Jolla randomly shuts down

asked 2013-12-30 22:04:14 +0300

This post is a wiki. Anyone with karma >75 is welcome to improve it.

updated 2015-05-20 01:45:14 +0300

30712 ●180 ●234 ●229

Numerous users have an issue with the phone rebooting by itself. User testing has revealed that it most likely has something to do with the battery. If this is happening to you, there are two ways you can probably solve the problem. You can either:

take out the phone battery, and rub all contact areas on the battery and the phone with a regular eraser, then just put the battery back in.
take a small piece of paper and put it between the bottom of the battery and the phone, so it makes better contact.
put a bit of paper between the battery and the phone body (as seen here)

If neither of these solutions helps at all, please mention this and edit this post to include that information.

It would be nice to read an official statement on the issue, if this is something related to the manufacturing process or something else.

edit 06.04.2015 (MacManus): i noticed that my jolla reboots on weak network connections (can't reproduce in wlan). If i'm in an area with weak network, my jolla constantly reboots. If i didn't activate my sim, the phone didn't reboot. As soon as i activate sim and get mobile network connection, the jolla reboots.

Edit 20.05.2015: Anyone with this problem please see this answer, it seems that they finally have a clue about how to fix this issue.

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3

I'm experiencing this same problem starting today. I haven't installed any new updates / apps since the last SW update 2 days ago. Sometimes after the shut down the phone refuses to turn back on. Trying different things with the phone now to track the problem down.

EDIT: After the shut down happens, the phone turns back on on first try if I plug in the charger.

fAzu ( 2013-12-30 22:13:32 +0300 )edit

3

I have my Jolla phone turned on for 24/7 and it's also updated to this recent firmware and haven't ever seen such unintentional shut downs. None. Nothing even close to that. So definitely can't confirm this. There is a change you may have problems with hardware.

Simakuutio ( 2013-12-30 22:14:29 +0300 )edit

1

I've had 2 reboots so far, but both were before 1.0.2.5 update and while I was not actively using the device. I can't really say anything else about the cases, but I think I had nothing special running, just WiFi/3G and Settings or something. What apps and networks are you using when this happens?

Julle ( 2013-12-30 22:16:30 +0300 )edit

Did you try hard reset for solve some issue ?
1. if yes, try to run CSD tool on your phone for discover any abnormal hardware malfunctionality before return your product for hardware repair
2. pully down, select phone, input code (i can't show the code) and follow instructions and we wait feedback you can find the code here http://jollafr.org/un-utilitaire-secret-pour-tester-toutes-les-fonctionnalites-de-votre-jolla/

redge73 ( 2013-12-30 23:03:06 +0300 )edit

7

Ok, so after removing my battery for a longer period (roughly 10 minutes) the problem vanished. Seems like a software glitch. I cannot recreate this behavior for now, but I'll monitor my workflow in case the problem reappears.

fAzu ( 2013-12-31 10:18:51 +0300 )edit

78

answered 2014-03-30 20:37:58 +0300

vicsjo
1533 ●6 ●11 ●15

updated 2014-08-08 17:15:25 +0300

YES, two days and no restart! I fold a paper once, to the same size as bottom of the battery, and squeeze in at the same time as the battery, then it puts more pressure upwards against the connectors. I vent from several restarts a day, to zero.

Try this and vote it up!

Edit 24.04.2014 Still no reboots. I´m a happy Jolla owner again! =)

Edit 13.06.2014 update 1.0.7.16, the reboots are back. I folded my pice of paper once again to get an even tighter connection for the battery. Lets see and hope it gives a positive result!

Edit 20.06.2014 One weak and still no reboots... =)

Edit 08.08.2014I've finally able to remove my paper. The solution can be found in this answer: https://together.jolla.com/question/7144/jolla-randomly-shuts-down-10819/?answer=52658#post-id-52658

Now my phone is faster and smoother, even battery life is better and more stable.

