A2017G not turning on, notification light blinks red on power/plug in. - ZTE Axon 7 Questions & Answers

So, I went for dinner tonight downstairs and when I came back I found my phone(A2017G) turned off with the notification light stuck on red.
Phone's old, bought it in July 2018(bought it resealed), though I had it changed via warranty after about two months due to the top speaker having the crackling/distortion issue. So I basically ended up with a brand new sealed phone for ~225$ at that time.
Back on topic though, plugging it in, it attempts to start up(vibrates and turns on), but displays the discharged battery icon (as if it ran out to 0 and shut itself off). Pressing the power button gives me the ZTE logo, the Unlocked boot-loader warning screen (which I usually bypass by pressing the power button again), then it blinks red three times and shuts itself off again. It's not booting in recovery either(running the nFound TWRP + crDroid ROM). However it won't charge. Tried multiple cables/charger combos, all act the same. it vibrates, displays the icon, then shuts off.
The device being bricked is pretty much out of the question right, unless it went DFU due to the battery? I've had it unlocked for the past 3 years at least...never had much issues with flashing (apart from the initial unlock which I wanted to be extra careful with but the drivers + EDL tool made it dead easy). And I haven't flashed or did anything of sorts recently.
Now, I'm 99% sure that the battery has finally given out, since the screen and presumably everything else work fine. The charging port has had no issues, always charged at QC amperage, no disconnects or anything, no "loosening" as I've had on multiple other phones. To be fair though , phone had started acting out a bit, slowing down and randomly closing apps...in the past few weeks and knowing the battery had already lost ~1000 mAh, I expected it to give out at some point. It's probably the safety mechanism built into it right?
The phone is old, as I said and according to Accu Battery, it's been at ~70% health for a while now.
Fortunately, a service shop in my country seems to have replacement batteries in an outside warehouse in Germany It should take around a week to deliver one to me, I'll change it myself. It seems to be original also. It's 25$, but I kinda wanted an opinion if I should buy it and replace it. I mean, for 25$...I've got nothing to lose, but hey, won't hurt to gather more info first.
I kinda don't want to replace the phone...since it still works fine and I still haven't found a replacement in the audio department. I've had people around me change their phones(to varying models, from low to high end) and tried each and every one of them(with Neutron/Hi-Res and enhancers off) and none sound as good as the Axon on the 3.5mm jack. The Axon simply works for me. Camera with GCam still slaps proper light pictures and documents, screen + sound is still fantastic for movies/anime at night when I can't be bothered to sit in a chair, calls are still crispier and louder than most phones today.

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Phone won't start

Caveat - This is my son's phone, and only the recent observations are my own. I can't be sure he didn't do something to munge it up, though I am fairly certain he has not tried to flash it (I haven't either). In any case . . .
I bought an unlocked SMT5600 on eBay about 6 weeks ago. It worked great for about 3 weeks, then went on the fritz. It started by only booting to the red-green-blue OS screen. Removing the battery did nothing to reset it. It was still doing this when I retrieved it from my son. When I finally had time to look at it four days later, it booted once or twice to that screen, but then stopped doing even that. I have since done research online and not seen a similar situation. Other observations - there is no change if I swap out the battery for one that I know is charged. After replacing the battery, when I insert the charge cord (wall plug, not USB to PC) the power light flashes red briefly, then goes black and never comes on again.
Of course the eBay seller is telling me I'm SOL at this point. Before the problems began, I actually bought three more of these phones from the same seller and none has had any problems. My son is not into modding or installing programs, and tells me he has done neither. I think this is likely the case, but it is conceivable he or a friend might have tried something. So I am looking for assistance/direction in what to try next. Although I don't think I have the correct torx to disassemble it right now, I am willing to get the right tools and give that a go to avoid a $150 paperweight.
Thanks, mastman
booting to loader screen
I had this problem, turned out to be a faulty / stuck camera switch
check it clicks well, to check for stuck,
if it clicks well you will need to open the phone to check it with a meter.
not sure why its gone dead now, but sounds a little like a over flat battery.
Ive fixed these in the past by using a 300mah 3v suply for 20 secs at a time to bring it back up to a level the phone will charge.
please be very carefull li-ion cells are very dangerous, try useing a known good battery first in the phone to check its charging
good luck
j
My SMT5600 choked as it was being flashed, now it won't charge nothing, just a paperweight. Is there anyway to resurrect it? At all?
Thanks

G2 Powered Itself Off...For Good.

