How to fix a Galaxy S9 Plus that won’t charge or charges very slowly [troubleshooting guide]

Are you having trouble with your #GalaxyS9Plus charging lately? If you are, this troubleshooting post may help you fix it.

Problem #1: Galaxy S9 Plus showing moisture detected error due to corrosion

Moisture detected in charging port, but it’s due to corrosion. The store looked at the device and although the little marker for water damage hasn’t chbged colors, the phone has corrosion in the charging port. I usually shower at a night and have my phone on the bathroom counter, so I’m assuming it’s cause by the steam. I have already cottonswabbed with alcohol, and also used canned duster to dry it out. Repeated restarting and 1/15 restarts it will come on without the error. Is there a way to clean the corrosion safely? Or would warranty most likely cover this? (Bought phone in November 2017) — SHANE A ALAMEDA

Solution: Hi Shane. Once corrosion sets in, there’s no way of reversing or eliminating it. If you’re right to say that corrosion has already established itself in the charging port area, that means that some metalic parts of your phone has already started. Since you can’t obviously fix physical damage by doing software tricks, you’ll most likely send the phone in for repair. What you can do now is to either wait and see how bad this corrosion thing pans out, or get professional help from Samsung. Cleaning the damaged part won’t do any good at all.

As far as standard warranty of Samsung is concerned, any damage brought about by liquid or water is considered customer misuse so this one won’t likely get you free repair. To know how much you’re going to pay for the repair, you have to bring the device physically to Samsung Service Center so a technician can check it.

Problem #2: Galaxy S9 Plus won’t charge or charges very slowly

My Samsung Galaxy S9 Plus recently started having charging problems. It started a few weeks ago when my phone suddenly stopped charging. I found that I had to insert the charger at a downwards angle in order to get the phone to charge, but after that it charged fine for a while. However, I found that soon after that the phone started charging slowly, and even though i tried every charger I own, none of them would cause the phone to charge at a normal speed. As of this morning, the phone stopped charging again. When plugged in, it would work for a minute, but then start charging. Because of how little charge it is able to get in before it stops, the phone is not gaining any battery power, but rather losing power. I have tried everything I can and would appreciate any help that can be given to solve this problem. Thanks. — Ethan Ethan

Solution: Hi Ethan. There’s a number of possible reasons why your S9 charges slowly or not at all anymore. To see which of these variables is the cause of the problem, we suggest that you follow our troubleshooting below.

Soft reset

Some users reported fixing charging issues on their phones before after simulating a “battery pull” so this should be the first thing that you want to do. This is basically similar to the regular restart procedure in terms of effects to the system. The significant difference with soft reset from regular restart is that it clears up your phone’s RAM as well. Because some bugs can only exist as long as the app or service is actively running or suspended in RAM, soft reset can potentially fix the problem.

To soft reset your S9:

  1. Press and hold the Power + Volume Down buttons for approximately 10 seconds or until the device power cycles. Note: Allow several seconds for the Maintenance Boot Mode screen to appear.
  2. From the Maintenance Boot Mode screen, select Normal Boot. You can use the volume buttons to cycle through the available options and the lower left button (below the volume buttons) to select. Also, allow up to 90 seconds for the reset to complete.

Check charging port for physical damage

The charging port is the most vulnerable part of your phone to physical damage. Not only is it exposed to the elements like dust or liquid, but it also has to be withstand the almost daily stress of inserting and unplugging of the charging cable. If a user is not careful when inserting or unplugging the cable, the charging port or its pins inside may be damaged. This can lead to charging problems as time goes on.

To see if there’s visible damage to the charging port area, try to use a magnifier or similar tool to see the inside of the port. If you regularly use your phone in dusty or wet area, there’s also the added chance of debris or liquid accumulating inside the port. If you think there’s debris, dust, or foreign object in the charging port, try using a can of compressed air to clear it out. Avoid sticking something inside as that might damage a pin that makes contact with the charging cable.

Use another charging cable or adapter

One of the common sense troubleshooting steps that you can do when faced with a charging issue is to check for a possible charger or charging cable problem. That said, you need to try another set of known working S9 charging cable and adapter to charge your device. If you can’t find another set, you can visit a Samsung store and use their official charger to power up your phone.

Charge on safe mode

We’d like to think that the cause of your problem is software in nature. We don’t know exactly what happened to your phone before this issue occurred but if it coincided after you installed an app, it’s possible that you may have an app problem at hand. To check, run your phone on safe mode and see how it charges. While on safe mode, no third party apps or services will be allowed to run. So, if one of the third party apps is responsible for the issue, your S9 should charge normally on safe mode.

To boot your device to safe mode:

  1. With your S9 off, press and hold the Power key past the model name screen.
  2. When “SAMSUNG” appears on the screen, release the Power key.
  3. Immediately after releasing the Power key, press and hold the Volume down key.
  4. Continue to hold the Volume down key until the device finishes restarting.
  5. Safe mode will display in the bottom left corner of the screen.
  6. Release the Volume down key when you see Safe Mode.

To know which app is causing a problem, follow these steps:

  1. Boot to safe mode.
  2. Check for the problem.
  3. Once you’ve confirmed that a third party app is to blame, you can start uninstalling apps individually. We suggest that you begin with the most recent ones you added.
  4. After you uninstall an app, restart the phone to normal mode and check for the problem.
  5. If your S9 still refuses to power back on, repeat steps 1-4.

Check for water damage

If your S9’s charging port has water or liquid, it may not charge properly or at all. If you regularly use your phone near bodies of water, or if you intentionally exposed it to water or rain, make sure that you dry the device, especially the charging port region properly before charging it. Water naturally evaporates on its own over time so just leave your phone near an indirect source of heat like the back of a TV and let it air dry. Do not put your phone near an oven, furnace or outside with direct sunlight. Doing so is the easiest way to damage the hardware.

Factory reset

If the phone does not show moisture detected error or it has never been near water before, you can factory reset it to see if there’s a software issue behind the problem. This is the final step that you can do to address potential software bug that may be causing this charging glitch.

To factory reset your S9:

  1. Create a backup of your personal data.
  2. Turn off the device.
  3. Press and hold the Volume Up key and the Bixby key, then press and hold the Power key.
  4. When the green Android logo displays, release all keys (‘Installing system update’ will show for about 30 – 60 seconds before showing the Android system recovery menu options).
  5. Press the Volume down key several times to highlight ‘wipe data / factory reset’.
  6. Press Power button to select.
  7. Press the Volume down key until ‘Yes — delete all user data’ is highlighted.
  8. Press Power button to select and start the master reset.
  9. When the master reset is complete, ‘Reboot system now’ is highlighted.
  10. Press the Power key to restart the device.

Get professional help

If your phone was dropped, exposed to elements, or has been obviously physically damaged before noticing the charging issue, stop wasting your time doing software solutions. Instead, just send it to Samsung and let them examine the hardware. If you’re lucky and the cause is easily repairable and the device is covered by a warranty, repair may be performed on it and you can have a good working phone after days.

Visible physical damage or water exposure automatically voids the standard warranty so even if your phone is just under 1-year, you’ll still probably end up paying for Samsung repair. Still, this should be the first consideration for you.

Workaround

In case the problem is caused by a bad charging port and you want to hold off repair at this time, don’t forget that your S9 Plus is wireless charge-capable. A damaged charging port won’t affect the wireless capability of your S9 so you should still be able to charge and use it normally. Wireless charging is significantly slower than cable charging though so try to put that into consideration when using it. Wireless charging won’t also allow you to use your phone while it’s being charged so you’ll be limited in that aspect as well.


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