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4

Just did your trick.. would be a joke if this very annoying issue would be this stupid old Nokia lose battery thing... But hell if factory resets, and update don't work ..why not.

I can not reproduce any more.. so it is hardware, this is a good joke for all of us. so a bad battery connector makes the jolla shut down because of a power shortage when in need of a bt more power trying to find a 2 or 3g signal.

teun ( 2014-03-30 22:46:46 +0300 )edit

1

Tried this solution this morning and no shut downs or reboots since then, although I tried everything to reproduce. I can not believe it, @vicsjo thank you so much.

Neo ( 2014-03-31 14:30:57 +0300 )edit

This is slight different to the zendesk solution, but it works fine for me, and I don´t have any loos paper underneath TOH. But the original solution come from zendesk, I just slightly modified it.

vicsjo ( 2014-03-31 15:05:04 +0300 )edit

it works with the fold paper, since 1 week no shutdowns or reboots. before i had at least five every day, so my jolla works well

daberg ( 2014-04-05 12:31:20 +0300 )edit

1

I taped a single layer of electrical tape on the bottom of the battery and pushed it back in. No reboots after that. The problem seems to be a loose battery connection. Thank you so much for finding this out!

Pirkka ( 2014-04-06 13:02:11 +0300 )edit

54

answered 2014-01-27 14:57:15 +0300

steffenl
1355 ●20 ●27 ●34

updated 2014-01-30 15:10:57 +0300

After two days of frequent shutdowns the only solution that stops the Jolla-suicides for me is to switch off any network-connections. Two things are noteworthy:

it seems to be related to unstable network-connections, be it 2G/3G (only happens when having a really low signal) or be it wifi (low singal here, too).
it must be caused by an update that I've installed last week (warehouse/webcat/1.0.2.5), because the Jolla didn't shutdown before and I live in an area with a pretty bad mobile network (Switzerland ;), so I was in areas with low/no signal before all the time.

This issue should be fixed ASAP as my Jolla is pretty useless right now. I will reset it to factory defaults these days, lets see if this helps.

Update: I can crash my jolla by connecting to our wifi and walking out of the office. As soon as I reach the limit of our wireless-router it bricks the phone. Only solution is to take out the battery, it won't even restart without this.

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5

A reproducible behaviour at last! I hope this will help to isolate the bug.

paul7 ( 2014-01-30 15:16:34 +0300 )edit

5

+1 for the weak connection part!

kdl ( 2014-01-30 22:38:33 +0300 )edit

4

same here. If I have a really bad connection and there's transfer going on, and then the connection has to switch e.g. from 3G to 2G or is lost completely zap it just goes off.

Low ( 2014-02-06 00:21:38 +0300 )edit

2

Did you try to call the phone? Mine ringed, but screen didn't respond to the call and touch didn't work. I couldn't answer the call.

sjtoik ( 2014-02-06 20:26:23 +0300 )edit

2

for me turning off the mobile connection seems to work. staying in a single place for the whole day, beeing connected to a WLAN and having the mobile connections turned on at the same time resulted in several suicides. in about 50% of the cases the phone died while making a call.

pixelspacke ( 2014-02-19 18:15:12 +0300 )edit

32

answered 2015-05-12 13:13:45 +0300

laurent.grima
321 ●1 ●2 ●4

updated 2015-07-25 15:28:42 +0300

Here is the answer provided by Jolla Care support team:

BATTERY CONTACTS ON PHONE BODY

Although it may seem that the battery is defective, it has turned out that more often the problem is in the current path of the phone (invisible to you). Before or instead of taking in your phone for repair, we would recommend the quick and simple trick described below. It has turned out to be effective in preventing random shutdowns and inconsistencies in the battery charge level display.

Please try the following to enhance the situation.

Please try to

Switch off your device

Remove the back cover and the battery

Then, with the side of your battery, push the three battery connector pins in to the device, and allow them to pop back out again. Only push them in in their natural range of motion. Please repeat this process about 10-15 times. It is critical that you move all three pins at the same time to avoid damaging individual pins!

