Motorola Moto G6 problems and their fixes

Motorola has been among the mobile companies that have been moved from one owner to another quite too often. But after landing in the hands of Lenovo, the company has been striving to deliver not just great smartphones, but also offer excellent software support. With the release of the Moto G6 and its variants, the Moto G6 Play and Moto G6 Plus, the company is back in the news offering more features at a lower price point.

However, no matter how great a mobile device is, it is a piece of technology after all, and always susceptible to issues and errors. The Moto G6 series may have just released, but it isn’t free from such common problems regarding the battery performance, connectivity, and display issues either. Lucky for you, we’ve sieved through the support forums to find the pertaining issues and here’s how to fix all of them.

Related:

→ Battery drain issue

While it isn’t ideal to start facing battery issue right out of the box, it wouldn’t be entirely unheard of if you started facing battery drain issues on your new device. You should first check and verify the battery drainage, BTW. Considering that the Moto G6 is running Android 8.0 Oreo right away, you can not only expect a great performance chart but some bugs every now then. Some users have reported that their Moto G6 suffers from at least 15% – 20% battery drain overnight, while others have reported charging issues.

Solutions:

Head over to the Settings – Battery to find out which apps are consuming the most power. Uninstall those apps, or update them to the latest version as the bug may have been ironed out by now.
Disable features such as Wi-Fi, Bluetooth, and NFC unless you’re actively using them.
The Battery saver mode comes built into Android 8.0 Oreo, so go ahead and activate it in Settings – Battery – Battery Saver.
Since the device is brand new, you should make sure that all of the apps are up to date, including the pre-installed Google apps. Do so by heading over to Google Play Store – My apps & games – Update All.
Clearing out the cache of the entire device can help get rid of corrupt app files, so go ahead and wipe the cache partition.
If none of the above solutions work out, the final one is to perform a factory reset on the Moto G6, as given below.

Did the above fix the battery outage problem for you? if not, check more solutions here.

→ Display scrolling and input lag

Even on other Android OEM devices such as the Essential Phone, the screen stuttering issue and display scrolling lag were heavily documented. It seems some reports of a similar issue have surfaced on the Moto G6 as well, with users being affected with input lag when using the touch display and unresponsiveness when scrolling.

Solutions:

Make sure that there isn’t any water or fluid no your fingers or on the screen when using the device.
If you have installed a thickened screen protector, it could sometimes interfere with the screen’s capacity to recognize input.
Simply reboot your device by performing a soft reset.
It could sometimes be the effects of a third-party app that could cause scrolling and input lag. You can resolve this by rebooting the Moto G6 in Safe Mode and diagnosing the issue.
Once again, the final solution as always is to backup your data and perform a factory reset on the device.
Some users have also suggested getting the device replaced, and did not seem to face the issue on their replacement devices.

→ Connectivity issues

While there haven’t been many reports on Bluetooth connectivity issues on the Moto G6 around the forums, Wi-Fi issues seem to be occurring. Users of the older Moto G5 and Moto G4 had also complained about dropped Wi-Fi network connections in the past, and it seems from the feedbacks that the issue is persisting on the new device as well. So, let’s see how to fix Wi-Fi problems.

Wi-Fi issues solutions:

Toggle off the Wi-Fi switch and toggle it on again.
Unplug the router and replug it after 10 seconds.
Battery saver mode can interfere with the wireless network connectivity, so make sure it is turned off in the Settings
Removing the Wi-Fi network and adding it again can usually resolve the issue, so head over to Settings – Wi-Fi. Tap on hold on the Wi-Fi network you’re having issues with and select Forget. Now add the network back again to see if the issue is resolved.
The Smart Wi-Fi switcher on the Moto G6 can sometimes interfere with the connection. Head over to Settings – Wi-Fi – Advanced – Wi-Fi History and turn off Smart Wi-Fi switcher.
Android OS comes with the ability to turn off Wi-Fi connectivity during off-peak hours, but you can disable this by heading over to Settings – Wi-Fi – Advanced – Keep Wi-Fi on during sleep and set it to Always.

