Xperia 10 III charging issue

Bug Reports
#1

REPRODUCIBILITY: Yes, when i am trying to recharge the battery
OS VERSION: 4.4.0.72
HARDWARE: Xperia 10 III
UI LANGUAGE: English
REGRESSION: New

DESCRIPTION:

When i am connecting the changer, it will show as charging. but the percentage doesnot increases. Instead it will be draining in regular pace. Yesterday night, my battery was of 13%, i kept for charging, after 2-3 hours, it was still showing as charging but the battery percentage was 6%. So I switched off the mobile and connected to changer. Started mobile once after the charging has been done

PRECONDITIONS:

STEPS TO REPRODUCE:

  1. Nothing special, just connect to charger, it will shows as charging but it wont be charging

EXPECTED RESULT:

Battery percentage should increase. Phone should get charger, and while the phone is connected to charger.

ACTUAL RESULT:

Instead of battery getting charge it get drained.

MODIFICATIONS:

I had battery buddy, but i removed that

ADDITIONAL INFORMATION:

2 Likes
#2

Right after you ‘change’ the issue to… let’s say “charging issue” :wink: (it seems autocorrection hit twice)
you should try different cables and chargers…that’s what helped me. (Even charger / cable combinations failed to charge my 10III, that woked nicely on 10II or 10 Plus - the issue is not new for me, happened on 4.4.0.68 already).

You can check, if other combinations work, by using e.g. ‘AIDA64’ or ‘Usage’ displaying charging/discharging current.

1 Like
#3

Thank you @tobset . The usage is fine, i am getting good battery backup. Facing the issue, only while charging the phone while it is ON… Same cable and charger works fine, when i switch off the phone and connect to charger.

And during phone ON and charging, its does shows the charging icon. but it does not increases the percentage.

1 Like
#4

I noticed one charger of mine (samsung) working rather erratically on X III, 80% of the time it will only reach 400mA and it takes a while to even start, while others and laptops go to 1500mA almost instantly, have you tried checking what gets negotiated (battery buddy for example will show you), might be one of those super chargers with proprietary bits that ends up with safe voltage, if you had something intensive running could result in negative net charge maybe?

1 Like
#5

You can also see the charging current using the CSD tool (click the SFOS version 7 times in Settings).

I believe X10III supports limiting the charge current, but I can’t remember the filename off the top of my head. I doubt it survives reboot, though.

#6

I have noticed problems charging too, and have been trying various things. What is clear to me at this point is that the problem is with the OS and not anything to do with either cables, chargers, or the phone itself. To verify this you can power off your phone from the menu next time it refuses to charge (without removing any cables). It will power off and then power on again into sony’s mini bootloader charging OS, where it will happily start to charge normally. I haven’t had a chance yet to test what happens if you do a reboot into Sailfish.

What I also haven’t found yet is a pattern, it just seems to randomly refuse to start charging, eventhough the battery indicator indicates it is charging (little block with the lightning bolt).

2 Likes
#7

Correct. I too feels, its something related to OS, else it will not behave differently when it is switch off (Charging as expected when switch off)

#8

I run into the same issue today, actually the misbehaviour started while I was charging the phone from a battery bank, it went up to 71% and stopped there. A couple of other chargers also failed to charge the phone battery. Battery buddy was also showing some strange current drain ~1100-1400mA which I do not think it was correct. At the end I had to … reboot the phone and now the battery is charging properly.

#9

I noticed today that when this happens the CSD tool ‘power consumers’ will switch from state ‘Discharging’ to state ‘NotCharging’ rather than the expected ‘Charging’. The UI will obviously still show the wrong state as-if it’s charging, but it looks like the device actually does know there is a problem, or at least it can differentiate between the three different states.

#10

I finally remembered to try a pure reboot (reboot command issued from a devel-su terminal) and can now confirm that after rebooting into sailfish the status in CSD changed from NotCharging to Charging and battery percentage is actually increasing.

1 Like
#11

The phone seems to be very picky about USB cables, if you choose “the correct” ones it works.

I ran into this as well with my newly acquired Xperia 10 III. The annoying thing is, that it even gives a “charging” notification and changes the battery symbol accordingly, even when it is not actually charging succesfully. You need to open the PSD tool to discover the ongoing battery drain.

I tried out all the USB C cables I own. Some of them work for charging – I marked them accordingly – while some others do not. I also tried different chargers, it’s the cables that make the difference, no matter whether on a 1A or 2.4A charger. But I could not make out the decisive property of the cable, they have different lengths and colors (blue, red, white, black) but no clear pattern arises.

This does of course not mean there is no software/ firmware issue involved as well. As a good sailor I just did not really often charge the phone before flashing it, so I did not gather enough data under Android :relaxed:

One victim of this pickyness is a power bank with a fixed cable, it fails to charge this phone :frowning:

1 Like
#12

I recently tried charging the 10 III with SFOS using a 33 Watt Motorola G52 charger. I couldn’t make it charge faster than < 2 Amps.

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#13

i have a 18W PD battery that works well with my old XA2 on 4.4, and it works speedily with other phones, yet on my 10iii it seems to charge [really] slowly.

#14

If i use my lenovo charger i actually get 3A. Every other charger lets the battery drain if it is in use. I just let them charge overnight. when the screen is off, it actually works.

#15

With my Xperia 10 iii device I experienced this pickiness for the correct cable also the short period I was using the device under Android, so in my experience this pickiness is independent from the OS and I guess not a Sailfish OS bug, but somewhat deeper or hardware related.
In addition, cables with USB-C on both ends (charger and phone) seem to have a higher chance to do proper charging, whereas from my collection of USB-A to USB-C cables only two are potent enough to charge the phone.

I wonder: what is the specification for a USB cable to be successful in charging the Xperia 10 iii???

1 Like
#16

I remember having a charging issue with 10 iii, i was away and both battery bank and third party borrowed charger failed to provide charge. After rebooting the phone it started charging without issues.

#17

Using my Raspberry Pi 400’s stock USB-C charger (3.1 A, 5 V, i.e. ~15 Watt) I still only get < 2 Amps. That’s with the phone on. I’ll check if there’s any difference (using some power meter that would show current draw of the charger) if the phone is charged when it is off…

#18

I can charge my X10III with a laptop charger up to 3.5A, but it makes the device really hot. I have the charge current limiter in Battery Buddy set to 1.5A, that is fast enough without heating up.

Sometimes I use the full 3.5A, but then I pop the phone out of its wallet case and use a stand so it can cool from both sides. It still gets quite hot, though.

#19

What charger are you using that delivers you 1.5A? (ah, the laptop charger but limited?)

#20

Yes, the laptop charger, and the limit is set via Battery Buddy.