Screen KO on FP5: how to backup my data?

/e/OS Devices Fairphone
1

Hello to All,

The screen on my FP5 does not work anymore: I can only use the physical buttons. The phone is locked, secure boot is on.

I tried adb in recovery and fastboot mode: logically my phone is not detected by my computer (Ubuntu KDE/plasma 24.04).

I read TWRP might be an option, but it requires an image I am not sure how to build/find so that it is compatible with /e/os.

Any idea or advice would be much appreciated.

Cheers

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Just in case you don’t know for sure whether it is really broken … Have you tried disassembling it, carefully cleaning the contacts with e.g. isopropyl alcohol, and assembling it again? … https://support.fairphone.com/hc/en-us/articles/18744611991825-Fairphone-5-Replace-a-spare-part#replace_the_display

TWRP has lost most of its former usefulness on most devices because of Android moving on from several old ways without TWRP being able to catch up depending on the device. But if you want to experiment, you can find the vbmeta image the documentation mentions in the install ZIP files on the FP5 download pages … official or community (you need to know which variant you are running).

If you happen to have Fairphone Angels (community volunteers helping users locally) in your vicinity, it might be worth asking them whether they would be able to help with a temporary display module swap for your data backup … :baby_angel: The Fairphone Angels Program and Map (Local support by community members) - Local - Fairphone Community Forum

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If the Fairphone 5 has video out of the USB C you can connect a “USB C Hub”, the one with HDMI and a few USB ports so you can connect it to a monitor and a USB mouse. Once you can get around in the phone save the data you need.

Someone did it at work the other day with just a USB C to display port (mini) but had no touch (mouse function) that’s why a full on hub is best. The actually come with storage slots too. I will post a picture shorty. I am on my laptop picture will come from phone.

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Here is a link instead, one of these things:

https://www.verbatim.com/en/docking-station/products/32158-usb-c-essentials-multiport-hub-7-ports

Edit: The one I have has three USB A blue ports, Ethernet, HDMI, USB C power in TF and SD card slot. Pretty cool device, I can give my phone a wired connection if I want.

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Maybe a PC will mirror the phone with GitHub - Genymobile/scrcpy: Display and control your Android device · GitHub but moving on to backup is another problem.

You might first try to explore for internal storage. On my Moto ocean I can successfully

$ adb pull -a /storage/emulated/0

There are a few posts on scrcpy found in a forum search.

Good luck.

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TWRP need an unlocked bootloader,
“scrcpy” need USB debugging enabled.

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Thank you so much @AnotherElk @Jets @aibd for your very smart and promising suggestions! I explored all of them and eventually solved the issue after meeting with a peer who offered me to use her screen for a couple of minutes. Below are a few feedbacks.

  1. Solution : with a working screen, make the FP5 seen by adb (adb devices) - it takes a couple of minutes - then, backup all data with the non-working screen (if you can use the working screen only for a short period of time)

The key operations with the working screen plugged on my FP5 were the following:

  • USB Debugging: Enabled
  • Default USB settings: “File transfer”
  • Screen lock: from “Code” to “none” ==> important step: after getting the not working screen back, adb could not see my phone because of the pin code

Then, from my PC (Ubuntu 24.04) with my non-working screen:

  • adb pull /sdcard/ /my_backup_folder/ backed up all my data (photos, documents etc. + ./Android folder) but it does not save specific authentification data (e.g. you can backup Whatsapp Photos, Videos etc. but not the conversations if no backup had been made manually from the app recently)
  • App list: adb shell pm list packages -3 > /my_backup_folder/app_list.txt : useful for a future /e/OS reinstall
  • Contacts backup: adb shell content query --uri content://com.android.contacts/data > /my_backup_folder/contacts.txt : not a great solution (.txt file), but better than nothing if contacts had not been saved from the /e/OS Contacts app
  • SMS backup: adb shell content query --uri content://sms > /my_backup_folder/sms.txt : same comment than above with SMS
  • Calls journal backup: adb shell content query --uri content://call_log/calls > /my_backup_folder/calls.txt : same comment than above with calls journal
  1. About @AnotherElk @Jets @aibd suggestions

Yes and I had not thought about it, but it I did not work.

Sounds interesting but I had not enough time to go through it.

Excellent! This was my last option :slight_smile:

I hoped and tried with different devices but no config worked for me:

  • a Dell DA-326 with a screen connected with HDMI then with Display Port
  • an HP professional dock station (with power) and a screen connected with Display Port

That’s what I tried in the first place, but without debugging enabled and the pin code required at FP5 launch, nor adb nor scrcpy saw my FP5.

Thanks again for your help, this community rocks!

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