Please note

The pins must not be pressed in a manner that bends them sideways or top-down. Only push them along their natural range of motion into the device, and then release to have them pop out automatically. Maintaining the mobility of these pins is very important.

You could also check that the contact pads on the battery are clean. If they look dirty, you can wipe them with a rough cloth or a pointy plastic object.

I was experiencing multiple shutdowns a day, and since I did this several days ago, I had none. I'll try to update this post later if this method is indeed successful (or not).

UPDATE 16/05/2015

It's been around one week now and still no reboot.

UPDATE 20/05/2015

Still not a single reboot. Yay!

UPDATE 25/07/2015

After around two months without a single reboot, my jolla started having them again. Redoing the trick made them disappear once again and so far so good.

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ok, i'll try that too.

jabgoe ( 2015-05-15 12:43:21 +0300 )edit

Tried it out, 4 days and no reboots. It looks like they finally found out what the problem is and how to fix it.

Neo ( 2015-05-20 01:41:24 +0300 )edit

I might have accidentally done that (don't ask..) and no reboots for a week.

tathhu ( 2015-05-20 07:26:57 +0300 )edit

Nice, let's try that !

ced117 ( 2015-05-20 22:43:26 +0300 )edit

ok, seems to be a good advice. since 5 days i had no spontaneous reboot anymore!

jabgoe ( 2015-05-21 13:07:18 +0300 )edit

28

answered 2014-08-04 15:39:23 +0300

JuhaP
678 ●7 ●11 ●16

Hi all, I had the same problem - random reboots, sometimes multiple times in a row. Haven't had issues for weeks now. My trick was simple: take a regular pencil eraser and rub all contact areas, both on battery and phone side. Possibly oxidization, which results in bad connectivity and additional resistance on contacts. Add ambient heat and weak network connection (more transmit power is required), and the phone sort of chokes. You may want to try this first instead of the "paper under battery" fix.

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Thank you! This works well for me, two days without problems. Finally I can take away my paper, that has helped me quite a while. Now my phone is faster and smoother, even battery life is better and more stable.

PS I'm linking to this response from my reply "the paper trik"

vicsjo ( 2014-08-08 10:48:35 +0300 )edit

Took away the paper and tried this: today is the fourth day without shutdowns.

Neo ( 2014-08-10 21:01:02 +0300 )edit

I did clean the contacts 2 days ago, but keeping the paper. Still no reboots. Will report.

zlatko ( 2014-08-10 21:09:39 +0300 )edit

I have had a stable phone (one reboot in two months) with paper trick. I will try to take it off now and see if just the cleaning is enough.

miqu ( 2014-08-13 12:26:33 +0300 )edit

10 days without shutdowns and reboots.

Neo ( 2014-08-17 16:09:16 +0300 )edit

21

answered 2014-03-18 15:25:43 +0300

kultsinuppeli
491 ●6 ●10 ●11

I just wanted to add, I have had this issue too, and I thought the newest update would help. I updated to 1.0.4.20 today, and I have had at least 3 reboots since then. So for me the update did not solve the issue.

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1

Did you take the battery out for 10min as suggested? (and yes, literally 10min)

patrikf ( 2014-03-18 15:29:12 +0300 )edit

Actually I didn't even see a mention that this is fixed in the changelog of the update. Can someone confirm the fix is even included in the update?

matrixx ( 2014-03-18 15:30:07 +0300 )edit

3

I removed phones battery over night and that helped to that problem.

Sami ( 2014-03-18 15:51:01 +0300 )edit

2

@kultsinuppeli, @matrixx:

from [Release Notes] Software version 1.0.4.20, Ohijärvi:

Highlights of improvements
- Fixes several issues causing spontaneous reboots on the phone

but also

Known issues
- If you experience continued shutdown or full device reboot issues with the device after this update, turn off the device, take out the battery for 10 minutes and put it back in. If the problems persist, please contact Jolla Care at care@jolla.com.

