Fixing supercharging on a Huawei P10 Plus

I've been using a Huawei P10 plus for nearly two years. A while back I started having trouble with the supercharging capability. Sometimes it would work, sometimes it would just charge normally. A new cable sorted that, but would degrade. Eventually it reached the point where it would only charge normally and sometimes, not even then. The cable would drop out too. Very worrying.

I poked around online quite a bit early on and found various approaches for fixing this problem involving clearing caches and so on. They didn't work. However, finally I have a solution - using an arcane bit of tech and some mystic knowledge. However, before I share we need a DISCLAIMER. I am in no way responsible for loss of data, equipment, life, or sanity if you attempt this technique.

Ok, big reveal time. I took a sewing needle and dug around in the charging port.

Seriously. A frighting amount of pocket lint came out and now the cable fits snuggly, locks in place properly and charges perfectly - even supercharging is back.

Now, you are probably thinking "wow, I'm glad you shared your genius 'poke at it a bit' approach - that was totally worth a blog post". However, this forgets two important facts. Firstly - when I was looking into fixes last time, nobody else mentioned this. Genuinely, there might be someone out there who finds this useful. Secondly - I want to share my technical wins. Even when they are pathetic.

I'm convinced there is something of a design flaw here. I do not have dirty pockets and I've not had this problem with any other phone I've owned. I've had a friend tell me that he's had a lesser version of this happen to him and it's only happened since the switch to USB-C so maybe it's something to do with the shape of the socket. This sounds like a good reason to move to wireless charging to me.

Of course, now I don't have an excuse to buy a new phone that supports it...

Fixing Play Store downloads on a Huawei p10 plus

TL;DR - disable the "lock screen cleanup" feature

This took me ages on a Friday evening (yes, I know I live a crazy live) so I thought I'd make a note on what happened so I can do it again in highly unlikely event of technology disappointing me again. I know, right? No precedent for that.

This worked for me on a Huawei p10 plus. I suspect it'll work on other Huawei devices. Probably not on other Android devices as I think it plays with Huawei specific software.

The symptoms

When downloading something from the Play Store it gets stuck on "Downloading" forever with that maddening not-progress bar going round in circles, promising treats and excitement but delivering more scrolling bar. Maddening. Forever.

Standard Android fix

Apparently some people have had success juggling stopping the Play Store (Settings -> Apps -> Play Store -> Force Stop) and clearing the cache (above, then Storage -> Clear Things) then rebooting. You can also try removing the Play Store updates (same again then hit the menu icon in the top right and select "Uninstall updates"). Then reboot again.

None of this worked for me though.

Supermagic Huawei p10 plus fix

There is a Huawei feature which kills background process to save battery power. Hurrah! Apparently it also stops the store downloading anything. Less hurrah. Not that it'll be clear, of course. Maddening download progress bar. It must die.

Apparently it works if you just disable the Google and Huawei bits but finding this took hours and frankly I couldn't be bothered to narrow it down. So instead, I killed the whole thing.

Die:
Phone Manager -> Lock screen cleanup -> Close all to enable for everything, then Close all again to disable for everything.

Then reboot. Because it's technology. So you turn it off and on.

But then the Play Store will work! You can download apps which will break in other ways!

iOS6 - first impressions

The lure of up to date websocket support was too great, so I jumped to iOS6 pretty much immediately. Upgrade was mostly painless. Aside from the maps, the only real problem I experienced was with a broken gmail account. Seems this is a common problem simply fixed by removing the account from the phone, resetting it and putting the account back. Worked for me - I'm getting emails again. Yay.

Also, as I'm sure everyone is aware, the youtube app has gone away. There is one in the app store to replace it if needs be. There is apparently a google maps app on the way too.

I've not had the horrible experience with the new maps it seems everyone else in the whole world has had. I like the inclusion of places of interest on the main map screen. I dislike the loss of street view. So far, my searches haven't placed me in Spain, on the moon. I can't claim to be a heavy map user though.

Otherwise, iOS6 is pleasant. There are numerous minor UI tweaks - including moving the Bluetooth switch to the top level of the Settings menu and an expandable blob when refreshing emails which is apparently the best thing evaaa. It seems a little faster than iOS 5 but that might be my imagination.

The biggest change I've noticed is the redesign of the app store and music player. Both are pleasing changes to my eye - the icons are clearer and bolder and the target areas are better defined. I like the new "show all music from this album" feature (is it new? or did I miss it before?) which will no doubt inspire me to spend more money on music.

Oh and there is Passport. Great.

Summing up? Bit meh. Looks nice. Maps are (apparently) a problem. Time to go play with the new websockets.

VOIP Phone - a new era of productivity?

I have a new phone on my desk. It's black and shiny, has lots of buttons and I can't figure it out at all.

There are bits of functionality I have discovered though. It makes calls, but that's just dull. It also has a (programmable) button which lets me permanently set my phone to busy (as in engaged) for some lovely peace and quiet. It has an auto-answer function: if someone calls me the phone rings once then answers itself putting them on speakerphone. Then I can shout vaguely in the direction of the phone and they can shout back at me thus allowing us to have a barely adequate conversation AND annoy the office at the same time, or allow people to ring your desk and shout helplessly because you're off having coffee. What larks.

However the very best function (so far) is the "page another phone" option which lets you speak directly through another phone's speakerphone speaker, regardless of whether that person wants you to or not, or indeed if they are currently speaking on the phone. So you can page ANY of these phones in the university and shout at the person sitting at the desk and they can do NOTHING to stop you, other than call security. Thus far I have found no way to override this option and lock my phone down.

Truly the days when your desk phone was your friend are long gone. I strongly suspect the person who designed this beast has never worked in an office.