Today’s troubleshooting article shows you the things that you can do if you have a Galaxy S9 Plus (S9+) that stops charging due to possible moisture detected error.
Problem: Galaxy S9 Plus (S9+) won’t charge and keeps showing water drop icon
Hello, My son has not long signed up on a contract for his Samsung S9+ (approximately two months) and today his phone shut down as the battery was empty. He tried to charge the phone and it showed the lighting bolt as if it was going to charge and then the screen went blank and the phone was not charging. He unplugged it and tried to charge it again and this time it showed the water drop and a don’t charge it sign, despite it being no where near any water!! We advised him to try putting it in some rice for a while. He then did a hard reset and tried to charge it again … but NOTHING 🙁 We have no idea what to do about this and would appreciate it if you could let us know what to do to resolve this please?? Many thanks.
Solution: The Galaxy S9 Plus is designed to not allow charging when it detects moisture or liquid in the charging port. This is to prevent damaging the system. If the phone continues to show the water drop icon or moisture detected error, these are the things you can try:
Allow the phone to air dry
Water naturally evaporates in a few hours even on normal room temperature. Leave the phone in room temperature for at least half a day and see what happens.
Check the port
Water drop icon or moisture detected error can sometimes be triggered by damage to the port itself, or by dirt or debris. Do a quick visual check on the charging port using a magnifying tool and see if there’s obvious damage or debris inside. if there’s something that doesn’t belong in there, try to clear it out using a can of compressed air, or by blowing inside. Do not insert anything in the port to avoid damaging it.
Use other charging accessories
In some cases, using another charging cable and/or accessory fixes an issue like this. Try to use another set of charging accessories that are known to be working. If possible, use only the official Samsung cable and adapter.
Install system update
There were some cases in the past when a software bug triggered moisture detected error in completely dry, working S9 devices. Samsung took note of it and released appropriate patch. In case this is what’s happening, make sure that your son’s phone runs the latest available software. Just go under Settings > Software update to check.
Obviously, you can only do this if the phone boots up and works normally. Skip this one if the phone is totally unresponsive or dead.
Perform a factory reset
This is a drastic troubleshooting step but it might help if the problem is being caused by a software bug. Since the phone won’t charge and turn on at this time, you can only attempt a factory reset via Recovery Mode. if successful, you may be able to fix the problem. Here’s how to do it:
- Turn off the device. This is important. If you can’t turn it off, you’ll never be able to boot to Recovery Mode. If you are not able to shut the device off regularly via the Power button, wait until the phone’s battery is drained. Then, charge the phone for 30 minutes before booting to Recovery Mode.
- Press and hold the Volume Up key and the Bixby key, then press and hold the Power key.
- 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).
- Press the Volume down key several times 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.
Let Samsung fix it
If your phone won’t respond to any button combinations, that’s probably because
- there’s not enough battery,
- the phone’s hardware is dead,
- there’s a problem with the charging port, or
- there’s lingering moisture or liquid in the port.
Since there’s no way to know which of these things is true unless a hardware check is done, you want to send the phone in so Samsung can repair or replace it. If you’re lucky and all it takes is a professional drying, you won’t probably need to have the device repaired.
