Forum Discussion

biglarrr's avatar
biglarrr
Explorer
4 days ago

Quest 3 not charging - forever problem

Well I'm now a topic starter after replying on a two year old post. So - I have a few minutes this morning and will start a fresher discussion on this topic.  
OH - and in case you didn't see a posting date. I'm creating this on March 1, 2026. 
Last week my spouse's Q3 stopped charging. The charging has never been an issue since we purchased them well over a year ago. 
As most users have already noted, the battery barely lasts half as long as the Quest 2 did. 
So - we also purchased battery packs after a few 45 minute sessions gave low battery messages.
We connect the auxilliary battery as soon as we've turn our Q3's on, and could probably play for hours, but being in our 70's our average play time is a little over an hour, occasionally stretching to  90 minutes.  So enough of that. It worked fine for well over a year like that. 
Last Monday, my spouse's headset wouldn't charge. It had drained to 76% after our regular playtime, and we put it on the charger, and it actually dropped 2% after an hour. I tried moving it to the charger for my Q3, but nope, - it wouldn't charge there either. The charge port on her headset seemed a little looser than the one on mine, so I ordered two after market high quality charge cables with LED readout, and put both headsets on charge. Her headset showed an initial charge matching my headset for about 30 seconds and then dropped to zero. 
I switched the headsets and tried again with the exact same result. 
So I started googling, and searching for forums on Q3 headsets not charging, and tried every suggestion whether they made sense or not. 
so three days later and my headset stopped charging. Now I'm smelling a rat.  The first thing that came to mind was - Meta rolled out some stupid update that messed up charging. 
I came to the Meta website to see if I could find current version, and possibly the date of the last one.  I wound up on the forum page, and found out that this has been an issue for over two years. 
I'll try to make this short, but I hope to see some feedback, from someone other than the person who said the way I found my solution was comparable to "putting a cat in your microwave". 
So the solution for me turned out to be simple. 
I didn't need new cables.  I didn't need new charger blocks. I didn't need anything except to read in that old forum, that multiple users had been told or had heard that when the battery gets warm it kicks in a process that stops, or severely reduces charging. 
*****************************************************
Solution: For two days now, I've been waiting three hours before connecting the chargers. I have Alexa, and just tell it to remind me in three hours to charge my Quests. 
It's only been two days, but it's working so far. 
I had given up on my wife's Q3 and ordered a new one.  It's setting unopened in the package it came in, and I've already got a return request created. 
If my solution is still working a week from now, the new Q3 will be returned, and I'll have saved a bunch of money, 
NOTE: Out headsets have never felt even the slightest bit warm, but apparently the battery or some component triggered the "no Charge" cutoff.  

7 Replies

  • biglarrr's avatar
    biglarrr
    Explorer
    1 day ago

    [deleted]


    I actually did do troubleshooting. I had both devices and performed multiple tests, changing out cables, power supplies, and ultimately purchasing new cables with LED readouts, that showed me exactly what was happening. 
    At that point, I had almost written off the first headset, and ordered a new one, which was delivered the next day. 
    The previous night I found a forum question that had never really been answered, but had several references to heat being a possible cause, and that  a sensor could stop or reduce charging if it detected heat increase. 
    Now here's the next proof(?) okay the next correlation.  My Quest quit charging the next day, and then I read about the Feb23 update rollout.  I had a gut feeling that it had something to do with that rollout. 
    And then there is proof#3(?) the new quest arrived and I plugged it in to charge before setting it up. The charge worked perfectly. Then I went to the setup process. and did the basics including connecting to the network.  And of course - when I shut it down it said it was doing updates. I let it do the updates and then turned it on to play a few games and see if it felt any different.  When I was through, I shut down and plugged it into the charger, and ZERO - The LED said there was no charge. it went from 7, to 2.5, to 1.8, to zero, in a matter of less than ten seconds. 

    [deleted]

    • steve_40's avatar
      steve_40
      Visionary
      1 day ago

      I'm going to keep this brief, because the thread is drifting away from troubleshooting and into assumptions about motives and honesty.

      I've read the Feb 23 release notes. They don't include any battery or charging‑system changes. My own Quest 3 is on the same update and charges normally - including while I am actually using it - so I’m not speaking hypothetically.

      You're free to believe the update caused your issue, but repeating it doesn't make it true, and it doesn't override the actual behaviour you described. The symptoms you posted match a connection issue, and that's why it was pointed it out.

      If your workaround is helping, that's good to hear. Beyond that, I'm not going to keep debating personal theories. The information is here for anyone who needs it.

