Battery-charging weirdness...

[Laurence5905]

Ok, so last night, my phone is on the Multimedia Dock on the table next to my bed... I wake up about 3 hours after going to bed, and I noticed that the Notification LED was glowing red, which it does when you need to charge the battery. The battery-icon itself showed that the battery was charging (which, after 3 hours on the dock, it should've been full.)

I pulled the phone off the dock, and immediately got a notification that the battery was at 5%, and I should connect a charger quickly. I put the phone back on the dock, and it started charging. Then after about 5 seonds, it jumped to 100% battery, and stopped charging...

Very weird, yes?! I'm just wondering if anyone else has had this kind of weird battery-thing going on?

 

[640k]

how are you charging the phone?

is the dock connected to the wall or a PC?

 

[Laurence5905]

how are you charging the phone?

is the dock connected to the wall or a PC?

Dock is connected to the wall-charger that came with the dock, using the USB cable that also came with the dock.

 

[640k]

maybe the phone wasn't seated all of the way? as soon as you put the phone in the dock, the battery icon should change to an animated battery with a lightning bolt in it, indicating a charge.

also make sure the outlook you're plugged in to is not a switched outlet.

 

[FoFa]

I had something weird happen to my Droid once like that (but I have no dock). Said battery down to 15% or something like that. I plugged it in (using the wall charger) it said charging 90%.
Only happened once, on 2.0, so as with computers, I wrote it off as just "one of those things".

 

[640k]

also try doing a battery pull and waiting about a minute before putting it back in. weird battery issues seem to go away when you give it a rest.

 

[Laurence5905]

maybe the phone wasn't seated all of the way? as soon as you put the phone in the dock, the battery icon should change to an animated battery with a lightning bolt in it, indicating a charge.

also make sure the outlook you're plugged in to is not a switched outlet.

Definitely not a switched outlet. And I always check to ensure the battery-icon has the little "lightning bolt" on it when I set the Droid in the dock. It did have that going before I went to bed. Hence my use of the term "weirdness..." Everything was apparently normal before this happened.

 

[DarrellM5]

I've had the same thing happen several times with dockrunner and once when I just had the Droid plugged into the computer with a USB cable. The "low battery" notification is definitely false because after removing the Droid from the charging source and hooking it back up it quickly goes to 100%. Then if you immediately take it back off the charger, the battery will last as long as a fully charged battery normally does.

 

[640k]

yeah sounds like a fluke. you might have an app installed that can access the battery (or some related process) that flipped it out. if it happens again, reboot or try a battery pull. make sure you don't have any apps that might be questionable.

 

[Laurence5905]

I had something weird happen to my Droid once like that (but I have no dock). Said battery down to 15% or something like that. I plugged it in (using the wall charger) it said charging 90%.
Only happened once, on 2.0, so as with computers, I wrote it off as just "one of those things".

I'm hoping that's the case... "Just one of those things..."

I guess what's worrying me is that it did this while it was plugged in. It didn't do it while the phone was just sitting there -- it was already plugged in and charging when it started this weirdness... I just hate to think that the battery was fully-charged, but the CPU decided it wasn't fully charged, so it kept trying to charge it, thus damaging the battery. I'd hate for the battery to have been damaged by all this.

Although, I must say, this morning, the phone seems to be completely normal again... But I'm keeping a close eye on my battery-life, just to make sure the battery is still working properly...

 

[Big D]

I had something weird happen to my Droid once like that (but I have no dock). Said battery down to 15% or something like that. I plugged it in (using the wall charger) it said charging 90%.
Only happened once, on 2.0, so as with computers, I wrote it off as just "one of those things".

Me, too. I had about 70% on a charge. A few minutes later, I get a low batterry warning. I figured it was some app draining it. I plugged it in for about 5 minutes and it read 70% again and that lasted the rest of the day.

Only happened once.

 

[Laurence5905]

yeah sounds like a fluke. you might have an app installed that can access the battery (or some related process) that flipped it out. if it happens again, reboot or try a battery pull. make sure you don't have any apps that might be questionable.

Now that's an interesting idea -- I do have Battery Widget running. Maybe that's what screwed it up.

EDIT: So I just ininstalled Battery Widget. Are there any other apps out there that do a similar thing? Show the battery level on the home screen, I mean?

 

[KiraQ]

Battery Weirdness

I too have had the same thing happen to my Droid. I plug it in at night when I go to bed, with the charging cord that came with it, into an outlet in the kitchen.Three times I have gotten up and found the red 'charge me now' light flashing while it is still plugged in. I remove the cabe, plug it in angain and in seconds it is 100% charged. Has Mororola had anything to say about this issue? I have had my phone since early December.

 

[MacGyverS2000]

I'll add my hat to the ring...

Just got the 5% problem last night. Fresh charge from night prior, I was still at 75% (give or take) walking into a store... an hour later I had the blinking red LED of doom and a 5% warning. When I plugged it in (wall wart), it showed "60% and charging".

I have added only a few apps to my phone: AstroViewer for pics, a calculator app (never used), a barcode scanner (never used), and the power widget that comes with the phone. Everything is turned off (no GPS, Bluetooth, or WiFi) and the screen is set to the lowest illumination level.

I used it the week before on a single charge for 3 days, with a mix of a few short calls, plenty of texting, and a bit of web surfing... I still had 30% battery left (testing out what typical battery life would be like for me).

Either the hardware battery monitor chip is going tits up on the batteries, or the software that's reading it has issues.

BTW, this came from WireFly, so I'm pretty sure I didn't get a knock-off battery.

 

[HDTVsportsfan]

I've had wierd battery issue as well. I've had the Droid for 3 months. I have only added one DirecTV app. I got into the habit of plugging previous phones to the charger every night before going to bed. I had continued that w/ this phone as well.

I can charge it up all night and disconnect it the next morning and it will be at 5% or 10%. This has happened several times. Sometimes unplugging the charger and plugging it back in it will go to 100%. Other times disconnecting the charger the phone will just die. After that sometimes it won't power back up. I' ve tried the battery removal trick. So I'll wait the 15 minutes until i can make into work and plug it in to my USB charger (PC) and I still can't power it up. Suddenly ..say...20/25 minutes later I hear "DROID" and the damn thing will just turn on by itself and say it's charging at 5% and continue to charge for a few hours until it's 100%. This has all happened several times w/ varying combinations of issues and how the phone responds.

It seems the more I screw with it the weirder (<sp) it gets. Funny thing is....when I have it charged almost full it will last days as long as I don't plug it into a charger.

I'm in IT so I'm used to trouble shooting these type of intermittent annoyances. That's why I keep screwing with it. I took it a guy at my local BB that I have a good relationship w/ and he gave me a second battery as well as keeping my original. I actually don't think there is a problem w/ the phone or the batery itself. I think it's some weird a$$ problem between battery and the service that reports it.

I'll keep plugging away at it.