Phone won't charge with external battery anymore

[drdnaught1]

I have a Note 9 that charges fine with the OEM wired charger and cable.

It also used to charge with my Anker external battery (13000 MAh) via the OEM USB-C cable, but no longer does. (The Anker battery works fine w/other devices, so it's not the problem.)

The exact same problem is happening w/my wife's Samsung Galaxy S7... regular charger works, external battery doesn't anymore.

I wonder if the latest system update has caused both our phones to specifically reject an external battery somehow, but I haven't been able to find any confirmation that it's happening for other people. My phone carrier (Verizon) didn't know.

Anyone have this experience and find a cause?

 

[ocnbrze]

Have you tried other cables?

 

[drdnaught1]

Yes, multiple others. Same result.
I've confirmed the cables work fine w/other devices and chargers, so I'm sure they're not the issue either.

 

[ocnbrze]

it could be a bad install of the update.....it happens. might want to think about doing a factory reset.

also

maybe try the phone in safe mode just to see if a 3rd party app is doing this.

 

[puppykickr]

Try multiple cables while running this app.

https://ampere.en.uptodown.com/android

Just because a cable works in one device does not mean it will work well in another.

To compound the problem, what worked yesterday might not tomorrow.

Cords are notoriously fickle, and I have spent a small fortune on them.

Everything is in the quality of the cord ends, and even that can be difficult to discern.

I tend to stay away from heavy, braided, or leather wrapped cords, as none of this helps the ends stay on better.

At any rate, you can test all of your cords for current transfer with this app.

The reading is not really accurate, but the idea is to use the cords that carry the most current- so accuracy is not an issue, so long as more is more.

 

[svim]

Given the things you've already tried as far as mix and matching tests with so many other devices and cables I wouldn't focus too much more on the cables as the source of your problem.
Regarding this 'system update' matter though, are both the Note 9 and S7 phones running the same version of Android? If they do differ, it would be unlikely a monthly security update would be able to have the same affect on both phones. If they are running the same version, and since both are Samsung devices that increases the possibility there is some kind of hardware quirk that was made evident by a software change, but that's not definitive.

This is a bit of a long shot but try restarting one of these phones in its Safe Mode and see if that allows charging from your Anker battery again. When a phone is running in its Safe Mode, only the base Android OS gets loaded into memory during the boot up process. No third-party apps or services get preloaded like they typically do. If that phone does charge up via the battery again, that would indicate the problem is some kind of glitch/conflict involving an app that you installed on both phones.

And just to confirm, you did already try giving that Anker battery a full charge yes? Smartphone batteries can be increasingly quirky as they age so their tolerances about how much power is required to recharge them can vary quite a bit. So a marginally-performing external battery might be able to still charge up some devices but not others if the amperage isn't adequate. Wall worts can just pull in more voltage/current, within limits, but external batteries are always limited by their own capacity. Just curious but approximately how old is your Anker battery?

 

[drdnaught1]

Thanks for your thorough answer, much appreciated.
Both phones are running Android version 10.

Tried booting both phones in safe mode and charging with the Anker battery via cable, didn't work for either. Tried two cables, both known to work with charging the phones via AC. The Anker battery had four lights on, indicating full or nearly full charge.

However, the Anker did work for my phone when I hooked it to a wireless pad charger instead of using a cable. So the issue seems likely localized to just 1) the Anker trying to charge our 2) phones via 3) cable. Change any one of those variables and there's no issue.

The Anker is 6 yrs old, way out of warranty, but like I mentioned it still charges other devices fine (in my case I tested it on two Amazon Kindles that differ in model). As much as I want to blame planned obsolescence, I don't think I yet have solid evidence that the problem is due to the battery's age. I'm also nervous about getting a new external battery, Anker or otherwise, only to have the same issue.

 

[svim]

.....
However, the Anker did work for my phone when I hooked it to a wireless pad charger instead of using a cable. So the issue seems likely localized to just 1) the Anker trying to charge our 2) phones via 3) cable. Change any one of those variables and there's no issue.
......

