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.
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.