I read that as

a bunch of reboot issues _are_ fixed,

_but_

not all of them.

phle ( 2014-03-18 16:02:00 +0300 )edit

1

I missed the taking out the battery for 10 min part. I have now done it, and I'll update this when I know if it seems to resolve the issue.

kultsinuppeli ( 2014-03-18 20:08:28 +0300 )edit

19

answered 2014-01-28 12:40:27 +0300

Ygriega

691 ●4 ●7 ●10

http://sailfishos.ygriega...

updated 2014-04-04 21:50:25 +0300

I'm also experiencing this issue and none of the proposed tips worked for more than 1 or 2 days. :-( As the Jolla has become more or less useless to me because of that, I even switched back to my N9. However, I opened a case at Jolla Customer Care and that's the reply I received today:

Hello and thank you for contacting Jolla.

We are currently investigating the alleged issue and will provide more information when we can. One possibility is that if you were operating the device in the cold for any extended period of time, this might be a possible cause for this.

In any event, at your earliest convenience please turn of your device and remove the battery at your. Please wait 10 minutes before re-inserting and powering on the device again.

Sincerely, Jolla Customer Care

The only thing I can say is that the sudden switch offs occurred almost in all cases when the Jolla has been in a warm office/home environment with around 20°C for several hours. However, I hope the guys at Jolla will actually do what Customer Care promised and hunt down the culprit. Until this is done (or even a fix is listed in any future OS update ;-)), I will stick with my N9 as main phone and with my Jolla as "playground". :-(

Update 2014-02-14

I have some very good news. As the situation didn't improve after the upgrade to 1.0.3.8 and even a SIM card swap, I contacted Jolla Customer Care again and that's what they replied today:

We are sorry to hear about your continued problems with your Jolla phone. We have the following two options to offer:

1) Wait till the next SailfishOS update - planned to week 10. It will contain a fix for the phone-turn-off-by-itself issue.

2) Send your phone to service (we would tell you how).

Please let us know which option you want to take.

Sincerely, Jolla Customer Care

So the guys at Jolla obviously have a hotfix ready and will ship the patch with the next monthly update. Week 10 is the first week of March! As it's not a long wait until then and I don't want to waste time and money, I chose to wait. Enjoy and cross the fingers that week 10 will really bring the solution!

Update 2014-04-04

SailfishOS 1.4.20 didn't improve anything. Sadly, it even became worse. Last week my phone sometimes even didn't respond when I was trying to turn it on. Then I read about the "paper underneath the battery" trick and I've been without any shutdowns or reboots for 5 days since I applied the paper. This is definitely recommended. Thanks @vicsjo!

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I also had shutdowns in warm environment a few hours after I was out in the cold. But they only happened on days when the Jolla was out in the cold that day. So it might be a cumulative process? Cold temperatures seem to be involved, even though it sometimes switches off in a warm environment.

pycage ( 2014-02-11 19:38:34 +0300 )edit

1

Some days, it works. On others, I have quite frequent shutdowns.

This happens when a call comes in or during a call - in a warm office with 20°C. Or it happens, when I open an App (don't care if Android or Sailfish). Sometimes it works after a reboot. Sometimes it shutdown again and again.

After pulling the battery for some seconds, it is working properly for... 1 or 2 days.

At the moment my device is something very, very experimental and unstable :-(

Alexander ( 2014-02-13 09:41:08 +0300 )edit

@Jan I think I'll pull back my request for returning the phone and wait like you. Few weeks is not a huge issue and I really like the phone. 2 resets after each other kinda fixed the issue for now so hopefully it will last until the update that will fix it all.

Wish they would communicate this kind of stuff a bit better.

AxMi-24 ( 2014-02-14 21:50:59 +0300 )edit

1

In my case the frequency of failures seems to increase. No correlation to temperatures observed. However it seems to happen when something draws power. Either wwan or loudspeaker. Last time it crashed when signalling an incoming email. I would bet on the BMS. Probably a low pass filter missing or misconfigured.

