Xperia 10 III Thinks Charger is Always Connected

REPRODUCIBILITY: Whenever phone is put on charge after a fresh install
OS VERSION: 5.0.0.62
HARDWARE: XQ-BT52
UI LANGUAGE: US EN
REGRESSION: New

DESCRIPTION:

When disconnected from any charger, the phone believes it’s still connected. The charging LED comes on when the screen is off and the charging icon always has a cable connected to it.

The persists across reboots and the phone displays the “Charging” notification banner when the phone is powered on.

The only way to stop this behaviour is to re-flash Sailfish OS. But the issue occurs the next time the phone is plugged in.

PRECONDITIONS:

STEPS TO REPRODUCE:

  1. Plug USB cable into phone
  2. Unplug cable

EXPECTED RESULT:

Device stops charging, battery icon changes to show the device is no longer connected

ACTUAL RESULT:

Battery icon shows device is still plugged in. Phone insists it is charging when rebooted.

MODIFICATIONS:

ADDITIONAL INFORMATION:

2 Likes

Sounds a bit like it might be a hardware problem.

If you’re able to reflash anyway maybe test whether Android has the same issue?

The problem didn’t exist in Android prior to flashing Sailfish

At first glance looks like hardware issue.

But Im not sure. I had many problems with proper charnging of 10 III.
The most annoying one is when I connect the charger, device says it is charging but battery isn’t charging, it’s discharging. When I connect the charger, disconnect it immediately and then connect once again it chargers ok.

On XA2 on the other hand problem is different. Connecting the charger sometimes results in endlesly loop lasting few secons of
-Charger connected, charging
-Charger disconnected
-Charger connected, charging
-Charger disconnected and so on
Withoput really charging anything. It is happening on the same charger that was able to charge the phone previously

I don’t know if it is reperatable on 10 III, but charging loop I encounter on all of my XA2’s (3 of them)

As mentioned previously, this behaviour wasn’t present under Android, which makes it unlikely to be hardware-relate.

Further, when the phone is powered down, it doesn’t enter the powered off charging screen. If the phone’s hardware thought the charger was still connected, it should be showing me the battery charging screen when the unit is off.

There’s been reports of people having issues when using Android 11 as a base, with Android 12 and 13 providing a better experience. I’m going to flash a newer Android firmware and then reinstall Sailfish OS to see if that fixes anything.

1 Like

This loop occurs on my phone, too, when charging limit is set. Have set 80% charging limit. So when battery is full it changes between charging and not charging permanently every few minutes. But in practice it works so I ignore the display (and turn the phone upside down while sleeping in the night).

I can relate, If charging limit is set all devices behave in a way described by you.

I my case however problem with charging xa2 is different as it is happening randomly, especially when the battery is lower than 50%. And this loop accours every few seconds, not few minutes

I experienced this behavior with my C2 (the C2 thinks the charger is always connected) after disconnecting a UGreen CM512 USB-C dock. It requires some reboots to resolve the issue. It seems that the USB-C port is configured and does not update anymore, or it may be stuck in this configuration at the hardware or driver level.

I have the same problem with a 10 III and an XA2, I believe the status icon is not changed.

1 Like

So I’ve spent some time re-flashing my Xperia 10 III to try and fix this issue, and nothing has worked.

As a sanity check, I flashed stock Android 11, 12 and 13.

And the phone recognizes when it’s been unplugged from a cable just fine. There’s no way this is a hardware fault when the problem only occurs when Sailfish is installed.

I tried flashing Sailfish 4.4 and 5.0 with Android 11, 12 and 13 bases, while also trying to use a newer Sony vendor partition than what the instructions call for. This doesn’t change the behaviour at all under Sailfish.

No matter what I do, the phone fails to recognize when its been unplugged. Even the USB section in settings claims that the phone is still connected and stays in MTP mode without a cable in the USB-C port.

2 Likes

Did you try changing USB mode to charge only?

Edit: Try doing it with charger cable attached so when it tells you to reconnect you have something to do. Try reconnecting. Does it change behavior in any way?

I tried mucking around with the USB mode, including changing it to “Charge only”.

I also messed around with the charge limit to see if it would do anything.

It behaved the same. And it never asks me to reconnect to change modes like it does on my XA2.

My few cents: I use a Redmi 10Ah powerbank to charge the phone over night, both connected with USB cable. What happens is: Phone charges to 80%, this is set as charging limit. It needs half an hour or an hour for this. Then it stops loading and doesn’t drain current from the power bank no more.

Later, when battery drains to 78% it tries to start loading again, but power bank will not supply any current until a button is pushed.
In this case - USB is connected but no current comes from power bank - phone still displays ‘charging’ because USB is still connected, despite battery drains.

Conclusion: The display doesn’t update as long as the USB connector is physically connected to the jack on the phone, no matter if it really charges (current flows) or not.

I am having the same problem with my C2. Charging icon is displayed, even though device is not connected at all (via USB-C). As far as i can remember i had the same problem with my old XA2+, with older versions (< 5).