Android Pie Breaks Pixel XL's Ability To Fast Charge (theverge.com)

Google's recent launch of Android 9.0 Pie hasn't gone off without some early bugs and issues. According to The Verge, users are reporting that Android Pie prevents their phone from fast charging when plugged into many chargers. Google's own charger doesn't even appear to be working. From the report: Other Pixel XL owners say the bundled charger still functions properly and displays "charging rapidly," but third-party USB-PD (power delivery) chargers no longer juice up the XL as quickly as they did pre-update. Google has oddly marked a bug report on the problem as "won't fix (infeasible)," which is likely alarming to see for those experiencing it, especially since it can very clearly be attributed to the Android 9.0 update. Things were working normally, then Pie came, and then something broke. A second thread has been posted with more users chiming in to confirm they're affected.

Comments

If it's now taking this to get bugs fixed

[Anonymous Coward]

Noted how quickly that bug got reopened after this hit /.

Instead of closed by some half-assed lackey, then what hope do we have of getting other bugs fixed (skia segfaults with bitmap (free'ing) handling whilst drawing in another thread, argb8888 segfaults (with register corruption), etc)

I mean, seriously, take a look at some of the bugs on there. Some devs are f*cking SCREAMING to get some bugs fixed and the dev team (which need to be bigger) are most of the time, oh hum, obsolete now I guess (then it continues in the next several fucking versions of the OS so the devs give up bothering to report)

Sort it out.

Re:If it's now taking this to get bugs fixed

[AmiMoJo]

I've got a Pixel XL and didn't notice this issue because I charge overnight from a slower charger anyway. In general though I'm very happy with the Pie update. It's fixed the small performance issues I was seeing, just slight lag here and there. Feels like a brand new phone again.

The only down side so far is that the new app switcher screen is swipe left/right instead of up/down, and I find the latter easier.

Re:If it's now taking this to get bugs fixed

[msauve]

"Noted how quickly that bug got reopened after this hit /."

Yeah, it's like Google has a time machine and can go back from the 6:00AM time it was posted here in order to re-open the ticket at 01:59AM.

This was reported on XDA weeks ago, Android Police a couple of days ago, and on Reddit shortly after.

Yeah, /. had lots to do with it.

Status changed to 'Assigned (Reopened)'

[palemantle]

I don't think it's quite panic time yet. While it's true that this was marked 'Won't fix' at one point, the issue has now officially been reopened.

Re:Status changed to 'Assigned (Reopened)'

[msauve]

"Interestingly this was done *after* something has been posted on Slashdot."

Sure, for all definitions of "after" which mean "before."

Fast charge - fast discharge?

[Lorens]

I have noticed that when I use a certain (shady) cable to charge my iPhone, it charges much faster, but then it doesn't hold the charge. When I use the normal cable, getting to 100% takes much longer, but the device lasts twice as long. Is that known/expected behavior?

Re:Fast charge - fast discharge?

[AmiMoJo]

Sounds like your battery is worn out. When batteries start to near their end of life their behaviour during charge and discharge starts to change.

Apple had trouble with this before, you may recall, with phones going from 50% to 2% instantly. They eventually did a free battery replacement scheme to cover it; maybe yours is covered.

The technical reason is that battery state of charge is estimated by measuring voltage and load. The voltage falls off as the battery discharges. More load also makes the battery voltage sag. So to estimate state of charge you need to know the voltage and load, and then fudge it a bit so for example it never goes up even if your estimate was a bit low.

Fast charging creates more heat. Older batteries get hotter. It's likely that the charging system is ending charge prematurely with a worn out, hot battery. A slow charge mitigates that and actually puts more energy into the battery before the system thinks it is full.

What's the point of project Treble...

[Rob Y.]

...if not to prevent bugs like this. Isn't all the stuff that makes your hardware work supposed to be contained in the /vendor partition and not updated with new OS versions. Surely the ability to fast charge would be part of that, no? Or does Google put out a whole new /vendor setup when they upgrade you anyway. If so, what's the point?