Help Moto G rebooted itself and needed recharging

[Kraftwerk]

I charged the Moto G yesterday.

This afternoon I heard the Moto G make a sound - it had rebooted itself, but when it had restarted a warning popped up saying I needed to charge it as I only had 1% of power left!

What has gone wrong, as it was fully charged the day before and I have hardly used it.

Where has all the power gone from the battery from the day before - it still must be charged, so won't charging it again overcharge it?

 

[Drogyn]

I had that one time.. and I have the screen shot that shows it.

It hasn't happened since though, so I assume it was just some weird glitch.
Charging the phone to get it to stay on didn't cause any issues, and as you can see it seems to have realized (for want of a better word) that the battery had charge and returned to normal functionality.

 

[Rukbat]

1) Unless there's something seriously wrong with the phone, you can't overcharge the battery. The phone stops charging the battery when it's full.

2) It sounds like a "dendritic short" in the battery - a pretty thick one that didn't burn itself out until the battery was almost dead. (Most of them burn out as soon as they occur, so you lose 1 or 2 percent charge.) If that's the case, it will happen again. It's actually a manufacturing defect, but you'll never convince your carrier or Motorola to replace it under warranty.

Drogyn, that definitely looks like the signature of a small dendrite. It's a VERY short time short (usually hundreds of microsecond at most), which blows out almost immediately and allows the battery to start recovering.

 

[Kraftwerk]

Reading on another forum, motorola know about the problem (they have been replying in the thread) and there will be an update soonish.
But if it's a problem with the battery, then an update won't work, will it?

https://forums.motorola.com/posts/7a7b068df1?page=11

I have been charging it for the last half hour and it is showing 94%, so it looks like the mobile recognizes that it was nearly fully charged.

Just wondering if it is going to happen again?

If it does happen again, some users said they were able to use their moto g for ages with it at 1% - I wonder if the mobile will start showing the correct battery power left after a short time, or it is best to charge it again for a few hours and get it to 100%?

 

[Drogyn]

Well.. it did it again.. this time whilst plugged in and charging. Never made to to 100% over night (actually for the 2nd night in a row) and decided to power down around 6am before rebooting and continuing it's charge.

 

[DeathToFlesh]

Something similar happen to me as well on stock ROM couple days after I purchased.
I charged to 100% took off charger, it said 1% shut off, I plugged it back in, booted it up while on charger, was back to 100% it's never happened again.. Thought I was the only one facing that strange occurrence. My variant is the xt1031

 

[Kraftwerk]

I have not had the problem again since the incident happened.
Fingers crossed it was just a one off event.

Just thinking about an update 4.4.3 which is available but not for the Moto G at the moment.

People are saying the the update affected what the charging total is showing - it only charges to 96%, never to 100%.

As long as I don't have the problem mentioned in my first post again (or too often if it does happen again) I don't think I would want the 4.4.3 update.

Problem is, the update will keep popping up that it needs to be installed (until you install it), well that's what happened when 4.4.2 was available for me.

 

[JoeHPSDA]

I'm having a similar problem.

When I attach my phone to my laptop via USB and then click on the tethering option, sometimes the phone will display the shutting down message and the battery icon will show an empty battery.

Then the phone will auto reboot with a totally dead battery, and start charging via the USB.

This doesn't happen every time I tether but fairly regularly.

Could it be a bad USB port on my laptop? Or bad USB cable?

Thanks!

 

[Ploppz]

I had the same problem just some days after unpacking my Moto G. (I was in italiy in the heat so it might have been exposed to some heat from the sun, although only when occasionally being taken up from my pocket to take a picture etc.)
It was fully charged in the morning, then suddenly it shut down. But it only needed about 1 min of charging to reach full capacity again.. I'm just wondering if this is something I should worry about.

 

[Drogyn]

Occurred again last night.... Phone was put on charge when I went to bed, and was showing as charging. Was awoken at 5am to my phone restarting after turning itself off due to lack of charge.
The display showed it as plugged in and charging though the battery level would not raise above 1%. After turning the phone off for a few mins and then charging it while powered off to 3% I turned the phone back on to find the battery meter telling me it would take about 5 hours to charge. It took something less than 30 minutes before the phone was showing full charge again.

I have now contacted Motorola over this because frankly it's a bit of a joke, even on a bargain phone like the Moto G. Their reply was as follows:

"We are sorry to hear that you are having problems with your Moto G. I will suggest to try a different charger it could be that the one being used is causing the problem by not charging the battery. Please ensure that the charger is a 5v charger with a range of amperage of 0.5a to 1.5a European built."

Well duh!
The charger meets the specs, it charges my phone regularly without issue and the phone has done this without been plugged in on prior occasions.

After that response they quickly close the issue allowing me to reopen it by phone, which to me says "we don't really give a crap" they didn't even really address the issue as reported.

 

[Thom]

Did you inspect the socket and plug to make sure they are clean and not corroded? Perhaps you have a marginal connection. A toothpick and compressed air can help clean them. Pocket lint in the socket is common.

Did you try another charger? Maybe the one you are using is erratic.

Maybe power got turned off to the charger due to some change in environment wiring?

... Thom

 

[Coeur de Leon]

The 1% battery issue is very well known and allegedly will be fixed in 4.4.4 which is being rolled out in certain parts of the world at present. I believe the Moto g will skip 4.4.3

There is a sort of instant fix which is to turn off then press and hold both power and vol down for full 2 minutes.

When you release you will be in the boot menu from where you press vol up to boot normally, this restores the batter indication to the correct charge level.

This happems to me quitre often and it is just a sensing problem, the phone will go on after the reboot. It happened to me this morning in fact and attached is a screenshot showing it dropping to 1% then restoring very quickly.