwise. (There is a slight downside to the gel/rubber case I use - the edges of the case are designed to stand proud of the glass (to protect the glass if you drop it) but that is unhelpful for sideways swiping. But luckily the extra thickness of the charging pad in the back means the edges of the case are not so proud.)

I think it might charge a bit slower but I haven’t measured it. I just charge at night and its done by morning.

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#19

You can even build one.
Some more readings:

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#20

Why would you bother with this? Every time you need to connect using the USB connection the wireless adapter needs to be unplugged plus the charging time will be longer. The phone wont fit into the normal cases especially the like of the Sony flip case.