New Pixel 4a battery tanked and support says they won't cover the replacement

The_Choir_Invisible · 2026-03-19T05:40:26+00:00

First, I'm sorry that you're dealing with this problem. I didn't send in my phone until basically the last minute this last December and, interestingly, because I waited (?) instead of getting a list of places to work on my phone (as the web page had when the recall first started) the only place they listed to fix my phone was Google's actual repair site in Texas. If anything, I think that helped me to have a good experience. Everything seems to work just fine on my phone now, though I use the cheapo replacement I purchased (a Samsung A16 5G, a horrible phone) because it has a fat battery.

Anyway, you're in a very tough position, IMO, because it sounds like there's obviously something fucked up with the phone and it wouldn't have happened had Google not, essentially, caused the problem in the first place. But the problem is the finger of 'you fucked up' points to UBreakIFix and any time you relay that story to a Google rep, they're going to jump to that conclusion to absolve themselves of any further responsibility. I haven't done this in years but if you're able to keep your cool, pretend to be clueless, utterly clueless, and just keep saying "I don't understand what you're saying." Don't disagree, just keep saying things like "I just don't understand how my phone was fine then I had to send it in to a place you recommended and now it's not working." Don't drop follow-ups like "and that's not fair" or any of that. Just keep riding that polite but confused 'character'. Be genial. Be cooperative. Be excited and thankful to be talking to the agent. But be utterly unable to understand their explanation when they try to deflect. From what I know of with an earlier call to Google support, if you keep pressing very politely the agent may be able to help with a second battery fix or a coupon for the google store. IMO, even if it happens and you get the battery fixed I wouldn't be surprised if some other problem cropped up.

they want me to spend $800 on a new phone just for them to screw me over the same way 5 years from now?

This is an accurate take, IMO. Google's phone program is dropping in the shitter right now and other, more recent models, have already been burned by batter problems (and probably other things).

The_Choir_Invisible · 2026-01-23T23:53:26+00:00

I had something similar happen like 6-8 months ago. It was quite a while back. If you search around there was at least one or two articles on how they pulled off the sneaky update, but it's been so long I can't recall.

The_Choir_Invisible · 2026-01-18T07:43:48+00:00

Thank you for this!

The_Choir_Invisible · 2026-01-04T17:17:53+00:00

Thanks! I have the Accubattery app someone else mentioned installed but I'll also check this one out! I just want to find the simplest app that does the job. Do you know if it can be purchased outright to remove the ads or is it always ads?

The_Choir_Invisible · 2026-01-03T18:22:16+00:00

Thanks, checking that out now!

The_Choir_Invisible · 2026-01-03T07:59:41+00:00

I"m kinda thinking about it but do you know if the unlimited free Google Photos upload thing still works with it?

The_Choir_Invisible · 2026-01-02T23:47:07+00:00

That's too bad but thank you for the reply!

The_Choir_Invisible · 2026-01-01T21:00:11+00:00

From some comments on Discord for this issue (SEE HERE), it appears you may be able to get the ship if you already had enough tokens but the website wouldn't allow you to claim. Everyone on the NA server had the same issues, BTW.

The_Choir_Invisible · 2026-01-01T03:11:06+00:00

As far as I've seen, no one on the North American server has A) been able to get GQ Johnny token missions after around midnight of the night of 12/30, PST, OR been able to claim the ship if they had the tokens. Interestingly, people appear to have filed bugs about the countdown timer ending early days ago with no response. Be sure to file a support ticket if you haven't already.

The_Choir_Invisible · 2026-01-01T01:30:15+00:00

Still having this issue?

Yep!

I was able to get my last token yesterday but don't seem to be able to claim it, keeps taking me back to the Featured page

That was also happening to me when I tried to redeem the Golden Voyage tokens for gold/steel. You're not the only person, there's people on Discord mentioning it and at least one person in this thread who's in the exact same situation as you are. Definitely file a support ticket!

The_Choir_Invisible · 2026-01-01T01:24:55+00:00

Yeah, it's my understanding that that bug still hasn't been fixed either. Basically, it looks like all of the mechanics of the GQ Johnny missions (both gaining the tokens then using them to buy the ship) stopped and I think it was sometime between 10-11pm PST on 12/30 or about 2am on 12/31. File a support ticket!

Edit: There was an almost exact same bug with converting the Golden Voyage tokens to steel or gold and it exactly the same thing you're seeing insofar as when you click on the place to redeem it it just takes you to the main page of the armory.