  • steve_40's avatar
    steve_40
    Visionary
    3 days ago

    A loose USB‑C port can cause exactly the "charges for 30 seconds then drops to zero" behaviour you're seeing. If one headset's port already feels looser than the other, that's a strong sign the connection is intermittent rather than anything to do with battery temperature.

    Waiting a few hours before charging might help only because it avoids plugging in right after use, when the battery management system is still stabilising. It's a workaround, but it doesn't necessarily point to the real cause. The headset shell can feel cool while the battery itself is still warm - most of the heat you notice during use comes from the CPU/GPU, not the battery.

    Glad it's working again for now - just keep an eye on that loose port in case the issue returns.

    • Maccyb123's avatar
      Maccyb123
      Consultant
      3 days ago

      steve_40 This guy is a troll Steve. Ignore him. He seems to think he's entitled to an answer from volunteers who are just trying to help.  By the tone of his post, he seems to be under the mistaken impression that you're a Meta consultant, being paid by Meta. 🃏

      • biglarrr's avatar
        biglarrr
        Explorer
        3 days ago

        Not even close. I'm not a Troll. I just am irritated by people who have expert in their title, and don't read or think before they respond. 
        You know there was an update that rolled out on February 23rd, or at least I would think that an expert consultant would know that. 
        I know that you're not paid, and that I could probably earn the "Expert" designation if I answered enough questions. 

        [deleted]


        I'm quite certain that the rollout is the reason that both of my headsets had the same issue within days of each other, and so far, the exhausting hours I've spent trying to resolve this reading between the lines, and catching fragments of information, I'm 90% sure that I've found the workaround.
        Even though I've been putting my Quest's on charge immediately for years, I've found out that delaying the reset a few hours is allowing the charge to proceed to completion. 

        [deleted]

    • biglarrr's avatar
      biglarrr
      Explorer
      3 days ago

      This is just the type of reply I would expect from a Meta consultant. 
      I just found out that Meta rolled out an update starting on Feb 23,2026 that included battery changes, along with other updates. Curiously as you may have seen if you read my entire posting, the exact same issue occurred on my headset three days later.  I only mentioned that my wife's connecter felt a little looser (I probably could have worded that better)  the cable went in a little more easily.  At that point I was fishing for anything that might have caused her unit to fail, and that was why I purchased new cables. 
      I angers me that Meta latches onto one sentence, and uses it to deny that their update caused the issue.  Since my headset failed within 3 days of hers, I'm as positive as I could be that the issue was caused by something in Meta's update that started rolling out on February 23rd. 
      The solution for me, and I'll bet the solution for several others is to wait until the unit has completely cooled down before charging. I'm now on the third day of doing this, and both units are charging fully with no cutoffs, or charging stops at 77%.
      It's too bad that the only choice on your posting is to like. I would certainly give it a Thumbs down, if that was a choice. 
      NOTE: once again, as I mentioned in my previous post, our headsets never feel even slightly warm.  But - since multiple users had mentioned that there was a heat issue, I decided to not start charging my headsets as soon as we're finished with them.  This is working wonderfully. 

      I guess I better do a copy and paste of this, so I can clean it up, since I'm sure a moderator is going to find cause to remove it.   I hope the Expert consultant sees it before the moderator axes it. 

      • steve_40's avatar
        steve_40
        Visionary
        3 days ago

        Just to clear this up before the narrative gets any further away from reality: I'm not a Meta employee. The forum-assigned tag just means I've spent a lot of time helping people here. That's it.

        And since you brought up the Feb 23 update - I've actually read the release notes. There were no battery‑related changes in that rollout at all except for a new battery level indicator next to the clock in Navigator. It was UI updates, Navigator changes, media‑sharing controls, and on‑device dictation. Nothing touching charging behaviour or battery management.

        For what it's worth, my own Quest 3 is fully updated to v2.1 (27 Feb) and charges normally. So whatever's happening isn't a universal firmware issue.

        I'm responding to the symptoms you described because a charge that starts for a few seconds and then drops is a textbook sign of an intermittent connection. The fact that one port already feels looser is relevant whether it fits the conclusion you prefer or not. That isn't "latching onto one sentence"; that's how troubleshooting works.

        If waiting before charging works for you, great - genuinely. But a workaround isn't proof of the cause, and correlation alone doesn't turn a theory into fact. My goal here is simply to keep the thread grounded in what the symptoms actually point to, not in assumptions about an update that didn't even touch the battery system.