Over the past few weeks (months, idk?) my phone (Pixel 8) gives me a message that says “Charging on hold to protect the battery” when the phone is not plugged in. The notification stays forever until I select “override” to dismiss the safety feature. It will not charge (if I later plug it in) until I say “override”. When I say override, it will let me charge, but I will still see the notification again later, so it appears to be a temporary override.
This morning, I saw the notification pop up while I was using the phone. It was in my hands, not plugged in, and did the animation like I had just plugged in the phone to charge. It was at about 45% battery, so it also seems to have nothing to do with battery percent.
Am I just charging wrong, or I don’t understand how smart charging works, or is this incorrect behavior? In normal circumstances, I charge the phone overnight. Since this has begun, I have begun leaving it off the charger overnight and instead charging it earlier in the evening for a bit then removing it before bed. I’ve noticed recently that it only charges to 80%, so it is usually very low when I get home.
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I would check that the port is clear of debris. Sometimes pocket lint builds up in there (you can use a toothpick or similar to dig it out in some cases), and it causes the phone not to charge, or to think it’s charging when it’s not.
Also just plain turn it off and back on if you haven’t already. It’s an easy thing that works to fix weird issues far too often.
And check for updates too. It’s possible, though unlikely, that it’s a bug that’s been fixed in an update you haven’t installed yet.
No updates available right now. The issue has been present for a few update cycles already. It has also persisted across a few resets.
Sounds like something is damaged or defective. If it’s under warranty, I’d send it in for repair, otherwise I’d just live with it.
So, just asked Google Customer service about it. The answer does not make sense to me, but they said “Adaptive Charging on a Google Pixel phone may show the charging symbol even when it’s not plugged in because it charges to one hour before you unplug it.” They also told me several times that “You shouldn’t worry about it”.
This is not very satisfying, and doesn’t make sense, but it wasn’t going anywhere. I’m going to try turning off adaptive charging, because maybe it’s just really confused what my schedule is?
No, that’s nonsense. Adaptive charging uses your plugging-in habits over the last 14 days and your alarms so that it can charge at the slowest possible rate to reach 100% one hour before your predicted unplug time. It should never show the charging symbol when not charging (as far as I know, anyway).
You can turn the adaptive charging off if you don’t use it, but I think your phone is still going to think it’s plugged in when it isn’t, and still only go to 80% unless you override it.
so that it can charge at the slowest possible rate to reach 100% one hour before your predicted unplug time
No, it fast charges to 80% then restarts the (fast) charging to hit 100% at the correct time. At no point does it try to slow down the charge.
I don’t really know where this misconception comes from, the description in settings is pretty accurate to what it does:
To help extend battery lifespan, your phone learns your charging routine and waits until you need it to fully charge.
That quote doesn’t support what you’re saying. The page that screen links to, however, says this:
Adaptive Charging may turn on to charge to 100% one hour before you unplug
So maybe it does. Unfortunately Android doesn’t chart battery level while charging. I just plugged mine in and adaptive charging turned on, and Ampere shows about 1.5 A, so not trickle charging.
It would be nice if Google actually stated what it does.
Yep, I agree with you. I think the customer service representative just didn’t know what to make of the problem. They picked up on the fact that I use adaptive charging, and everything I got after that from them was telling me that this is how it works. I reiterated that it is doing this when not plugged in, but then we were going in circles, so I just said thank you and left.
If it happens again, maybe I will get a different rep and have more success.
I did a visual inspection and I don’t see any build up. I generally clean the exterior of the phone regularly, because my skin is sensitive to sweat. So I keep things I touch regularly clean. (Phon, computer mice, keyboard, etc). I could just stick a toothpick in there and gently move around just to see if it knocks anything clear? I don’t want to damage anything by trying to fix it though, lol.
If you do this you may have to shave the toothpicks down to make it not as bulky but I have used a toothpick to remove crud from the USBC port before. I have heard that some repair places will remove fluff from the port for free or for a small fee but I don’t know if that’s true or not.
I haven’t heard of the phantom charging issue before, but the “only charging to 80%” could be because of adaptive charging settings
Yeah, if it thinks it stays plugged in all the time, it’ll only charge to 80%.
Hmm, so it thinks is always plugged in?
Yes, I think you’re right. But the two things started happening around the same time, so I thought maybe there is some relation?
For posterity: I’ve had adaptive charging off this week. Last night, I plugged in my phone to charge. It charged overnight. When I woke, it was at 80%, and I had the message. This is normal behavior, because the phone was ON the charger. I removed the cable, but the message did not go away. The charging icon is also still on (lightning icon on the battery), though the battery level is going down as it is not plugged in. This is slightly different behavior from before, but still confusing. Before, phone was not plugged in and charging icon turned on. Now, phone was plugged in, and charging icon stays on when phone is removed from charger.
However, tldr, turning off adaptive charging has not remedied the issue.
