Fairphone 5: A Cautionary Tale for a "Repairable" Device

kugiigi

Sadly, this is the reality for us who buy devices that aren't officially supported in our region regardless if it's very repairable or not.

I actually didn't know they don't sell mainboards. That's good to know so I will have to avoid any damage to it
I would assume the IMEI is a legal thing that they have to comply?

In any case, I hope you still find a way to fix it. I think someone in the community has the tool and capability to do this. Not sure where they live though.

wgarcia

@Futura To be fair, one has to say that they clearly state in their web page what parts they have for replacement. Not too many, apart from the screen, from memory, the USB port, the camera and the USB port. But those are the ones that break most frequently, at least for me.

gpatel-fr

@Futura

FYI a repair guide exists for the Fairphone and the word 'EDL' appear in a schema so finding the points on the motherboard to trigger this mode is probably doable. Knowing how to use it is another story of course. The 'special cable' is also proposed on the Internet but it seems expensive

mango

This post is deleted!

Futura

@kugiigi
Right, this is the reality of living outside of the serviceable area, I had not anticipated the parts to not be sold at all though.

Yes, they have to comply with EU law with IMEI thing, I don't see how buying a device with a new IMEI differs at all from buying a part with a new IMEI can they not just register it the exact same way. Its activated and registered that way with my mobile carrier.

Thanks, I am looking into a parcel forwarding service, I had fully accepted the fact that I am outside of the service area and my warranty would be void. That is not at all what my issue is with this situation. Its the whole we are not going to supply the part that has CPU/RAM/Storage soldered to it and is the common failure point of internal electronics.

@gpatel-fr
I went down the rabbit hole as far as setting up a Win10 VM, UBS pass through, installing the qualcomm drivers, booting windows into test mode and having the device (qualcomm low level firmware) fully recognized via type-c to type-c cable.
Main issue is, as you said figuring out how to use that tool, and needing the files to flash onto the device which Fairphone does not supply to anyone aside from the repair facility. At least from what I have read with anyone posing about their FP5 stuck in EDL mode.

Basically the /e/OS corrupted the bootloader and recovery partitions on the device and its stuck in a low level emergency flash state from my rough understanding.

MrT10001

@Futura The low level flash tool doesn't work with a VM, even with USB passthrough. You need a Windows machine, running windows as the OS. The EDL cable is handy, but not really necessary.

Futura

@MrT10001
Setup a w10 install on a spare drive and repeated the steps above.

Currently using "EDL utility" from here https://www.temblast.com/edl.htm
The device is detected but I keep getting a can not open device

Completely open to suggestions if anyone has any please lmk!
Going to continue troubleshooting

MrT10001

@Futura Doing a bit of research, Fairphone seem to have been strangled by Qualcomm with the use of EDL, unfortunately you have to send it back to them to repair - another reason I won't buy a Fairphone as that part is just not "fair" - you should be able to repair your own device!

gpatel-fr

@MrT10001 said:

Doing a bit of research, Fairphone seem to have been strangled by Qualcomm with the use of EDL

Hello

I'm interested by this, do you have some links ?

Futura

@MrT10001 said:

@Futura Doing a bit of research, Fairphone seem to have been strangled by Qualcomm with the use of EDL, unfortunately you have to send it back to them to repair - another reason I won't buy a Fairphone as that part is just not "fair" - you should be able to repair your own device!

I could not agree more with you there! I even said to a rep "well that is not very fair" after they told me I cant just buy a replacement part that would fix all of my current problems. And really the main reason I wanted to make this post. Things I wish that I knew before I spent a lot of money on a device that is now a paperweight.

sixwheeledbeast

I'm all for repairable devices and empathise with your situation.
It does make sense that you can't replace the mainboard, at that point your not repairing the device your replacing it for a new one.
I would say you've been had by the reseller and Fairphone have been pretty fair with you considering the situation.
It's probably been too long but I would take it up with ebay.