Bluetooth issues solutions:

Toggle off the Bluetooth switch and toggle it on again.
Unpairing a Bluetooth device and reestablishing the connection usually fixes Bluetooth issues as well. Do so by going to Settings – Connections – Bluetooth and press the Gear icon next to the Bluetooth device and select Forget. You can then reconnect to the device to see if the issue has been resolved.
Clearing the Bluetooth app’s Cache and Data also helps in cleaning out the broken or corrupted files which could be causing the connectivity issue. To do so, head over to Settings – Apps and ta the three-dot menu button to select “Show system apps”. Scroll down to find “Bluetooth Share”, tap on Storage and then select “Clear Data” and “Clear Cache” to reset the app.

Take a bug report and send to Motorola

Since the Moto G6 is just getting out in the market, there is the possibility of you facing issues that the usual fixes cannot resolve. In this case, you need Motorola to resolve the issue for you, but you need to send them a bug report first. You can let Motorola help you diagnose and fix the issue by enabling the Developer options and then toggle on the following options:

Enable USB debugging
Enable Bug Report shortcut
Enable Wi-Fi Verbose Logging

Once you face a specific issue, press and hold the Power button and choose Bug Report and wait 3-4 minutes until the bug report is collected. You can then share the bug report with the Moto-Lenovo Support people and get the issue officially diagnosed and fixed.

Common questions regarding the Moto G6

While sieving through the forums, we came across certain technical questions that users had and it seems important to address them. If you had similar queries regarding the Moto G6 and the variants Moto G6 Play and Moto G6 Plus, here’s what you need to know.

Does the Moto G6 come with the NFC chip?

Since Google Pay is quickly becoming the industry standard for mobile payment, users have been expecting the NFC chip to be included in the Moto G series. Based on current reports, it seems that the NFC chip is present on the Moto G6, but it isn’t yet confirmed if the feature is present on all the variants across all the regions.

Where is the notification LED on the Moto G6?

All the way back with the Moto G first generations, the company introduced the notification LED, but the feature had since gone missing on the successors. However, the Notification LED is absent on the Moto G6 as well, so you’ll have to do without it.

Is Project Treble supported by the Moto G6?

Software support for the Moto G series has been less than perfect ever since the beginning, but things might just change now. Moto G6 offers Project Treble support, so you can not only expect quicker OTA updates, but also plenty of custom ROMs to be developed for the devices.

Troubleshooting Guide

Soft Reset

Press and hold the Power and Volume Down button simultaneously for 10 seconds until the Moto G6 powers off. This is ideal for situations when your device screen becomes unresponsive.

Safe Mode

Press and hold the Power button and select Power off to shut down the device.
Once the device is off, press and hold the Power key until you see the logo appear.
Leave the Power button but immediately press and hold the Volume Down button and continue to hold it until the device starts up.
The device will now boot up in Safe Mode, and you can exit Safe Mode by simply rebooting the Moto G6 once again.

Hard Reset

Turn off the Moto G6, and then press and hold the Volume Up and Power button simultaneously.
Release the Power button when the logo appears, but continue to hold the Volume Up
On the Android recovery screen, use the Volume Down button to navigate down to wipe data/factory reset and press the Power button to select it.
Use the Volume Down button to select Yes — delete all user data, and then press the Power button to confirm.
Wait for the reset to finish and press the Power button when prompted with the message to Reboot system now.

Wipe cache partition

Turn off the Moto G6, and then press and hold the VolumeUp and Power button simultaneously.
Release the Power button when the logo appears, but continue to hold the Volume Up
On the Android recovery screen, use the Volume Down button to navigate down to wipe cache partition and press the Power button to select it.
Use the Volume Down button to select Yes — delete all user data, and then press the Power button to confirm.
Wait for the reset to finish and press the Power button when prompted with the message to Reboot system now.