Aequanix ( 2014-02-17 18:04:18 +0300 )edit

1

The frequency of the shutdowns seems to have come down a lot with 1.0.3.8, it'll bee interesting to see if this goes away entirely with the March update.

jsiren ( 2014-02-21 22:41:36 +0300 )edit

15

answered 2014-03-18 19:00:52 +0300

Slimex
161 ●5 ●6 ●7

With current update (1.0.4.20) the reboots haven't vanished on low reception areas (like my bathroom...). Also I'm experiencing the sudden drop on battery life, from 60-70% to 4%. This equals to my experience with my N9 battery I bought to make it 'fresh' again, needless to say I returned it and got back a good one. So this might be a hardware (battery) issue in some cases. I've already made a case with care@jolla, and they've agreed to swap the battery.

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2

After swapping the battery back in January, the problem disappeared, until it came back yesterday (1.0.3.8). After having updated to 1.0.4.20, the problem persisted, so not fixed by 1.0.4.20. Maybe it's too warm now, and I have to swap the battery again? Using a winter battery when it's cold and summer battery when it's warm... :/

pycage ( 2014-03-18 19:27:51 +0300 )edit

6

Happened to me again today. Phone rebooted and battery level dropped from 48% to 4%, after a few seconds another reboot and the level went back to 47%! After an hour when I wanted to see the time, the phone was shut down. Nothing could be done except taking the battery out and after that I could turn it on again. Reported that before in this post (thought that this problem with battery level was not known): https://together.jolla.com/question/33919/battery-level-bug/. Forgot to mention: before the first reboot, the phone showed a message "connection problem" (I was making a sip call on mobile/data connection with an android app).

Neo ( 2014-03-21 18:23:33 +0300 )edit

2

@Neo: Same here. Random shut downs and battery lever drops to 4% - and that almost every day, multiple times. Phone unusable at the moment. Everything that has to do with connections and battery seem to go completely crazy on Jolla phone... Last update didn't help at all (on my device) and/or made things even worse.

molan ( 2014-03-29 00:47:08 +0300 )edit

1

Yes! I recognise that exact issue, also connected tk the reboot loop. I described it here: https://together.jolla.com/question/13294/jolla-device-in-boot-loop/#36861

Possibly these issues are connected?

In my case, the battery level drops and shut downs never happened before the 1.04.20 update, and only started a little while after the update. It could perhaps be a bad quality battery, although I also notice the connection with bad reception areas.

bilgy_no1 ( 2014-03-30 00:41:43 +0300 )edit

12

answered 2014-01-25 22:43:36 +0300

hyster-x
121 ●1 ●1 ●2

Same problem here. I changed the battery now it works fine.

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Where did you buy the battery?

predator ( 2014-02-06 12:20:42 +0300 )edit

1

I took the phone to service and they changed the battery. Got the phone back today so I don't know yet if it fixed the problem.

lassizci ( 2014-02-11 13:50:05 +0300 )edit

Yep, changing the battery definitely helped for me, too. I swapped battery with my other Jolla about three weeks ago and not a single random shutdown since.

pycage ( 2014-02-11 19:40:53 +0300 )edit

I wonder if this is a hardware battery problem (since replacing the battery appears to fix it), or if it can be fixed by adjusting the software, too?

pycage ( 2014-02-11 19:43:01 +0300 )edit

I have two Jolla

hyster-x ( 2014-02-12 21:34:35 +0300 )edit

9

answered 2014-01-14 19:27:22 +0300

pycage
2325 ●27 ●36 ●49

updated 2014-01-20 19:58:53 +0300

Not really an answer (yet), but I think I've nailed it down to timed.

My assumption is that some cell towers give invalid time information which confuses timed so much that it triggers some panic reaction (maybe [I'm just making this up, but it sounds plausible] something like "oh! phone ran for 300 years, battery must be empty, shut down quick!"). 3G cell towers seem to be better in this way, so we mostly only see this in conjunction with a 2G connection.

