Black screen out of nowhere despite full charge

randaniel

Hello everyone,
I've been using Graphen OS on my Pixel 8a for a few months now, and so far it's been running smoothly for the most part.
This morning, I unplugged my phone from the charger and it was charged to 80% (as desired). I used it for a while, then put it aside, and when I wanted to use it again about an hour later, the screen was off. The phone won't start up, and there is no response when I connect a charger. Pressing the power and volume down buttons also produces no response.
Nothing happened to the device between normal use and its current state; it didn't fall off the table, and the charge level must be at least 75%. When I connect the device to my laptop, there is also no response.
I have no idea how to get the device to respond in any way. Does anyone have any idea what could have happened or how I can at least get the phone to respond in some way?
I would appreciate any ideas.
Daniel

Elgoog

randaniel in the last day or so, I've been having the same problem on a Pixel tablet when I return to the owner profile from a secondary profile. My fix has been to power off andvrestart., which is obviously not ideal.

dQnn

randaniel This happened to me as well, when I completely drained the battery and it refused to boot up. Fortunately, doing "hard reboot" (holding power button for >1 minute) solved it.

Actually, now that I remember, it was even more weird. I for sure thought my 8a got bricked because even after full charge, every time I unlocked the screen it would just shutdown.

I am getting tired of all these problems with GOS these days and all they do is blame it on pixel hardware which solves nothing for us. I had my pixel 6 stuck in bootloop after just a year (sadly, it's still bricked), hardware issue they said.

Even after disastrous events from pixel and how totally unreliable pixels are, I only buy it for GOS.

randaniel

Elgoog
Unfortunately, the device does not respond to the power + volume restart. My Pixel 8a has been unresponsive for over a week now. Even when I plug it back into the charger, absolutely nothing happens; the device doesn't even get warm.

randaniel

dQnn
Unfortunately, holding down the power button for 1-2 minutes does not produce any response. I find it a little difficult to complain about the developers who provide this OS free of charge, but after 6 months, holding a cell phone in my hands that has suddenly stopped working is extremely frustrating. Since there is no response even when connected to a computer, I have no idea what else I can do except buy a new device (on which I would of course not install GOS again).

de0u

randaniel It sounds as if your Pixel 8a suddenly went from working to completely and utterly not working. Obviously that's a catastrophic outcome and completely unwelcome.

Unfortunately, this does happen (out of the blue) to a small fraction of devices made by any manufacturer, regardless of which OS is running. Here are a couple of examples online of sudden dramatic Pixel failures, which do not appear to be reports from GrapheneOS users:

Here is a semi-recent somewhat-similar event with a Samsung device:

https://www.reddit.com/r/GalaxyS21/comments/uqnbv6/s21_black_screen_of_death_usual_solutions_not/

whatamisupposedtoputhere

Just signed up to report my experience, will be doing troubleshooting on my end:

I am having the same issue on a recently purchased Pixel 9a, 256gb model with both Samsung memory and storage. I have 3 pixel 9a phones in my possession, all with different mfg dates, stock android builds, and different memory / storage providers (phone 1: samsung:samsung, phone2: hynix:samsung, phone3:hynix,jmicron.) I haven't touched the other two phones yet other than to install graphene. The below only pertains to phone1, samsung:samsung, 256gb model.

The phone1 will, at random, cease to show anything on the display (black screen). Two times, the screen froze instead of being black, with a garbled texture bar across the screen (similar to how a TV with a row of bad pixels might look). Both times I did not get a chance to take a picture, before the phones self-rebooted.

Things I've noticed thus far:

it has not happened when using the phone. As long as the screen is on, displaying something, it works fine.
it has only ever occurred from a display off state. Meaning that if I go to hit the power button to turn the phone on, this has been when the black screen issue occurs.
when a black screen does occur, the phone is still functional. I can see it connected to WIFI on my router, ping it. I can plug it into a PC or charger and the phone will make noise / vibrate.
It may be time related. if I frequently check the phone, I've not had it do the black screen issue.

The solution each time has been to hold the power button for over 1 minute to force reboot the phone. It works normally afterwards for an undetermined amount of time before the black screen comes back.

THINGS I AM TESTING:

disable auto-reboot. If the phone is left alone for a time, and i go to use it via the power button, it frequently black screens and needs force rebooting.
tap to wake or lift to check screen: if I leave it alone and go to use it after a long period of time but wake it without using the power button, does it still occur? is it an issue with power button?
disable any lock screen: is it a hiccup with the lock screen? Does the lock screen cause the trouble? I use double power button press to activate camera, and two times now, the screen has froze doing this, with garbled bars across the screen.
wake the phone using scrcpy instead of physical touch (lift to wake, power button). Maybe its about a sensor, button, or even static electricity issue. Could remote interaction cause the black screen?

My window to send the phone back is closing, so I want to work out the issue quickly. Is it software bugs, or a lemon phone; I will report more later.