That is an interesting revelation. So charging your phone via the Anker external battery supplying power to a wireless pad charger works out, the problem remains when you use a USB cable to connect the two. Typically that would indicate the problem is with the USB cable, but since you've done a lot of mix and matching between other cables and other phones than it might not be so much the USB cable itself but something happened to create this glitchy behavior with the USB charging function in just those two phones. A hardware component failure in both would be unlikely since they're two different models and even more so because two different manufacturers. Since both worked out OK before and but not now, than it does look like a software issue is something to look into. Safe Mode didn't make a difference so that minimizes a user installed app as the culprit, so the mystery gets murkier.
This suggestion probably won't fix things but it won't hurt anything to at least try. You do need to enable Developer Options, an additional configuration menu that's typically left hidden in your phone's Settings menu. Once enabled, you'll see it listed in Settings. Open it, scroll down to 'Networking' section, and see if there's a 'Select USB Configuration' option. If so, select 'Charging'. (More detailed instructions below, and if your phone's Developer Options menu has different options in it don't be surprised as it can vary from one model to another.)
https://developer.android.com/studio/debug/dev-options
Note this pertains to the data transfer functionality of a USB connection (there's power transfer which is typically an automatic, hardware-level matter, and there's the separate data transfer which is semi-configurable at a user-level). So this should not actually affect the USB cable charging aspect but again, I'm just working off of an issue where there's something like a corrupt config file that needs to be written over.

 

[drdnaught1]

That is an interesting revelation. So charging your phone via the Anker external battery supplying power to a wireless pad charger works out, the problem remains when you use a USB cable to connect the two. Typically that would indicate the problem is with the USB cable, but since you've done a lot of mix and matching between other cables and other phones than it might not be so much the USB cable itself but something happened to create this glitchy behavior with the USB charging function in just those two phones. A hardware component failure in both would be unlikely since they're two different models and even more so because two different manufacturers. Since both worked out OK before and but not now, than it does look like a software issue is something to look into. Safe Mode didn't make a difference so that minimizes a user installed app as the culprit, so the mystery gets murkier.
This suggestion probably won't fix things but it won't hurt anything to at least try. You do need to enable Developer Options, an additional configuration menu that's typically left hidden in your phone's Settings menu. Once enabled, you'll see it listed in Settings. Open it, scroll down to 'Networking' section, and see if there's a 'Select USB Configuration' option. If so, select 'Charging'. (More detailed instructions below, and if your phone's Developer Options menu has different options in it don't be surprised as it can vary from one model to another.)
https://developer.android.com/studio/debug/dev-options
Note this pertains to the data transfer functionality of a USB connection (there's power transfer which is typically an automatic, hardware-level matter, and there's the separate data transfer which is semi-configurable at a user-level). So this should not actually affect the USB cable charging aspect but again, I'm just working off of an issue where there's something like a corrupt config file that needs to be written over.

Thanks so much for this. I was able to enable Developer options -> networking -> default USB configuration. There are a few options, none of the radio buttons were selected. I picked Charging Only. This also didn't solve the issue.

I should note that both affected phones were Samsung, but yes they were different models.

Now that I've picked Charging Only and there doesn't seem to be a way to uncheck that radio button without checking another, how do i return my phone to its former state, where i can also connect it to a computer for file transfer while retaining wired charging capability? Should i now pick Transferring Files / Android Auto?

 

[svim]

....
Now that I've picked Charging Only and there doesn't seem to be a way to uncheck that radio button without checking another, how do i return my phone to its former state, where i can also connect it to a computer for file transfer while retaining wired charging capability? Should i now pick Transferring Files / Android Auto?

Is there an option to select MTP instead?
https://www.howtogeek.com/192732/android-usb-connections-explained-mtp-ptp-and-usb-mass-storage/

 

[drdnaught1]

Is there an option to select MTP instead?
https://www.howtogeek.com/192732/android-usb-connections-explained-mtp-ptp-and-usb-mass-storage/

There isn't... The available options besides transferring files are System Update, MIDI, Transferring images, and Charging Phone Only.