Xiamo Mi A1 Issues – Common Problems and Fixes for Hardware and Software

Recently Xiaomi partnered with Google and launched their new Xiaomi Mi A1 device under the Android One project and the phone comes with decent specs for the price. The Xiaomi Mi A1 comes with a dual lens camera and a design that is one of the best in its class. If you are on the lookout for a budget smartphone with quicker updates, then this is one of the best options currently available. The Xiaomi Mi A1 comes with Android 7.1.2 Nougat and will surely be updated to Android O in the near future and the chances are high that it will even get the Android P update given the 2-year update cycle that Android One follows.

However, not everything about this device is rosy after all, like every other device even this device comes with some shortcomings both on the software and hardware side. We have reached out to our fans to ask them about the common problems that they are facing with the Xiaomi Mi A1 and found a varied response, while some have no issues at all, there are few others with a plethora of problems.

From the problems that we hear, we tried to look up the internet and use our own experience to find solutions to the problems and have listed out some of the most frequent problems being faced by the users and also given the solutions for the same. In this article, we have given solutions to some of the problems such as the brightness, performance, apps being force close and Wi-Fi, Bluetooth, and Cellular connectivity issues. Most of the common problems of the Xiaomi Mi A1 have simple solutions and bug fixes.

Read: Xiaomi Mi A1 Review

Windows 10 “Device not recognized” issue on the Xiaomi Mi A1

Some users on the forums have reported that their device is not being recognized due to some driver incompatibility issues on their computers and this prevents them from transferring their files to the device from a computer. When the device is connected, the device only tends to get charged and no options for file transfer appears.

To resolve this issue, we recommend that your manual enable USB debugging mode by following the following steps. First open the Settings app on the phone and scroll all the way down to find the About Phone section, tap on it to open and then scroll all the way down to find Build Number and tap it several times till you get a toast notifying that you are now a developer. Now go back to the main menu of the settings app and you should find an option for Developer Options right above the About Phone Tab. Click on the Developer Option tab and look for the USB Debugging option in the page and turn it on. Once the USB Debugging is turned on, restart the phone and then plug in the device to the computer using the original USB cable, you should now see a notification telling you that USB is being used for charging, click on it and select File Transfer to enable the Media Transfer Protocol on the device. Once the File Transfer option is selected you should now be able to copy files to and from the device.

Brightness problem in the Xiaomi Mi A1

We’ve heard from a few users that they are not happy with the adaptive brightness in the Xiaomi Mi A1 and it is a software issue that is related to the brightness control. The 4.5.3 software update is supposed to fix this issue, but some users have still found this problem on their devices. As a temporary solution, you can download the Lux Auto Brightness app from the Google Play Store which is one of the best tools that helps you gain a better control over the brightness feature. There is also a free version of the app called Lux Lite which might come handy in case you don’t wish to spend money to fix this issue. The company will soon provide a permanent solution for this issue and send an OTA update with the bug fix to resolve this issue for all.

Performance Issues including random reboots, lag and battery drain on the Xiaomi Mi A1

We’ve come across several threads in the Xiaomi forum for the Xiaomi Mi A1 complaining about the performance issues, most of them complained about random reboots while some even mentioned that their device stutters and lags occasionally. A few other users even talked about the rapid draining of their battery even when the phone is not in use.

As a solution to this problem, we decided to with the Greenify app from the Google Play Store. The app logs the app wake locks and power consumption and lists down all the applications that are actively waking up the device and you can then change settings for this apps so that you can reduce the memory wastage. The chances are high of a rogue app consuming too much processor power and memory which will result in port performance. Try booting the device into Safe Mode, to boot to safe mode hold the power button till the shutdown dialog is shown, not click and hold the shutdown option and you will be present with an option to reboot to Safe Mode. If the problem appears solved when you are in the Safe Mode then it is very likely that a recently installed app is causing the performance issues and battery drain, try uninstalling the recently installed apps and see if the issue is resolved and if the problem still exists, as a last resort you might want to perform a factory reset which will erase all the contents of the device.

Notifications getting cleared automatically on the Xiaomi Mi A1

Few users on the forum have reported that the notifications are automatically getting cleared on their devices without them manually clearing the notification. A lot of users have faced this issue and has resulted from them not being notified by WhatsApp messages and missed calls. This is not really a bug or a software issue but more of a battery management problem caused by a feature called Doze introduced in Android 6 Marshmallow, the aggressive dose has resulted in these notifications getting cleared.

To fix this issue turn off Hibernation or Aggressive Doze. To select which apps can send you notifications without ever being hibernated, go to the settings app and open the battery tab, look to the top right corner to find the three vertical dots and click it, in the drop menu select Battery Optimization and you can now choose the apps that you wish to continually receive notifications from without ever being Dozed.

Certain services and apps having issues on mobile data in the Xiaomi Mi A1

It has been reported on a few posts and threads in the device related forums that some apps have issues while being used on the cellular network, they seem to work surprisingly flawlessly when connected to Wi-Fi but suddenly start having issues when connected to mobile data.

The fix to this problem is by slightly modifying the APN settings, go to the Settings app and click on more to access the Network access point names or APN. Tap on the APN for your network and then set the APN protocol to IPv4 or IPv4/IPv6. By default, it is generally set to IPv6 and this might be the reason for some apps facing difficulty in accessing the internet on mobile data.

Connectivity Issues on the Xiaomi Mi A1

From our experience, this has been by far one of the most reported issues across forums and groups. There have been issues reported with the Wi-Fi, Bluetooth and even cellular data, we’ve found some solutions to the above problems and listed out.

Wi-Fi Issues

Firstly, try turning off the router for a few minutes and in the Wi-Fi settings of the device forget the preferred network that you are already connected to and then add the details from scratch after turning on the router. In the Wi-Fi analyzer application, check the activity level and if it is required, then switch to a different mode for optimal signal. Disable the Power Saving Mode in the Settings to optimize the Wi-Fi signal quality. Make sure that the MAC address of the phone is recognized by the router to avoid any connectivity issues, to check this go to the device Settings app and look for the phone status option in About Phone.

Bluetooth Issues

Make sure that you have the Power Saving mode turned off in the settings and turn the Bluetooth off and then on. If the problem still persists, go to the Bluetooth app Settings and clear the cache of the app to reset it. If there are multiple profiles then there is a likelihood that the limit for profiles might have been reached, delete some of the old unused profiles to make space for the new one and then reboot the device. Once you have followed the above steps try to set up a new connection from the beginning.

Cellular Issues

Some users have reported that the signal tends to fluctuate a lot in the sim for Mobile data, the other sim appears to have no problem. Some users have also reported issues with the Wi-Fi signal fluctuating, luckily this issue has been fixed in the October Security patch OTA update and if you have faced the same problem then you should probably search for the update and install it to fix the issue.

Despite all these devices which is sparse on the device, the device is a great offering from the company and not all issues have been faced by many users. The vast majority of users have no problem with their devices and totally love them. If you are planning to buy the device, then you should go for it as it is one of the best options currently available for the price range.