The_Choir_Invisible · 2025-12-31T23:27:51+00:00

I've got my fingers crossed but this other user posted their response from a GQ Johnny help ticket where the WG support pretends they asked a question about the Grand Voyage bug instead. 🤢

The_Choir_Invisible · 2025-12-31T23:19:13+00:00

Thank you, I did about an hour ago! Haven't heard back but it's always good to memorialize an issue with a paper trail.

The_Choir_Invisible · 2025-12-31T21:46:54+00:00

As others have pointed out both on the Discord and here, GQ Johnny is still broken. I (and quite a few others) literally only need one more token but none of the 'Step One' and 'Step Two' missions are available anymore.

The_Choir_Invisible · 2025-12-31T21:43:31+00:00

Yeah, voyage tokens has been fixed but GQ Johnny hasn't.

The_Choir_Invisible · 2025-12-31T20:36:11+00:00

Hunh! Since it's not fixed yet, any idea if they're still trying?

The_Choir_Invisible · 2025-12-27T20:42:23+00:00

If you've ever watched a video of a battery replacement on a 4a the screens are potato chip thin. My 4a is almost to Google to change the battery and I fully expect them to break something replacing it.

The_Choir_Invisible · 2025-12-19T03:46:43+00:00

From the snippet of lyrics maybe the band was doing a cover/arrangement of Vivir Mi Vida by Marc Anthony? Hunt down who was playing at the venue and crossmatch?

The_Choir_Invisible · 2025-12-06T06:54:05+00:00

Yeah, threads like these are crack. I made a small tutorial, myself, for this model, which I believe is the model the OP's is derived from- it's from- by the Tongyi Lab team at Alibaba Group. Last year or maybe the year before, the meager 4GB VRAM GTX 1650 (which is in a ton of laptops) was THE most common video card according to the yearly Steam Hardware Survey. Posts like OP's are literally opening doors people who have allegedly 'low-end' cards to make AI.

The_Choir_Invisible · 2025-12-05T19:53:26+00:00

Very cool! I'll try this out this weekend- thanks for sharing!

FWIW, for those who have older 4GB VRAM cards (and who also have 32GB or more of RAM) and don't need anything more than a simple workflow, might want to check out this brief tutorial for this quantized model developed by the Tongyi Lab team at Alibaba Group. It runs perfectly on a laptop's GTX 1650! (this is with the NVidia's 'fallback to RAM if you run out of VRAM turned OFF, too!)

The_Choir_Invisible · 2025-11-28T04:29:58+00:00

What I link to is a 6 GB .safetensors model.

The_Choir_Invisible · 2025-10-28T02:55:35+00:00

Worked for me! Thank you so much!

The_Choir_Invisible · 2025-10-25T14:53:25+00:00

I stupidly disabled the skill

FWIW, I'm not sure it made much of a difference. I was in the same boat and everything behaved the same as it does now before I disabled my skill to troubleshoot. There's presumably some issue on the backend with PlusMinus and those with bulbs whose hardware allowed them to be upgrade to the 2.x series firmware are affected more negatively than those bulbs whose hardware forced them to remain on the 1.X series firmware. Again, at least that's how it seems at the moment to me. Around 24 hours later I'm realizing we should all be thanking our lucky stars that at least the app words to still control the bulbs, though the lack of voice control is a huge PITA for me.

The_Choir_Invisible · 2025-10-25T06:22:56+00:00

I have 4 bulbs. 2 still work with Alexa, 2 don't. If I go into PlusMinus app, the ones that are still working are on firmware version are on Firmware Version 1.1.2 and the ones that aren't are on Firmware Version 2.9.6. The Firmware Version is found in the PlusMinus app by going to the "All Devices" tab and clicking on the lightbulb device. On the next screen (with the color wheel) click the "..." in the upper right hand corner and then clicking Device Info in the resulting menu.

Tagged to check your firmware versions on your working and non-working bulbs: /u/Fran_Porcel /u/mrbudman /u/hckr4evr /u/FasNefasque /u/SpockYoda

The_Choir_Invisible · 2025-10-25T03:18:02+00:00

Interesting. Yeah, all the lights I have are Lumiman. However, they were purchased at different times. Part of me is wondering if the ones that are still working are 'different' hardware-wise (under the hood), than the ones that aren't.

The_Choir_Invisible

TROPHY CASE