Phone not fast charging or connecting to computer

[Meowth LVL255]

So I got myself an upgrade phone from the Moto E5 plus to the Moto G7 Power (new) about 2 years ago. Although it's been a great phone, gently handled, it stopped fast charging 3 or 4 months into be having it. At the exact same time suspiciously, the phone stopped being able to connect to any computer with any c type cable. During the first hour of having the phone, I change the settings and then never touch then again, so I didn't activate any options to disable computer connection or the like. All of my cables will still fast charge and connect to computer all my friend's phones, but mine will not. There's nothing wrong with the temperature of the CPU or battery on my phone as it sits at 35°and 32° respectfully. My ram is at 69% usage as of right now running Firefox and ltt forums. My battery usually lasts around 4 to 5 days before I need to charge it, sometimes if I'm using it super heavy, I can drain it in 2 days. So as you can tell, nothing wrong with the battery or vitals. All that being said, I've talked to the scripted hotlines if Moto and my phone company who don't know much part asking me 5 times if I'm using the original charger and telling me to go into options and turn on USB connection which is unavailable even when plugged in. I've kept the c port squeaky clean and I put the phone in my pocket upside-down so lint doesn't get shoved forcefully into the port. I'm just short of taking my phone to a shade tree repair place to have then charge me half the phone's MSRP to fix a problem I have been living with for that long just fine. I made the mistake of asking Reddit and they just down voted my post into oblivion and commented saying I should only buy Samsung or iPhone. So my question is.. why isn't my phone fast charging or connecting to my windows PC? I had this problem with 3 other phones and I'm finally coming to ltt forums for the final answer. You guys seem to know what's up.

[Bombastinator]

2 minutes ago, Selestialnorre said:

So I got myself an upgrade phone from the Moto E5 plus to the Moto G7 Power (new) about 2 years ago. Although it's been a great phone, gently handled, it stopped fast charging 3 or 4 months into be having it. At the exact same time suspiciously, the phone stopped being able to connect to any computer with any c type cable. During the first hour of having the phone, I change the settings and then never touch then again, so I didn't activate any options to disable computer connection or the like. All of my cables will still fast charge and connect to computer all my friend's phones, but mine will not. There's nothing wrong with the temperature of the CPU or battery on my phone as it sits at 35°and 32° respectfully. My ram is at 69% usage as of right now running Firefox and ltt forums. My battery usually lasts around 4 to 5 days before I need to charge it, sometimes if I'm using it super heavy, I can drain it in 2 days. So as you can tell, nothing wrong with the battery or vitals. All that being said, I've talked to the scripted hotlines if Moto and my phone company who don't know much part asking me 5 times if I'm using the original charger and telling me to go into options and turn on USB connection which is unavailable even when plugged in. I've kept the c port squeaky clean and I put the phone in my pocket upside-down so lint doesn't get shoved forcefully into the port. I'm just short of taking my phone to a shade tree repair place to have then charge me half the phone's MSRP to fix a problem I have been living with for that long just fine. I made the mistake of asking Reddit and they just down voted my post into oblivion and commented saying I should only buy Samsung or iPhone. So my question is.. why isn't my phone fast charging or connecting to my windows PC? I had this problem with 3 other phones and I'm finally coming to ltt forums for the final answer. You guys seem to know what's up.

This is the weird issue of modern phones with wireless charging.  If the USBC breaks you can just keep on using it.  I suspect a burn in failure.  The timing is right.  Some bad solder joint or something burned out. This is what warranties are for.  Unfortunately you likely kept it till the warranty expired before addressing it so it becomes difficult.

[Meowth LVL255]

3 minutes ago, Bombastinator said:

This is the weird issue of modern phones with wireless charging.  If the USBC breaks you can just keep on using it.  I suspect a burn in failure.  The timing is right.  Some bad solder joint or something burned out. This is what warranties are for.  Unfortunately you likely kept it till the warranty expired before addressing it so it becomes difficult.

So usbc can just burn out and just keep working? That's just.. lol. I've been searching for a decent answer for years and so of a sudden.. boom ltt forums. I don't really care about running my insurance out and keeping the problem. I just needed an answer as to why it was happening in the first place. It might take me almost a full day to charge my phone to 100%, and I might have to Dropbox my files back and forth, but the whole point of my needing an answer was that so my brain was satisfied that I had the knowledge as to why. I'm about to upgrade my phone again anyways because I hate 8 core 1.8ghz* processor. This wasn't an upgrade, it was more of a sidegrade. I just needed to know I wasn't going insane because when I told anyone else about this problem, it was always about the apps, settings, it my charger is fucked up.

