How to fix your Samsung Galaxy A3 (2017) that won’t charge [Troubleshooting Guide]
Charging is very important to electronic devices because without power, your phone will become just another expensive paperweight on your table. We have received several complaints from our readers who own the Samsung Galaxy A3 and some of them reported that their devices can no longer charge properly. A brand new phone should work without a hitch but since this happened, there’s a chance that it’s an issue with the firmware since we’ve already encountered charging problems in the past caused by firmware updates. We’ve also encountered similar issues caused by some hardware problems so we really don’t know what the matter with your phone is.
In this post, I will walk you through in troubleshooting your Galaxy A3 that no longer charges for some reason. We have to look into each possibility and try to rule them out one-by-one until we arrive at a point wherein we can easily pinpoint what the cause of the problem is and formulate a solution that might just fix it. So, if you own this phone and are currently bugged by a charging problem, then continue reading as this post maybe able to help you.
Now, before we jump to our troubleshooting guide, if even you found this post because you were trying to find a solution to different issue, then I suggest you visit our Galaxy A3 troubleshooting page for we have already addressed some of the most commonly reported issues with this device. Try to find a problem that’s similar with yours and use the solutions or workarounds we suggested. If they don’t work for you and if you need further assistance, then fill up our Android issues questionnaire and we will include your concern in our next posts.
Here’s what you need to do if your Galaxy A3 no longer charges
Problem: Hello droid guy. It’s my first time here in your website and I already read some of your posts that are very helpful. I own a Galaxy Note 4 and the Galaxy A3. the phone I’m having problems with is the A3. the problem is that for some reason it doesn’t charge anymore and I’m not really sure why. It just started doing this (or not doing it) yesterday and I’m worried since I just bought this phone in March. Can you please help me with it? Thanks.
Troubleshooting: More often than not, owners would only know their phones no longer charges when the battery is almost drained. It’s because no one would want to charge their phone if it still has more 30% battery left. So, you would only know your phone has a charging issue when it’s already dying. If your phone no longer charges, here’s what you need to do:
Step 1: Soft reset your phone and try charging it again
I don’t know how many times you tried charging your phone already so I assume that no matter what you do, it just won’t charge. The first thing I want you to do is to try to soft reset your phone to rule out the possibility that this problem is caused by a glitch in the firmware or the hardware.
The soft reset we’re talking about here is equivalent to the battery pull procedure we often do to phones with removable batteries. It’s very effective in dealing with problems that have something to do with glitches either in the firmware or hardware. Just press the Volume Down and Power keys together for 10 seconds and if your phone still has enough battery left, then it should reboot normally. After the reboot, plug the charger in and then connect your phone to see if the phone charges this time. If still no, then move on to the next step.
Step 2: Connect your phone to a computer or laptop to see if it charges
So your device is not charging when connected to its charger and it’s time to know if the problem is with the charger itself. If you have a computer or a laptop, try to connecting your phone to it to see if it shows the charging icon. Usually, computers gives out about half an Ampere of current and your phone usually gets 2 from its charger but we’re not actually trying to see how fast the phone can charge but if it responds when it detects current is flowing through its circuits. If it does charge, then buy a new charger but if it still not charging, then move on to the next step.
Step 3: Reboot your phone in safe mode and try charging
We’ve encountered issues wherein third-party apps caused charging issues. In fact, the most common is that the phone actually discharges even if it’s plugged in. So, let’s try to determine if your third-party apps have something to do with it.
Reboot your Galaxy A3 in Safe mode to temporarily disable all third-party apps and then try charging your phone while in that mode. This is how you start your phone in safe mode:
- Turn the device off.
- Press and hold the Power key past the screen with the device name.
- When ‘SAMSUNG’ appears on the screen, release the Power key.
- Immediately after releasing the Power key, press and hold the Volume down key.
- Continue to hold the Volume down key until the device finishes restarting.
- Safe mode will display in the bottom left corner of the screen.
- Release the Volume down key when you see ‘Safe Mode’.
All you need to know is if your phone is still capable of charging its battery because if it is, at least, you already have a workaround you could use just to replenish the power of your device. If you have enough time to troubleshoot, then you need to find the apps that cause the problem and then try updating, resetting or even uninstalling them in a bid to fix the problem.