Yesterday I FINALLY received my new G2. Playing around with the device I was very excited at It's functionality and performance. I did get unlucky enough to receive one with loose hinges, but they didn't seem that big of a deal to me.
However, after owning the device for only 8 hours, I tried a little angry birds and setup Galactic Core live wallpaper. I flipped the keyboard open and noticed that the wallpaper disappeared to a black background. Hmmm, fairly odd. Closed the keyboard and still bring it back. Attempted to re-apply the wallpaper which didn't work either. I was getting ready to power cycle the phone when it turned itself off.
Tried pressing the power button and opening the keyboard. Nothing. Tried taking the battery out and then attempting to power the device on. Nothing. Tried plugging in the power cable to both the AC charger and a USB port on my PC. Nothing. Tried swapping the battery with the demo model at work. Nothing. I don't get any sound, vibration or even so much as a charging LED out of the device. I've pressed about every button and the device is non responsive.
So with all of the G2 bugs of this nature I am reading about (People with the same issue except theirs turns back on after a battery pull), is there a trick I'm unaware of or is this thing DOA?
DOA means dead on arrival, yours clearly wasn't dead when you received it , just call tmo and have them exchange you for another one.
greenstuffs said:
DOA means dead on arrival, yours clearly wasn't dead when you received it , just call tmo and have them exchange you for another one.
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Gee, thank you for the sarcastic response.
This is probably a dumb question, but does the battery have any charge left in it? You could try plugging into the charger, waiting a couple of minutes, then trying to turn it on. Past that, I think the only solution would be to have TMO send you a new one.
If you can't even get the charging LED to come up then I would gather you've got a dud phone (hey, it can happen). I assume you'd let it sit there in attempts to charge the phone?
Just for curiosity's sake, have you tried plugging it into a computer?
If all else fails, just go back to T-Mo and exchange it for another one.
Maybe try holding volume down and power for the recovery mode?
G2 CM6.1.1 (free)

Atrix Black Screen

So Im a proud owner and enthusiast for the Atrix 4G (original only I cant stand any of the others released they did it best first time around). Ive had this phone with some minor problems for over a year. For a while the phone would randomly reboot in my pocket so long as it wasnt doing anything. If I were playing music on the device it wouldnt reboot but the second I stopped the music, put it in my pocket, and pulled it out it would be powered off. I reset the phone to factory (I had a flashed rooted rom on the device) and the problem stopped.
Now about 3-4 months later I made a phone call put the phone in my pocket to pull it out with a black screen. Now I thought the phone just died was all so I went in and plugged it in to the factory wall charger and to my surprise the LED came on and the phone chirped that it was charging. So it was actually still powered on. I tried looking at the screen from all angles and shined a light on it but there is no picture to be found anywhere. Otherwise the rest of the device (to the best of my knowledge) is still working properly. I could confirm this by my alarm going off in the morning and my in-ability to turn the alarm off due to a black screen.
Also ive pulled the battery, allowed the device to die, and have tried several chargers and other batteries I have so its not a battery or power issue. The screen also remains black on boot, you know the device is powered on once it boots into the OS and chirps that it has service.
Ive dis-assembled the phone to check all the cables in hopes that it would be a simple fix such as a loose cable however everything was double and triple confirmed to be plugged in and locked in place.
I had allowed the phone to die and waited a day or so with the battery pulled out once it had died and then plugged it in and allowed it to charge before powering it on for 30 minutes still to no avail. Ive even tried hard-naving to factory reset and still have had no luck.
I would like to purchase your dead phone for parts.
Sent from THE most powerful smartphone in the world!
To me, it sounds like you have a broken LCD screen.
Atrix 4G replacement LCD on ebay
(Note... that is simply the first link I saw on ebay. Do your research before buying anything, I barely even read it.)

