Phone isn't coming on. When I plug the charger in I get no response. Please Help!

[Mythical_Legend]

I dont know if i leaned on it or sat on it but i doubt it. It was in my pocket and it was cool out so there was no overheating. I usually use the fingerprint scanner to turn the screen on and when it didn't turn on i plugged it into my charger and i got no reaction from the screen or the little charging home button. My power button has been broken for a while so I use the finger print scanner to come in and out but i've never had this issue of no response from the charging cable. I hear a boop from my computer when I plug my phone in so I know the port is fine.

 

[Hadron]

I don't know what you mean by "the little charging home button" or what reaction you'd expect from that. So I'm going to ignore that, but it's possible that if I knew what you meant it would change everything I write below.

The simplest explanation for this is that the screen is broken. If your computer responds when you plug it in then it's still powered-up and the mainboard is still live. If it still makes notification sounds that could confirm it, so try calling it and see whether it rings.

Not having a working power button makes it hard to do anythihg else. If not for that I'd suggest pressing and holding the power button to force a restart: if you didn't see the splash screen that would confirm that it was a hardware problem (while if you did see the splash screen and then it went black it would mean it was software). But as it is I can't think of a way of forcing a restart unless you have USB debugging enabled already (letting it power down then charging it is a little risky: if it recognises that the power button is broken it might restart automatically, but if that doesn't work you are stuck).

My best guess is a hardware problem, in which case repair is the only option. If your computer can talk to it you might be able to back up some stuff off it (e.g. photos), but if it's set to connect in "charge only" mode I don't know how you can change that without being able to see the screen. I have recovered data from a phone with a broken screen, but that involved using a wired connection to mirror it to a TV (and I don't know whether your phone supports such a thing, as I don't know what phone it is) and a lot of trial and error (display screen, decide next move, swap screen cable for a keyboard, tap cursor keys, switch back to screen to check results, rinse and repeat). If you were able to do something like that to change your default connection mode to file transfer (which may require going into developer options) I could see a way of backing-up data to a computer, or installing and launching something like WiFi File Explorer or AirDroid, but setting anything up will still require interacting with the phone with the screen not working, so won't be easy. So it may also be that your only option is to get the phone repaired and ask them not to reset the phone in the process if there are data you wish to recover (which an independent repairer may do, official repair services tend to do a reset anyway as part of their process and may ignore any request not to).

 

[Mythical_Legend]

I don't know what you mean by "the little charging home button" or what reaction you'd expect from that. So I'm going to ignore that, but it's possible that if I knew what you meant it would change everything I write below.

The simplest explanation for this is that the screen is broken. If your computer responds when you plug it in then it's still powered-up and the mainboard is still live. If it still makes notification sounds that could confirm it, so try calling it and see whether it rings.

Not having a working power button makes it hard to do anythihg else. If not for that I'd suggest pressing and holding the power button to force a restart: if you didn't see the splash screen that would confirm that it was a hardware problem (while if you did see the splash screen and then it went black it would mean it was software). But as it is I can't think of a way of forcing a restart unless you have USB debugging enabled already (letting it power down then charging it is a little risky: if it recognises that the power button is broken it might restart automatically, but if that doesn't work you are stuck).

My best guess is a hardware problem, in which case repair is the only option. If your computer can talk to it you might be able to back up some stuff off it (e.g. photos), but if it's set to connect in "charge only" mode I don't know how you can change that without being able to see the screen. I have recovered data from a phone with a broken screen, but that involved using a wired connection to mirror it to a TV (and I don't know whether your phone supports such a thing, as I don't know what phone it is) and a lot of trial and error (display screen, decide next move, swap screen cable for a keyboard, tap cursor keys, switch back to screen to check results, rinse and repeat). If you were able to do something like that to change your default connection mode to file transfer (which may require going into developer options) I could see a way of backing-up data to a computer, or installing and launching something like WiFi File Explorer or AirDroid, but setting anything up will still require interacting with the phone with the screen not working, so won't be easy. So it may also be that your only option is to get the phone repaired and ask them not to reset the phone in the process if there are data you wish to recover (which an independent repairer may do, official repair services tend to do a reset anyway as part of their process and may ignore any request not to).