[HeroRareheart]

I find this happens to my devices with time either because the USB port on the phone was soldered to it really poorly and a solder joint failed or I've unplugged and plugged it in so much I wore it out. If you have the equipment and skillset it's not hard to do a component level repair to fix this on most devices, however if you don't any quality repair joint will charge you quite a bit for it. If you don't have the equipment or skillset you can make the investment and learn how to fix it, but it'll take a while to really nail repairing small devices like smartphones and you could break your phone or conduct a shoddy repair your first few times. If you would rather not deal with that you have to weigh paying to have it fixed vs buying a new device. For me if a device still does what it needs to and repair costs no more than about 10% of the new device I'd replace it with I get it repaired. Whether that's worth it to you or not boils down to a bunch of personal stuff like how much you care about reducing your e-waste footprint and do you need the features on new phones or not.

[Meowth LVL255]

2 minutes ago, HeroRareheart said:

I find this happens to my devices with time either because the USB port on the phone was soldered to it really poorly and a solder joint failed or I've unplugged and plugged it in so much I wore it out. If you have the equipment and skillset it's not hard to do a component level repair to fix this on most devices, however if you don't any quality repair joint will charge you quite a bit for it. If you don't have the equipment or skillset you can make the investment and learn how to fix it, but it'll take a while to really nail repairing small devices like smartphones and you could break your phone or conduct a shoddy repair your first few times. If you would rather not deal with that you have to weigh paying to have it fixed vs buying a new device. For me if a device still does what it needs to and repair costs no more than about 10% of the new device I'd replace it with I get it repaired. Whether that's worth it to you or not boils down to a bunch of personal stuff like how much you care about reducing your e-waste footprint and do you need the features on new phones or not.

I'm not really comfortable opening my current phone, but a phone I don't currently use, is do it without hesitation. I've done solter repair before, but as you said, I could destroy the phone doing that and if be buying a new one anyways. I think it'd just be a good idea I go ahead and upgrade and not worry about repair. I could hand my phone off to someone else for free that needs one as I usually do. There's always someone in need of a phone. But why couldn't I find you guys when I first experienced the problem? I could have saved a lot of underwear. I kid, but seriously.. there's no answers to this problem online at least when I was looking for them. I was pulling my hair out trying to find anything that made sense

[HeroRareheart]

3 minutes ago, Selestialnorre said:

why couldn't I find you guys when I first experienced the problem?

I find it difficult to source good forums for things quite often, even here sometimes I get responses that just aren't helpful. I run into what happened to you on Reddit a lot online where I'm told "just don't do that" rather than a proper answer. For some reason the LTT forum I find is often more helpful and friendly towards people.

[Alvin853]

21 minutes ago, Selestialnorre said:

So usbc can just burn out and just keep working? That's just.. lol. I've been searching for a decent answer for years and so of a sudden.. boom ltt forums. I don't really care about running my insurance out and keeping the problem. I just needed an answer as to why it was happening in the first place. It might take me almost a full day to charge my phone to 100%, and I might have to Dropbox my files back and forth, but the whole point of my needing an answer was that so my brain was satisfied that I had the knowledge as to why. I'm about to upgrade my phone again anyways because I hate 8 core 1.8ghz* processor. This wasn't an upgrade, it was more of a sidegrade. I just needed to know I wasn't going insane because when I told anyone else about this problem, it was always about the apps, settings, it my charger is fucked up.

A USB connector contains multiple wires, some of them are for power, some are for data. The power is always on at 5V, but for fast charging, the phone needs to communicate with the charger using a data line, so the charger can raise the voltage to for example 9V, 12V or 15V, depending on the fast charging capabilities of the phone. Sounds like you're having an issue with a data line, which is also why it won't connect to the computer anymore. Yeah it happens, sometimes just bad manufacturing, that's what warranty is for, sometimes the port breaks because the phone was dropped, too much force while connecting/disconnecting a cable, or any combination of those. 