I found the shutdowns to stop when I disabled "automatic updates" in Settings -> Date & Time.

EDIT: This did not turn out to prevent the shutdowns. Let's collect and compare some other facts to see if we can find a common pattern.

Yesterday (when I did not have the shutdowns while in the evil area), the last pulling of battery was less than 24h ago. Today (when it did shutdown again), the last pulling of battery was ca. 48h ago. Yesterday battery level was above 70%, today it was between 60% and 70%.

EDIT (a few days later): Every time I removed the battery for some seconds from the device less than 24h ago, the phone got stable through the evil area for me so far. Could this be related? I'm keeping an eye on the behavior with pulling battery an without.

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Since many people have a nearly constant internet connection, might a periodic ntp sync be a viable alternative?

jsiren ( 2014-01-14 20:24:30 +0300 )edit

I disabled "automatic updates" yesterday and I have had a reboot again. So this doesn't solve it or probably there is more than one cause for the shutdowns.

Eismann ( 2014-01-15 14:57:21 +0300 )edit

I had the same today as well. So this is not the culprit.

pycage ( 2014-01-15 19:15:50 +0300 )edit

Maybe worth mentioning: I pass the evil area twice a day. In the morning and in the afternoon. It never had these shutdowns in the morning.

pycage ( 2014-01-16 16:13:13 +0300 )edit

I disabled automatic time updates, and so far no problems, except today the phone decided to close all the running applications (eight or so) while I was doing something. Not a full reboot, though.

jsiren ( 2014-01-16 22:40:42 +0300 )edit

9

answered 2014-01-23 20:10:27 +0300

pycage
2325 ●27 ●36 ●49

updated 2014-01-27 19:42:21 +0300

I'll try to collect a few patterns. Please comment if you observe anything not matching these patterns.

Random shutdown of the phone means that all of a sudden the screen goes black and the phone is off. You can hold the power button to normally switch it on, again, but it may soon die again, if you're unlucky.

Observed facts:

Cell-tower related. This happens only in certain areas, but happens pretty often then.
Battery level doesn't matter. It happens with >90% of battery, too.
It was only observed since OS 1.0.2.5.
Pulling the battery helps for some time (depending on whether automatic time updates are enabled or not).
Can die again after 32 hours (anything shorter observed?) after pulling the battery, if automatic time updates are off.
Can die again after 1 hour (anything shorter observed?) after pulling the battery, if automatic time updates are on.
Saw the "charge battery" screen once before shutdown. So it appears to be battery- AND cell-tower-related. Division by 0, triggered by a mobile connection, in some power consumption calculation for checking battery life..? Just guessing.

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3

> Can die again after 1 hour (anything shorter observed?) after pulling the battery, if automatic time updates are on.

Less than 2 minutes I got the case just after a reset and pulling battery in the first page of tutorial app.

Khertan ( 2014-01-24 09:20:23 +0300 )edit

1

Can die again after 32 hours (anything shorter observed?) after pulling the battery, if automatic time updates are off. Got reset after less than half an hour

Khertan ( 2014-01-24 09:20:59 +0300 )edit

Pulling the battery didn't change anything for me. After last shutdown I received a system update notification, even if I updated to latest release several weeks ago. I installed the update as requested and since then (2 days ago) I didn't notice any other shutdown.

Patrizio Bruno ( 2014-01-24 22:51:42 +0300 )edit

I have observed this also with OS versions before 1.0.2.5.

Simom ( 2014-01-26 10:56:05 +0300 )edit

1

Today I had this issue for the first time, it was in an area with low network coverage (2G) and happened when the phone tried to etablish a data connection (email in my case). And it died a few seconds after a restart again (guess because it tried to update twitter/mails/...)

steffenl ( 2014-01-26 18:59:08 +0300 )edit

Jolla randomly shuts down

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75 Answers

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