Okay well I'm gonna reply in the order of advice to make things easier to understand for me to relay the information.

1. When I usually charge the phone the button center of the phone, the home button, slowly flashes on and off to indicate charging. Thats not happening.

2. The phone is not on. When it first broke I called it and used Find my device to get the screen to pop up but to no avail. Its not connected on my Router (as it always is) so screen breaking is ruled out imo.

3. When I plug the phone into the computer the phone does nothing. My computer makes the usb insertion noise and occasionally recognizes the phone as "MTP portable media player" through the devices menu, but i am not able to do anything with that. I cant access the internal storage nor the SD card.

4. Even if the phone's battery died when I plug in the charger it should pop up a black screen with a white battery charging but it's not. For months I was able to launch the phone in FTM in order to use adb to reboot the phone into the normal OS whenever the battery died out.

5. I am not able to get any sort of response from the phone what so ever.

 

[DonB]

What device do you have ?, this will be best served in your Device forum, for more eyes, let me know , so I can move it

 

[Hadron]

The phone isn't off: if the computer recognises it as connected then something is powered, and if it's identified as an MTP device that implies to me that it is running Android at that point (it shouldn't identify as an MTP device if it's in the booloader or recovery mode). Unfortunately that means we can exclude another relatively straightforward fault (total battery failure), and I agree that a display (or connector) failure isn't sufficient to explain everything.

Unfortunately that makes me suspect it's something more serious, quite possibly impossible to repair without replacing the motherboard. If you can't get it into the bootloader or recovery mode there's nothing you can do yourself (and those would only allow you to address software problems - if it's hardware, as a I fear, they wouldn't help).

 

[dontpanicbobby]

It could be the charging cable. Have you purchased a new cable lately @Mythical_Legend? I bought one because it was pretty and long and it stopped working pretty damn quick OEM equipment time wise.
Even now I haven't found a cheap long cable the does the full Quick/Fast charge thing. Is the charging cable braided?

 

[Mythical_Legend]

What device do you have ?, this will be best served in your Device forum, for more eyes, let me know , so I can move it

I have a ZTE Blade Z. I could not find a ZTE forum.

 

[Mythical_Legend]

The phone isn't off: if the computer recognises it as connected then something is powered, and if it's identified as an MTP device that implies to me that it is running Android at that point (it shouldn't identify as an MTP device if it's in the booloader or recovery mode). Unfortunately that means we can exclude another relatively straightforward fault (total battery failure), and I agree that a display (or connector) failure isn't sufficient to explain everything.

Unfortunately that makes me suspect it's something more serious, quite possibly impossible to repair without replacing the motherboard. If you can't get it into the bootloader or recovery mode there's nothing you can do yourself (and those would only allow you to address software problems - if it's hardware, as a I fear, they wouldn't help).

If it is the motherboard is that a costly/hard repair?

 

[Mythical_Legend]

It could be the charging cable. Have you purchased a new cable lately @Mythical_Legend? I bought one because it was pretty and long and it stopped working pretty damn quick OEM equipment time wise.
Even now I haven't found a cheap long cable the does the full Quick/Fast charge thing. Is the charging cable braided?

It is not the cable unfortunately. I have multiple chargers in multiple places and none are working

 

[Hadron]

If it is the motherboard is that a costly/hard repair?

The motherboard contains the processor, storage, transceivers, etc. It's not a difficult repair because they'll just replace the motherboard, but it won't be a cheap one. And as the phone's internal storage is attached to the motherboard any data in there that you don't have backed up elsewhere would be lost.

 

[DonB]

Moved it here for now

 

[puppykickr]

It could be the charging cable. Have you purchased a new cable lately @Mythical_Legend? I bought one because it was pretty and long and it stopped working pretty damn quick OEM equipment time wise.
Even now I haven't found a cheap long cable the does the full Quick/Fast charge thing. Is the charging cable braided?

Big Lots has been selling excellent cables, both USB C and Micro, for $9 and $8 respectively.

They are 10' foot long, have great capacity, and strong ends.

They are not braided. I don't have good luck with braided cables.

iHome brand.