[Q] Phone appears to be dead

I've been using my phone as I always would. I even used it around two minutes before it stopped working. I went up to get a drink, got a message and responded to it, went back to where I was and sat down and wanted to charge the phone only to notice that it didn't and it wouldn't turn on either.
I took out the battery and put it back on. I've checked the connectors and they seem to be alright. I held the power button for a minute without the battery in it, which was a trick I read on a website. I tried 3 different chargers (2 fast chargers and a regular one) and the phone won't charge (no red light) and the battery was 90% full when I went to get a drink, which I know because I was already charging. I've tried many things (holding power button with battery in it as well), but nothing seems to work and the device appears to be dead. It's a brand new device as well which I got in mars after my first Note 4 got stolen.
Any advice would be greatly appreciated!
sandeshnl said:
I've been using my phone as I always would. I even used it around two minutes before it stopped working. I went up to get a drink, got a message and responded to it, went back to where I was and sat down and wanted to charge the phone only to notice that it didn't and it wouldn't turn on either.
I took out the battery and put it back on. I've checked the connectors and they seem to be alright. I held the power button for a minute without the battery in it, which was a trick I read on a website. I tried 3 different chargers (2 fast chargers and a regular one) and the phone won't charge (no red light) and the battery was 90% full when I went to get a drink, which I know because I was already charging. I've tried many things (holding power button with battery in it as well), but nothing seems to work and the device appears to be dead. It's a brand new device as well which I got in mars after my first Note 4 got stolen.
Any advice would be greatly appreciated!
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My advice for you is to take it to the Samsung. This is a major issue for a almost brand new phone. Good luck.

