Samsung Galaxy A3 won’t charge due to ‘moisture has been detected’ warning [Troubleshooting Guide]
If you’re getting the warning “Moisture has been detected. To charge your device, make sure your charger/USB port is dry,” then you should also be having charging-related problem. Samsung made its devices stop charging when moisture is detected in the charger port. The same is true with your Samsung Galaxy A3 and in fact, we have received quite a lot of complaints from our readers who are bugged by this problem.
The most common cause of this problem is of course, water that entered the charger port of the phone. However, reports indicate that it may also be due to a firmware update since many users reported to have encountered this problem shortly after the mandatory firmware update. This complicates things a bit more as we also have to take into consideration the fact that it could be just a glitch in the firmware. Continue reading below to know more about this problem and what needs to be done to fix it.
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.
How to make your Galaxy A3 charge even with ‘moisture detected’ warning
The problem here is that your phone won’t charge due to the warning and you probably have a little juice left in your phone so charging is very important. Below are some of the things you can do to make your device charge despite having the moisture detected warning.
Clean your phone’s USB port
Regardless whether or not you know that your phone has gotten wet one way or another, it’s imperative that you clean the charging port. The ‘moisture detected’ warning comes out when the phone detects there’s moisture in the USB port. To get rid of it, you just have to make sure the port is dry.
You can use a cotton swab to clean around the area or a small piece of tissue paper to be inserted into the port to absorb moist. You can also blow into the port to get rid of debris or lint. Better yet if you have a can of compressed air, give it a blast and that should take care of the problem provided it’s due to moist.
It is imperative that you do this step before anything else to make sure that the problem isn’t due to liquid damage. Moreover, take time to check the liquid damage indicator to know if water has found its way into your phone or not because if it so happened that all this happens because of liquid damage, you have to bring the phone to the shop immediately to prevent further damage. To check the LDI, remove the SIM card tray and look into the SIM slot to find a small sticker. If the sticker is white, it means your phone isn’t suffering from liquid damage. If the sticker turned red, pink or purple, then it’s a different story.
Turn off your phone and charge
After making sure the problem isn’t due to liquid damage, we will now work our way into making your phone charge even if the moisture detected warning keeps on popping up and with that said, the first thing you should do is turn your phone off and let it charge. The warning is handled by one of the processes that runs in the background and while there’s still a chance it will show up even if the device is powered down, at least the chance of your phone to charge normally is higher than when it’s powered on.
Also, one way to bypass the warning is plug the charger in and wait for the warning to show up. The moment the moisture detected error shows, reboot your phone and when it becomes active, it may not show up again and allow your phone to fully-charge the battery.
Force restart your phone and plug in
In case your phone cannot start due to drained battery, then you will have to force reboot your phone but before that, make sure you plug the charger to a working outlet and connect your phone to it using the original USB cable. Regardless whether the phone charges or not, press and hold the Volume Down and Power keys together for 10 seconds. The phone may start up and charge normally.
However, if the phone fails to boot up, give it at least 10 minutes to charge and then do the same procedure. The battery may have been totally drained and there’s not enough battery left to power up your phone.
Run in Safe mode and charge
This method was suggested by our readers. Some suggested booting the phone in safe mode if it won’t charge in normal mode due to moisture detected error. With all third-party apps and services temporarily disabled, there will be no apps to interfere with the charging process.
Connect your phone to the charger and wait for the warning to show up. Once the moisture detected warning shows on the screen, turn your phone off and then start it up 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’.
Now allow your phone to fully charge its battery.
Clear data of USB Settings service
The moisture detected warning is handled by the USB Settings service and logically clearing its data will get rid of the error but no one will be able to tell when it would show up again. Nonetheless, it’s a workaround that will allow you to charge your phone normally. This of course, will work only if the error isn’t triggered by water in the first place. In such case, the error would have been triggered by a problem in the firmware…
- From any Home screen, tap the Apps icon.
- Tap Settings.
- Tap Applications.
- Scroll to and tap USB Settings.
- Tap Storage.
- Tap Clear data and then tap OK.
- Reboot your phone.
Now leave your phone to charge its battery.
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