The USB-C port on a G7 Power comes on a separate tiny board that can be replaced without soldering, you can probably find one on ebay/aliexpress for $10-15. The tricky part is opening the back, you need to cut through the adhesive strips around the phone to get the back off, but not cut through the fingerprint sensor cable. You will most likely damage the back, unless you're very careful, you'll end up with some jagged edges. So if you care about your phone being mint condition, consider also buying a replacement back, they're not expensive either. This is totally a repair that can be done by anyone, the worst thing that can happen is cutting the ribbon cable to the fingerprint sensor, I'm not sure if replacements are available for that. Try looking up pictures or videos of the disassembly process so you know where the cable is.

[Meowth LVL255]

19 minutes ago, HeroRareheart said:

I find it difficult to source good forums for things quite often, even here sometimes I get responses that just aren't helpful. I run into what happened to you on Reddit a lot online where I'm told "just don't do that" rather than a proper answer. For some reason the LTT forum I find is often more helpful and friendly towards people.

Well I hope it continues to be that way. I was starting to lose hope.

[Meowth LVL255]

6 minutes ago, Alvin853 said:

A USB connector contains multiple wires, some of them are for power, some are for data. The power is always on at 5V, but for fast charging, the phone needs to communicate with the charger using a data line, so the charger can raise the voltage to for example 9V, 12V or 15V, depending on the fast charging capabilities of the phone. Sounds like you're having an issue with a data line, which is also why it won't connect to the computer anymore. Yeah it happens, sometimes just bad manufacturing, that's what warranty is for, sometimes the port breaks because the phone was dropped, too much force while connecting/disconnecting a cable, or any combination of those. 

The USB-C port on a G7 Power comes on a separate tiny board that can be replaced without soldering, you can probably find one on ebay/aliexpress for $10-15. The tricky part is opening the back, you need to cut through the adhesive strips around the phone to get the back off, but not cut through the fingerprint sensor cable. You will most likely damage the back, unless you're very careful, you'll end up with some jagged edges. So if you care about your phone being mint condition, consider also buying a replacement back, they're not expensive either. This is totally a repair that can be done by anyone, the worst thing that can happen is cutting the ribbon cable to the fingerprint sensor, I'm not sure if replacements are available for that. Try looking up pictures or videos of the disassembly process so you know where the cable is.

You know what.. imma do it thank you.

[BiotechBen]

So I had a Moto G7 plus adored the phone enough to get another Moto (g100 now) and had a similar problem for a little while, it wouldn't fast charge, wouldn't go more than like 300ma charging, and I got a brand new cable, then let the phone drain completely, then charged it from full dead to 100% powered off, and that fixed it for some reason.... Did t have a data transmission issue though.

[HeroRareheart]

18 minutes ago, Alvin853 said:

The USB-C port on a G7 Power comes on a separate tiny board that can be replaced without soldering

I totally forgot that lots of phones were like that, oops.

 

12 minutes ago, Selestialnorre said:

You know what.. imma do it thank you.

ifixit is a good place to get both a guide on repair and the tool needed for the job.

[Bombastinator]

1 hour ago, Selestialnorre said:

So usbc can just burn out and just keep working? That's just.. lol. I've been searching for a decent answer for years and so of a sudden.. boom ltt forums. I don't really care about running my insurance out and keeping the problem. I just needed an answer as to why it was happening in the first place. It might take me almost a full day to charge my phone to 100%, and I might have to Dropbox my files back and forth, but the whole point of my needing an answer was that so my brain was satisfied that I had the knowledge as to why. I'm about to upgrade my phone again anyways because I hate 8 core 1.8ghz* processor. This wasn't an upgrade, it was more of a sidegrade. I just needed to know I wasn't going insane because when I told anyone else about this problem, it was always about the apps, settings, it my charger is fucked up.

I thought you said it stopped working.  Might not be an issue in the port but in the controller or something then.  With SoCs though it may mean the whole motherboard has to be replaced.    Burn-in failure can happen just about anywhere.  Solder joints are common though.  The problem is if they have people doing the soldering (which means a no name or cheapass company which this one doesn’t sound like) there can be soldering screwups.  Another thing that can cause soldering screwups is dirty material or the fact that solder costs money and they want to use as little of it as possible, which can make for “only barely works” situations.  This is part of what’s behind that one year minimum warranty in the EU.  Somewhere there was a tiny trace with a thin spot that was connected but had high resistance which heated it up and caused it to degrade.  This is why electronics usually either die in the first 3 months or live out their life cycle.

