Diagnose issues with the Motorola Moto Z2 Force Edition phone and how to fix them
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The phone display remains black and does not show any signs of turning on
Using the charging cable and box provided with the phone in the original box, plug your device into an outlet and wait one to two minutes for it to charge to power. The LED should glow red.
If the device is not charging, plug your cord and box into different outlets to see if the outlet is faulty.
If you know the outlet works but the device is still not responding, plug different charging cables into different boxes (if you own more) as the cord or box may be damaged.
The battery is not removable and the battery must be stimulated in another way, called a battery-pull.
In order to jumpstart the battery in your phone, you can perform a soft reset on your device. A soft reset will not likely cause any data loss unless the battery is low.
To perform a soft reset:
- Hold in the power button, located on the upper right corner above the volume controls, for ten seconds. If the device does not respond after ten seconds, hold down the power button and the volume down button at the same time for one to two minutes.
It is possible the battery must be replaced. Follow this guide for replacement.
If the SD or SIM card is inserted in the slot on the top of the phone, right side, remove the card using the tool provided in the original packaging of the phone or using a paperclip in the following steps:
- Remove the SD/SIM card by inserting the pin, or thin rod, into the hole located on the SD card tray.Once the tray is popped out of the phone, use the same tool or paper clip to pop out the SD/SIM card. If necessary buy a new SD/SIM card from your phone provider for your device and replace it.
*Put the SD/SIM card back into the tray by fitting it into the section labeled SD or SIM depending on which you remove (it should pop in easily by lining up all the edges of the card with the slot in the tray).
*Slide the tray with the card or cards in it back into the hole at the top of the phone. Ensure that the tray is replaced the same way it was removed and that the hole located on the tray is located on the left side when you are facing the screen.
Here is a guide to replacing your SD/SIM card.
If you know you have a good power source and your battery is brand new and working, it is possible you motherboard is damaged. If the motherboard is damaged, follow this guide to replacing the part.
The device does not show that it is charging once it is plugged into the phone charger.
The issue might be that the charger is not working, rather than the phone itself. Plug the charger into another device to verify that it works. It is best to use the original charger that the device came with when charging your phone.
The device may just need to be power cycled to fix the charging issue. Turn the device off and on again. Then attempt to charge the device.
A dirty or damaged charging port can prevent the phone from charging. Look for any dirt or debris inside charging port. Also inspect the port to make sure the charging port is not damaged or corroded.If any dirt is found, gently remove the dirt with a toothpick or toothbrush.
If the device still will not charge, the battery is probably damaged. Sometimes batteries break or lose functionality over time. Follow this guide to replace your faulty battery.
Once the phone is turned on, the battery runs out of charge much faster than it should
When you take your phone off the charger, be sure the home is fully charged, not just halfway.
Software updates occur periodically by the android development team, these updates can fix bugs relating to a shorter battery life. You can update your software by completing the following steps:
- Make sure the phone is connected to Wi-Fi and is fully charged before updating.Swipe down from the Notification Bar, and tap the Settings icon.Navigate to About Phone > System Updates.Follow the on-screen instructions to update device.Tap Restart Now to finish the installation process.
The Moto Z2 Force has a software-included battery manager. This manager is used to check battery charge and usage information.
- Swipe down from the Notification Bar, and tap the Settings icon.Tap Battery, then tap the battery icon to view advanced battery information.
You can check what is taking the most toll on your battery, sometimes simply removing some battery-hogging apps can increase your battery life substantially. In addition, you can put your device in battery-saving mode in this menu to increase the life of your device.
To view all recently used apps, tap the square icon in the bottom left-hand corner of the screen. You can tap on an app to open it, or hold down and swipe either left or right to close it. Closing apps running in the background will keep from using extra power keeping the processes running while you don’t use them.
A soft reset (turning the phone off and on) solves many common device problems, and won’t affect data on the device unless the battery is very low. A soft reset can be done by completing the following steps:
- Press and hold the power button (bottom-most button on the right side of the phone) until the power off option appears, then release.Tap Power Off.