How to update apps in your Galaxy A3
- From any Home screen, tap the Apps icon.
- Tap Play Store.
- Tap the Menu key and then tap My Apps. To keep your apps automatically updated, tap the Menu key, tap Settings, and then tap Auto-update apps to select the check box.
- Choose one of the following options:
- Tap Update [xx] to update all applications with updates available.
- Tap an individual application and then tap Update to update a single application.
How to reset your Galaxy A3 by clear apps cache and data
- From any Home screen, tap the Apps icon.
- Tap Settings.
- Tap Applications.
- Tap Application manager.
- Tap the desired application in the default list or tap MORE > Show system apps to display pre-installed apps.
- Tap Storage.
- Tap Clear data and then tap OK.
- Tap Clear cache.
How to uninstall or remove apps from your Galaxy A3
- From any Home screen, tap the Apps icon.
- Tap Settings.
- Tap Applications.
- Tap Application manager.
- Tap the desired application
- Tap Uninstall.
- Tap Uninstall again to confirm.
If the phone is still not charging even in safe mode, then try the next step.
Step 4: Turn off your phone and try charging
Now we want to know if the phone charges it’s not powered on. This is actually one way to find out if the hardware is still good or not because if the phone charges fine while it’s turned off, then the problem might all be in the firmware. However, if the phone refuses to charge even when powered down, it’s more likely a hardware problem and you need a technician to do fix the problem for you.
Now, let’s assume that the phone charges while powered down, the next thing you have to do is to allow your phone to fully-charge its battery first and then try to reset it.
There are two common ways to reset your phone. You can either reset it through the Recovery mode or from the Settings menu. If you want to reset your phone via the Recovery mode, then you need to disable the Factory Reset Protection so you won’t be locked of your phone after the reset. You have to do this especially if you don’t know the Google ID and its password that’s used in your phone. But either you want to reset it from recovery mode or settings menu, you need to backup your files and data as they will be delete.
How to disable the Factory Reset Protection
- From the Home screen, tap the Apps icon.
- Tap Settings.
- Tap Accounts.
- Tap Google.
- Tap your Google ID email address. If you have multiple accounts setup, you will need to repeat these steps for each account.
- Tap More.
- Tap Remove account.
- Tap REMOVE ACCOUNT.
How to reset your Galaxy A3 in Recovery mode
- Turn off the device.
- Press and hold the Volume Up key and the Home key, then press and hold the Power key.
- When the device logo screen displays, release only the Power key
- When the Android logo displays, release all keys (‘Installing system update’ will show for about 30 – 60 seconds before showing the Android system recovery menu options).
- Press the Volume down key several times key to highlight ‘wipe data / factory reset.’
- Press Power button to select.
- Press the Volume down key until ‘Yes — delete all user data’ is highlighted.
- Press Power button to select and start the master reset.
- When the master reset is complete, ‘Reboot system now’ is highlighted.
- Press the Power key to restart the device.
How to reset your Galaxy A3 from the Settings menu
- From the Home screen, tap the Apps icon.
- Tap Settings.
- Tap Backup and reset.
- If desired, tap Back up my data to move the slider to ON or OFF.
- If desired, tap Restore to move the slider to ON or OFF.
- Tap Factory data reset.
- Tap Reset device.
- If you have screen lock turned on, enter your PIN or password.
- Tap Continue.
- Tap Delete all.
If all else fails, bring the phone to a shop and have the tech take a look at it.
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Life saving. Works using reboot. And my phone was totally dead, it stuck was stuck at zero. But i connect the charger and press volume button and central button at same time. It started charging again.
Good work! Keep it up
Excellent…life saver..soft reboot worked first time.
soft reboot worked for me too luckily it seems that my phone had crashed with a pretty good charge
My phone is completely out of charge and not charging. I’ve tested the charger and the sockets and they are working fine but I cant do any of these steps as my phone is dead. What should I do?
Many thanks, indeed, for this advice (soft reboot) – it did the trick. You provide an invaluable service!
THANK YOU! I thought my phone was dead forever, but it woke up 😀
Thanks so much for posting this! I thought my phone was banjaxed but once I found this article phone starting charging again after completing step 1! Happy days! 🙂