Edited February 28, 2022 by Bombastinator

[Paul Siu]

Hi,

 

I ran into a similar issue with my Pixel 3aXL. I think you must first isolate the issue. You want to isolate that

1. Is it your phone?

2. Is it your cable?

3. Is it your power source?

From your post, you indicated that you cannot connect to your computer and but can charge slowly from your adapter. This would probably rule out your power source. Let's try doing the following:

 

1. Try flipping the connector around. USB C are supposed to work both ways, but each side has a separate set of contacts that can fail individually. Try flipping the connector to see if this resolves the issue. If it works the other side, see #3 to see if you can fix the problem by cleaning it. if not, consider just living with a one direction USB C since it's costly to repair.

2. Try a different cable. Cables sometimes fail.

3. If changing the cable does not help, try cleaning the connector. Even with careful maintenance, stuff can get in. Try using some compress air first. If this does not work, try some contact cleaner or rubbing alcohol. Try cleaning it with a plastic pick of some sort. Do not use a metal pick or you will scratch out the usb c contacts. A cotten swab may also leave bits of cotton behind.

 

In my case, I did all 3 and it failed. My phone started to charge one way, then stop working with computers and then stop working completely.  I took it to a repair shop and the guy looked at the port underneath a scope and he indicated that the contacts were corroded. I don't go swimming with my phone and don't live in a humid environment, so I am puzzled that it got corroded. He had the connector replaced for $80 with some promocode discount.

 

On another note, I find Reddit to be hit or miss for stuff. Some forum are helpful, some are just full of weird rules. One of the apple forum for esample only seemed to want to discuss apple rumors.

[Alvin853]

5 hours ago, Paul Siu said:

On another note, I find Reddit to be hit or miss for stuff. Some forum are helpful, some are just full of weird rules. One of the apple forum for esample only seemed to want to discuss apple rumors.

The big problem with any online forum for help is: the right people need to see your question. You may get someone randomly joining the conversation that has done that exact thing or performs similar tasks as a job, or just some random people that don't know what they're talking about, or you get no response at all. And sometimes, when the first person already answered something, others are less likely to post contradicting answers, even if the first answer is totally wrong. So you end up with only a single answer and then conclude noone else has to add anything, so it must be correct.

[Paul Siu]

2 hours ago, Alvin853 said:

The big problem with any online forum for help is: the right people need to see your question. You may get someone randomly joining the conversation that has done that exact thing or performs similar tasks as a job, or just some random people that don't know what they're talking about, or you get no response at all. And sometimes, when the first person already answered something, others are less likely to post contradicting answers, even if the first answer is totally wrong. So you end up with only a single answer and then conclude noone else has to add anything, so it must be correct.

I don't even mean that. On reddit, I would post to a group and then get rejected right away because of some requirement. They might say, you must posted it into some daily post thread, but then it never gets answered. Often it's trying to get posted there in the first place. As the original poster noticed, some group tend to be suscribed to by unhelpful people, but that varies from group to group.

[Bombastinator]

3 hours ago, Alvin853 said:

The big problem with any online forum for help is: the right people need to see your question. You may get someone randomly joining the conversation that has done that exact thing or performs similar tasks as a job, or just some random people that don't know what they're talking about, or you get no response at all. And sometimes, when the first person already answered something, others are less likely to post contradicting answers, even if the first answer is totally wrong. So you end up with only a single answer and then conclude noone else has to add anything, so it must be correct.

This is a prime reason why I try to only comment on stuff that has gone unreplied to for a long time.  There are people a lot more qualified than me here, and I’m not as sure of my answers as I’d like to be.  Generally the “um.. actually” factor tends to come into effect for wrong stuff though, so stuff that is wrong often gets corrected. 

[Meowth LVL255]

16 hours ago, Bombastinator said:

This is a prime reason why I try to only comment on stuff that has gone unreplied to for a long time.  There are people a lot more qualified than me here, and I’m not as sure of my answers as I’d like to be.  Generally the “um.. actually” factor tends to come into effect for wrong stuff though, so stuff that is wrong often gets corrected. 