A mix of mechanical and ROM questions

2018 may be late in the game to become a new owner of a OnePlus 2 phone. But here I am. My main phone at present remains a Samsung Note 4, and I'm trying to get a feel for how this old (but not as old as the Note 4) phone can be repaired. My issues are a mix of battery, possible circuit board, and other problems / eccentricities.
The phone was given to me non-working. I have a minor-league reputation for rescuing phones, so thought I'd try this one.
First, I had to get it up and going. Nothing worked initially. I wasn't delighted to find out the battery is only accessible after removing two covers and about 30 microscopic screws. I reset it by pulling the small "plug" at top center-right and the phone decided to allow me to boot. I immediately (per instructions I found elsewhere here) went to fastboot and wiped the cache.
I did manage to install TWRP and the latest (as of a few days back) version of Lineage 8.1. But then the problems began again. The phone would suddenly, after charging for a while (and reporting a battery that was nearly charged), shut down. No charging icon showed on the screen.
Fast foward. Today, I got a cheap knock-off battery in the mail. It intially worked and I got it nearly charged. But after more spontaneous reboots I noticed something odd; in TWRP, the battery said only 50% charged while in Lineage it said 97% charged. So once again I wiped the cache and this time the ART/Dalvik cache as well (pointless, but ya never know).
This did get the two percentage reports matching up. And initially it got the phone working again. But alas, once again, the phone started the shutting down.
Currently, I'm leaving it overnight to charge - if in fact it is charging (how does one tell)? If that doesn't work, I'm thinking about using Odin to totally reflash the original version of the operating system.
Any other ideas or input - including laughing at me for bothering with this - is permitted.
I will say that the engineering of this phone compared to the older Note 4 leaves the Note easily the winner; to take its battery out is a matter of 20 seconds. Really not impressed with my OnePlus experience so far...
Thought I'd update things. After spending a day on sites (here and on the official OnePlus community boards) I tried any number of fixes. I'm reasonably convinced the only way to somewhat consistently start my particular OnePlus 2 phone is to:
1. Open it up, thus voiding the warranty (hehehe.... by now that's void anyway).
2. Unplug the battery's small plug at upper right-center of battery (a fingernail works fine, but do make sure the phone isn't plugged in!)
3. *Leave the back off* or at best gingerly snap it on but without attaching the screws. (Every time I did so, even after extensively using the phone while it lay on my sofa's arm and rebooting it numerous successful times previous to replacing the screws, the phone refused to reboot.)
4. I also cleaned the usb c socket with a wood toothpick and was a little surprised at how dirty it was; I did the same in a minimal way to the battery contacts.
5. I found no real use to having the actual OnePlus charger; I used it a bit but my best results came from the Samsung charger and a new (though cheap) usb c cable I nabbed via ebay.
Today I did get the phone going and intentionally wiped Lineage and installed the latest (2017) version of the OnePlus2 official os. It went on fine. I rooted it, installed apps, and (as mentioned) repeatedly shut down and restarted the phone, which promptly restarted with only a 3 second lag. I did this 5 times because one thread I found suggested this was an official OnePlus suggestion. (I rolled my eyes but did it anyway.) Played with the phone a bit, then shut it down again and screwed the back on. As noted, the phone suddenly wouldn't turn on again.
In summary, I'm not sure if this phone can be meaningfully resurrected. If I knew where what may be a short in it was, I could possibly replace that part. But I have little idea and am not quite the geek enough to sort that out. I am guessing at a short because without the lid or screws, it wants to work. It wants to be a good phone for me and I'll keep toying with it for a while longer.
Any suggestions appreciated.
Third post is a question for others:
Has anyone else experienced their OnePlus 2 working fine *without* the back cover screwed on, but as soon as it was screwed on the phone stopped working and wouldn't start again? And, if so, did they ever sort out why?
I'm going to make this a separate discussion.
Hey. I experienced the same symptoms with a "official" replacement battery I found online. Random reboots over and over again until I couldn't even turn it one anymore.
TWRP was always showing different battery percentages than OS.once I put back in my old but original battery that came with the phone it turned on again and it works flawlessly again.
maikl91 said:
Hey. I experienced the same symptoms with a "official" replacement battery I found online. Random reboots over and over again until I couldn't even turn it one anymore.
TWRP was always showing different battery percentages than OS.once I put back in my old but original battery that came with the phone it turned on again and it works flawlessly again.
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This is something I've read, and may well do. It also, however, raises another thorny set of issues re battery calibration. I understand that sometimes new batteries have to be "calibrated" by being charged, discharged completely, charged again, discharged completely, and charged yet again and discharged. After that, things are supposedly going to run right. Trouble is in my case, the phone doesn't want the battery; it keeps stopping completely and not restarting. Either the battery stats are wholly inaccurate (says around 57% charged during those brief times I've had it up) or I need to go with your idea. Trouble is there the original battery from this phone is dated 2015; I hope it has anything at all left to give.
shonkin said:
This is something I've read, and may well do. It also, however, raises another thorny set of issues re battery calibration. I understand that sometimes new batteries have to be "calibrated" by being charged, discharged completely, charged again, discharged completely, and charged yet again and discharged. After that, things are supposedly going to run right. Trouble is in my case, the phone doesn't want the battery; it keeps stopping completely and not restarting. Either the battery stats are wholly inaccurate (says around 57% charged during those brief times I've had it up) or I need to go with your idea. Trouble is there the original battery from this phone is dated 2015; I hope it has anything at all left to give.
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Click to collapse
Mine is dated 2015 as well and I'm getting through the day with closely 3 hours of SOT.
maikl91 said:
Mine is dated 2015 as well and I'm getting through the day with closely 3 hours of SOT.
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I'm trying this in desperation. The phone has gone completely unresponsive at this point, and I'm looking at having a technological paper weight. Hope I can resurrect it but the odds are not good.
Some progress, some regress.
Here's what I'm seeing. I can get the phone up and running again after extensive recharging. As long as I leave the back of the phone off - that is, both the inner and outer backs - it seems willing to keep running. As soon as I snap the inner back into place, not even with the screws yet, the phone locks up. Soon after, around 10 to 20 seconds, it shuts off. Sometimes it will restart and other times it won't for a long time, even after unplugging and replugging battery.
Has anyone else run into shorting or grounding issues associated with the back (inner, the one w/ 18 screws) case?
I am now back to a dead phone. A new (3rd party) battery is my current hope... charging it for over a day now has not yet led to the phone showing any sign of life.
One other question: I know both this cable and charger work, but as they are not the "original" OnePlus charger / cable combo, could that be the difference? I'd appreciate it if there is any clear evidence regarding this question.
The below article raises a disturbing possibility, based on the reality that OnePlus cables and chargers are - by OnePlus' own admission - non-standard and possibly could harm other electronics. But on top of that, and not well explored in the article, is whether or not OnePlus' charger/cable combo might even be damaging to the OnePlus 2 (and other OnePlus phones). They "assure us" this is not the case. Hmm.
https://www.androidauthority.com/oneplus-responds-to-bad-usb-type-c-cables-658048/
I thought I'd update this thread with what may be the final installment.
I invested $70 in a highly bent but somehow still working second OnePlus 2 phone off ebay. (The guy had a great fall on a log story as to how the phone got bent.) Long story short... I gambled and won. That is, I gambled that the innards of the second phone would go into my first phone and that the first phone's screen would work. YES. And so, after playing amateur phone repairman, I have myself a OnePlus 2.
So many questions. Going to peruse this board now...

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