Once the device is powered off, and nothing is displayed on the screen, hold the power button until the Moto Logo appears, then release.
Sometimes batteries break or lose functionality over time, that’s why we’re here! Follow this guide to replace your faulty battery.
Moto Z2 force gets excessively hot while powered on
Though it usually is not an issue if apps you have installed run in the background, it is possible that one of them might be using more memory than it needs to which will overheat your device. In order to check if background applications are the cause of your overheating phone, go to “settings,” and then to “about device,” and tap the build number until you get the pop-up message telling you that you are now a developer.
Now go back to Settings, and go to “developer options," and then “running services.” When viewing the graph in “running services,” look for apps you have installed that use large amounts of RAM, especially if you do not use it often, and uninstall them.
If you do not want to uninstall the app, go back to settings, then apps, and find and tap the app that was using too much RAM. Tap force stop and then tap on storage underneath usage info, and then tap clear cache. You will kill the processes that app was running in the background and free up storage. However, whenever you open the app, the processes it was running will start up again, and you will have to force stop and clear cache if it uses too much RAM.
Whether you choose to uninstall the app or kill its processes, turn off your phone and wait for it to cool down before you use it again.
Unlike computers, a smartphone does not have a fan to cool it down when doing a lot of high performance tasks. If you have been using your phone heavily, your phone case, assuming you have one, is probably insulating your device and preventing it from cooling. Remove your phone case and shut off your device until it cools down.
If most of the overheating occurs when your phone is charging, especially around the area with the charging pin, the problem most likely lies with your charger. Switching your charger to a different, Motorola approved one should fix your overheating phone.
If most of the heat is coming from the back of your cell phone, it is most likely due to an overheating battery. To check if the battery is the issue, install a free app that can check its health like My Device, and follow the instructions on the app to determine the status of your battery. If the battery’s temperature level level isn’t around 30C, or 40C if you have been using powerful apps, then your battery is overheating. Killing apps running the background, and letting your phone rest for a while may help.
Changing your charging habits will also help prevent your battery from overheating. Do not use your phone to 0% or charge until 100% as this causes strain on the battery. Try to charge so that your phone will always be between 30% to 80%.
If both of these methods fail, it may be time to replace the battery on your phone. Here is a link to how you can do it.
The screen is frozen or responds slowly to touch.
Hold down the power button for approximately 10 seconds or until the device power cycles. This process will cause the phone to do a soft reset without losing any data. The reset should solve any problems involving freezing.
When taking pictures, camera has difficulty or cannot focus on anything
If your camera lens has dirt or oil on it, it will cause your pictures to be blurry which can give the impression you cannot focus your camera. Take a microfiber cloth and wipe the lens of your camera.
The camera app itself could not be working properly. In order to fix any software issues with the application, try these steps:
First try to manually focus the camera.
Open the camera app, tap professional mode, and pick the manual focus icon, and try to manually focus your camera.
If the camera still doesn’t focus, clear the cache in the camera app by going to settings and then apps and open the camera again. Find and tap the camera app. On its application info, tap storage, and clear its cache.
If your camera still doesn’t focus, install a camera app from the play store like Open Camera, and see if it works better.
If the camera app does not work, boot your phone into safe mode.
*Hold down the power key until you see a pop up window.
- In the pop up window, touch and hold power off until the reboot to safe mode message appears. When it appears, tap OK, which will reboot your phone into safe mode.
Check the camera to see if it is working and if it still doesn’t:
- Go to settings, then general management, then reset.Tap reset settings which will reset all phone settings without clearing your data.
If desperate, you can do a factory data reset which is located under reset setting. Though it may fix your camera, you will lose all data on your phone.
If none of the above solutions do not work, then the problem most likely lies with the camera itself. Here is a guide to replacing the camera on the Moto Z2 Force.