The big difference between you guys and the people of Reddit is that people there seem to be emotionally charged and ready to fight at any time. Like on the same post that I was asking about the cell tower and internet, there was some guy who came at me with a hostile attitude and when I asked him if he read the part of my paragraph that would have answered his question, he responded with a "go fuck yourself" comment, which I see he's now deleted after downvoting my responses. More often than not, I tend to run into these types of people when on Reddit. When I asked the same question here, nobody sprang into argument, and nobody attacked me. Months ago, I asked the question this thread is about and all I ended up with were answers like "Get a Samsung" "Get an iPhone" "Your phone sucks, get what I have". I was also downvoted by people who don't like Moto phones and that's not what I asked. Hell, I'll say it here. I use Microsoft Edge. When I asked why hardware acceleration makes my monitors blink, (1 out of 5 posts) Reddit downvoted the post into oblivion and let me know that Edge was a piece of shit, and I should use Chrome. So, I'm glad to have found this forum where I haven't run into any of that so far.

[Meowth LVL255]

On 2/27/2022 at 11:21 PM, Paul Siu said:

Hi,

 

I ran into a similar issue with my Pixel 3aXL. I think you must first isolate the issue. You want to isolate that

1. Is it your phone?

2. Is it your cable?

3. Is it your power source?

From your post, you indicated that you cannot connect to your computer and but can charge slowly from your adapter. This would probably rule out your power source. Let's try doing the following:

 

1. Try flipping the connector around. USB C are supposed to work both ways, but each side has a separate set of contacts that can fail individually. Try flipping the connector to see if this resolves the issue. If it works the other side, see #3 to see if you can fix the problem by cleaning it. if not, consider just living with a one direction USB C since it's costly to repair.

2. Try a different cable. Cables sometimes fail.

3. If changing the cable does not help, try cleaning the connector. Even with careful maintenance, stuff can get in. Try using some compress air first. If this does not work, try some contact cleaner or rubbing alcohol. Try cleaning it with a plastic pick of some sort. Do not use a metal pick or you will scratch out the usb c contacts. A cotten swab may also leave bits of cotton behind.

 

In my case, I did all 3 and it failed. My phone started to charge one way, then stop working with computers and then stop working completely.  I took it to a repair shop and the guy looked at the port underneath a scope and he indicated that the contacts were corroded. I don't go swimming with my phone and don't live in a humid environment, so I am puzzled that it got corroded. He had the connector replaced for $80 with some promocode discount.

 

On another note, I find Reddit to be hit or miss for stuff. Some forum are helpful, some are just full of weird rules. One of the apple forum for esample only seemed to want to discuss apple rumors.

I've tried all the cable shenanigans that I could. So, my friend has the same phone that I do, and she charges it in the wall with the charger she got with hers. I plugged mine in to show her what was going on and then she plugged in her phone. Hers fast charged and mine didn't. We plugged the charger into her laptop and her phone connected and mine didn't. That was over the weekend. My phone will charge, but it'll say charging slowly. It might take a full day to charge fully, but it'll go. So I know I've used good chargers. I also had a similar issue with my Moto E5 Plus before the sidegrade. My phone stopped fast charging and connecting to any PC, but months later, it started working just fine again and continues to this day to work just fine. I'm still scratching my head over that one.

[Bombastinator]

4 hours ago, Selestialnorre said:

The big difference between you guys and the people of Reddit is that people there seem to be emotionally charged and ready to fight at any time. Like on the same post that I was asking about the cell tower and internet, there was some guy who came at me with a hostile attitude and when I asked him if he read the part of my paragraph that would have answered his question, he responded with a "go fuck yourself" comment, which I see he's now deleted after downvoting my responses. More often than not, I tend to run into these types of people when on Reddit. When I asked the same question here, nobody sprang into argument, and nobody attacked me. Months ago, I asked the question this thread is about and all I ended up with were answers like "Get a Samsung" "Get an iPhone" "Your phone sucks, get what I have". I was also downvoted by people who don't like Moto phones and that's not what I asked. Hell, I'll say it here. I use Microsoft Edge. When I asked why hardware acceleration makes my monitors blink, (1 out of 5 posts) Reddit downvoted the post into oblivion and let me know that Edge was a piece of shit, and I should use Chrome. So, I'm glad to have found this forum where I haven't run into any of that so far.

