Moto G5 Plus troubles
November 19, 2019 9:04 AM Subscribe
My phone (moto g5 plus, Android 8.1) won't let me unlock it: I'll enter the code and the System UI (apparently) crashes and returns me to the lock screen. No problem, just reboot the phone, right? Except that the power button has also recently broken. Oh, and I thought I had USB debugging turned on, but apparently I don't, and I can't connect it to a computer in the normal way because I can't get past the lock screen to enable the USB connection. So I have 2 questions...
1) If I let the battery drain, does anyone know if the G5 Plus will turn on automatically when charged again, without requiring use of the defunct power button? (I know some phone models do; I suspect this one doesn't; if anyone knows for sure one way or the other you have my thanks in advance)
2) If I do a factory reset remotely via Google Accounts, does the phone definitely restart automatically without me having to turn it on with the power button?
3 (bonus) Any other suggestions on ways to either unlock or reboot this phone would be welcome.
(yes, I know I shouldn't have let things get to this state, but things have been really busy lately and this was the last thing I needed to deal with. Learn from my mistakes, friends.)
1) If I let the battery drain, does anyone know if the G5 Plus will turn on automatically when charged again, without requiring use of the defunct power button? (I know some phone models do; I suspect this one doesn't; if anyone knows for sure one way or the other you have my thanks in advance)
2) If I do a factory reset remotely via Google Accounts, does the phone definitely restart automatically without me having to turn it on with the power button?
3 (bonus) Any other suggestions on ways to either unlock or reboot this phone would be welcome.
(yes, I know I shouldn't have let things get to this state, but things have been really busy lately and this was the last thing I needed to deal with. Learn from my mistakes, friends.)
Best answer: I don't have this phone so can't confirm this info but some research suggests this may work - maybe asperity can check.
- With the phone off, hold the volume down key while inserting the charger cable.
- If it works, this should turn the phone on and bring up the bootloader screen.
- You can select options on this screen with the volume keys but the power button is needed to activate any of them.
- However, you can plug the phone into a computer which has the 'fastboot' utility from the android dev tools installed.
- Run 'fastboot reboot' which should then restart the phone into the normal Android startup.
posted by automatronic at 3:07 PM on November 20, 2019
- With the phone off, hold the volume down key while inserting the charger cable.
- If it works, this should turn the phone on and bring up the bootloader screen.
- You can select options on this screen with the volume keys but the power button is needed to activate any of them.
- However, you can plug the phone into a computer which has the 'fastboot' utility from the android dev tools installed.
- Run 'fastboot reboot' which should then restart the phone into the normal Android startup.
posted by automatronic at 3:07 PM on November 20, 2019
Best answer: I can confirm the first three points and that power button's needed to select any of those options. Don't have a way to try the fastboot utility for another 8-10 hours, but let me know if you'd like me to give it a go.
posted by asperity at 9:17 AM on November 21, 2019
posted by asperity at 9:17 AM on November 21, 2019
Response by poster: Thank you so much for the help. Because I needed a working phone urgently I ended up getting it repaired before I saw automatronic's comment. asperity, I really appreciate your willingness to test this stuff out!
For anyone in this position in the future: I just checked and "fastboot reboot" when the phone is in bootloader mode does in fact do the trick. Before I posted this question I'd tried connecting the phone (which was on, because I was afraid to let it turn off at that point) to a computer with the volume key held down, which some sites claimed would reboot the phone but which did nothing. I'd also tried running fastboot and adb commands with the phone on, but it wasn't getting recognized as a device because I didn't have USB debugging set so I was dubious about it working when off. But the steps above work perfectly.
I just want to note that I went through a frustratingly large number of repair shops before I found a place that said they were willing to do the repair (there aren't a lot of motorolas here, apparently) and none of these places came up with the fastboot-from-bootloader advice, though I spent a lot of time asking them if that kind of solution existed. So thank you for the better-than-professional advice.
posted by trig at 10:50 AM on November 24, 2019 [1 favorite]
For anyone in this position in the future: I just checked and "fastboot reboot" when the phone is in bootloader mode does in fact do the trick. Before I posted this question I'd tried connecting the phone (which was on, because I was afraid to let it turn off at that point) to a computer with the volume key held down, which some sites claimed would reboot the phone but which did nothing. I'd also tried running fastboot and adb commands with the phone on, but it wasn't getting recognized as a device because I didn't have USB debugging set so I was dubious about it working when off. But the steps above work perfectly.
I just want to note that I went through a frustratingly large number of repair shops before I found a place that said they were willing to do the repair (there aren't a lot of motorolas here, apparently) and none of these places came up with the fastboot-from-bootloader advice, though I spent a lot of time asking them if that kind of solution existed. So thank you for the better-than-professional advice.
posted by trig at 10:50 AM on November 24, 2019 [1 favorite]
This thread is closed to new comments.
For 2: info here says "When your phone has finished erasing, pick the option to restart." Which I hope means the power button isn't required.
Depending on what flavor of broken the power button is, maybe it's possible to get at it with something hard and pointy? I'm assuming that any cases or screen protectors aren't interfering somehow if you're using them. I'm also wondering if it's not the power button being wonky that's causing the crash on unlocking.
Not sure I have a real answer for you, but good luck.
posted by asperity at 11:38 AM on November 19, 2019