Futura

@sixwheeledbeast
Ebay will not hear it, and there is no way that I can find to modify my initial review and warn other potential buyers to look elsewhere.
I am hoping at best this post can save someone else the headache and money wasted by that seller. I still think you may be able to find an honest seller out there on ebay but I am not certain I would trust someone else given my experience.

The fact that you can not send your device in and get a new mainboard from Fairphone was fairly alarming though. In no other product does replacing a main component equal replacing the entire thing, and I think suggesting it greatly discounts the devices repeatability and the right to repair in general.

Here is an example: If the engine in your car dies, you can have it replaced with a used or re-manufactured engine. The serial numbers on those components will not match the rest of your car similar to an IEMI number. But by no circumstances do you now have a new car.
The same goes for any components for a PC that have embedded addresses like a mac address.

Regardless of your view, if you offer to pay the manufacturer who assembled the device and sold it to you with an IEMI that you did not own before (even if its considered a new device now) there is no reason you cant do that again.

On a side note, I reached out to Murena as their os installer bricked my phone and they sell the devices with the OS pre-installed. They were much less helpful, did not want to re-flash my device sighting that it was not initially sold with /e/OS (like the ones they sell have some different hardware). But they do offer a re-flash service for EU residents only for 99 euros which is 50 more than Fiairphone will charge.

I am pushing on with the mail forwarding service and having the phone re flashed by Fiarphone I doubt this will be a quick process, but I will keep you updated here.

sixwheeledbeast

@Futura Taking your example of a car...
In this situation the vehicle chassis is the equivalent of the mainboard, the chassis number is the cars identity and in most places would then be considered a different vehicle at that point you can't swap a vehicles chassis and have the "same vehicle", however, you can swap everything else even engines.
Your unlikely to find a vehicle manufacturer that would sell you just a brand new chassis, maybe in the specialist industrial space but not domestic cars.

Anyway I'm not saying I like this in any industry. It would be nice to repair everything but unless more devices are supported natively we are stuck with these workarounds and lockouts to get nicer devices running what we need.

Futura

@sixwheeledbeast
Not to nitpick here but the Toyota Tacoma had 2 recalls to swap the chassis that did just that. You might have got a new vehicle if they agreed to buy it back.

Futura

Update:
I set-up a postal forwarding service so I have an address in the EU. Responded to the email that was sent out after my chat where I was informed that it would not be possible to assist me in any capacity without an address in the EU.
Mind you I am paying for this and not trying to scam a warranty policy.

The do not respond, I wait a few days and send a follow up email in the same email thread, no response again, I follow up again in a few more days....

Today I receive a response, do you think they opened a repair ticket or did anything at all to assist with facilitating this process? Nope, they responded with the following.

"We apologize for our delay in responding to your message.
With this message we want to assure you that your request has been received, and we are doing our best to get back to you as soon as possible.
To prevent further delay, we would like to ask you to not create multiple requests. If your request is urgent, then please reach out to our support team via Live Chat.
We also have an Online troubleshooting tool and useful Support articles to help guide you at home.
We appreciate your patience and value your continued support.
Your Fairphone Support Team"

Futura

20 Day Update:

I can not even get a response from Fairphone support at this point.

Email support is non-existant, and chat will not talk to you at all about it if you have a seperate ticket open and claims they will "email you that day" which is a flat out lie.

If you are thinking about a Fairphone and assuming they are a good company that will support end users, you may want to reconsider.

Due to the fact that this is essentially an IOT chip there are basically no firehose files out there to re-flash the firmware and unbrick my device without Fairphone doing it. One single file is all it would take to fix this, it looks like the firmware blobs are on github.

Moem

@Futura Wow, that's disappointing.

Futura

Update: Day 23

I have FINALLY got a response from Fairphone support, who claim the IMEI number I had initially given to them via chat and they used to look my device and tell me the previous owner had mainboard issues is suddenly not found in the system and they can not start a repair with it.

Responding with a photo of my IMEI's on the box, lets see how long it takes to get a response and if they will have another excuse to not help this time.