Edge and chrome are the same thing.  Literally. It’s a question of whether you get mined by google or Microsoft.   I think Microsoft is marginally less bad than google so if I have a choice between only the two I pick edge. When possible I’ll take Firefox over both.  I’d even take brave over both which I understand is also chrome. 
As for Reddit the common statement around here is “Reddit is a cesspool” which I think is more or less what you describe.  There is much more active moderation here.  My daily driver is firefox and duckduckgo. I used to use Scroogle, which was google with the metadata stripped out by a guy who was annoyed by google.  that was great.  He got hammered though or something.  I can’t find it anymore.

Edited March 1, 2022 by Bombastinator

[Meowth LVL255]

2 hours ago, Bombastinator said:

Edge and chrome are the same thing.  Literally. It’s a question of whether you get mined by google or Microsoft.   I think Microsoft is marginally less bad than google so if I have a choice between only the two I pick edge. When possible I’ll take Firefox over both.  I’d even take brave over both which I understand is also chrome. 
As for Reddit the common statement around here is “Reddit is a cesspool” which I think is more or less what you describe.  There is much more active moderation here.  My daily driver is firefox and duckduckgo. I used to use Scroogle, which was google with the metadata stripped out by a guy who was annoyed by google.  that was great.  He got hammered though or something.  I can’t find it anymore.

Glad to know I'm not the only one who thinks Reddit is a cesspool. Maybe I can learn to calm down here and not be on edge that people are going to immediately attack me. As for my browsers, I have Firefox and Edge. I don't use Google Chrome because I don't feel the need to have 3 browsers. I have 2 browsers only because if edge is having issues one day, I can just open Firefox. If those 2 things fail, there's most likely a problem with the site and I don't absolutely need to be there at that moment. As for why I chose those 2.. I started using edge because it was there right in front of me. There was basically no set up and I could just open it and go. I grabbed Firefox because it was the first other browser name that popped in my head. I believe there's no one browser that is best and they all basically do the same exact things with exceptions. I know Chrome uses resources that I don't want to give up, so that's my best answer for why I don't use it. I don't care if whatever company wants to data mine me. Go right ahead. I do use Google search because it's just there and easy to use. I always search by the concept of "If you know what you're looking for, you'll find it if you want it bad enough." So, any search engine that's in my way is good enough for me.

[Paul Siu]

7 hours ago, Selestialnorre said:

I've tried all the cable shenanigans that I could. So, my friend has the same phone that I do, and she charges it in the wall with the charger she got with hers. I plugged mine in to show her what was going on and then she plugged in her phone. Hers fast charged and mine didn't. We plugged the charger into her laptop and her phone connected and mine didn't. That was over the weekend. My phone will charge, but it'll say charging slowly. It might take a full day to charge fully, but it'll go. So I know I've used good chargers. I also had a similar issue with my Moto E5 Plus before the sidegrade. My phone stopped fast charging and connecting to any PC, but months later, it started working just fine again and continues to this day to work just fine. I'm still scratching my head over that one.

Did you try cleaning the port? This sound like a port issue with the contacts. Did you try cleaning it out and see if it resolves the issues?

[Meowth LVL255]

On 3/1/2022 at 9:25 AM, Paul Siu said:

Did you try cleaning the port? This sound like a port issue with the contacts. Did you try cleaning it out and see if it resolves the issues?

Yes, that's one of the first things I tried. I have a plastic tool I use to clean the port. Also, I put my phone in my pocket upside down so lint doesn't get shoved up into the port. I learned my lesson year ago with that. The port is squeaky clean and I didn't damage it myself because I'm very gentle with my devices. I'm guessing it was as said above by someone else: The port was thrown together to break early for insurance purposes. Bad case of "Throw it together now, fix it later".

[Paul Siu]

16 hours ago, Selestialnorre said:

Yes, that's one of the first things I tried. I have a plastic tool I use to clean the port. Also, I put my phone in my pocket upside down so lint doesn't get shoved up into the port. I learned my lesson year ago with that. The port is squeaky clean and I didn't damage it myself because I'm very gentle with my devices. I'm guessing it was as said above by someone else: The port was thrown together to break early for insurance purposes. Bad case of "Throw it together now, fix it later".

OK, it's worth a try. I had several UBC C phone so far. The Honor 8 ran mostly trouble-free for 5 years until the port got damaged due to a bad insert. The pixel 3aXL has been nothing but trouble. I think they are more fragile than expected. The contacts on the usb often get damage or corroded. Sometimes the electronic short out on the other end.