Huawei P30 Lite common issues and how to solve them

Huawei P30 Lite is the successor of the highly-popular P Lite series and it rises up to the occasion. Tripple camera setup along with the great front-facing camera, potent chipset, and solid battery make for an all-around good mid-ranger. However, as we all know, there’s no perfect device (especially software-wise) and the Huawei P30 Lite has its share of common issues.

We made sure to list the most common ones and present them to you along with applicable solutions.

Note: All the issues mentioned in this article are individually reported cases, which doesn’t mean any of the problems will occur on other devices. If you’re looking to buy this phone, DO NOT consider these problems.

Table of contents:

1. Battery drains
2. SIM card issues
3. Max volume is too low
4. UI lags, stutters, and ghost touch issues
5. No updates available
6. Camera issues
7. Apps won’t install
8. Overheating issues
9. Gallery images are corrupt
10. Useful troubleshooting steps for the Huawei P30 Lite

1. Battery drains

The first reported problem we run into is a massive hit to battery longevity some users experienced. The Huawei P30 Lite is not a battery champion in the mid-range class, with a 3340 mAh battery. However, the SoT, thanks to a heavy EMUI optimization and a 6.15-inch screen, shouldn’t be bad in the slightest.

If the battery drains started after a system update, you can try and back up your data and reset the device to factory values. On the other hand, there are some things you can do to extend battery life. Check them out below:

• Turn off Wi-Fi and Mobile Data overnight.
• Disable Face Unlock.
• Navigate to Settings > Advanced Settings > Location Mode, and choose Device only if you do not need GPS’s high accuracy at the moment.
• Navigate to Settings > Advanced Settings > Location > 3-dot Menu > Scan settings, and disable Wi-Fi and Bluetooth scanning, respectively.
• Disable unused apps from starting automatically. Navigate to Settings > Apps > and individually disable Autostart on apps.
• Use manual brightness settings, it will save you a lot of battery.

2. SIM card issues

Since dual SIM is an option, many users will utilize it and use two separate nano-SIM cards on their P30 Lite. However, there seems to be an issue with the secondary SIM card for some of them, along with some 3G/4G mobile data issues.

If you are unable to make the second SIM card work, try removing it and placing it in again. After that reboot your device. Finally, make sure that the SIM card is activated within Settings.

In regards to mobile data issues, make sure to set the preferred mobile network connection in Settings. If that fails, remove the SIM cards, reset the Network settings, and insert the SIM cards again.

3. Max volume is too low

In such a cluttered and competitive market, many times things come to nitpicking. However, there are some legitimate downsides to the Huawei P30 Lite that users can’t find a way around.

One common and out-of-the-box issue with the Huawei P30 Lite is quite a low volume coming from the single bottom-firing speaker. Even if the volume is maxed out.

Sadly, the only thing you can do is wait for an update to address this. Due to the limited approach to OS modding (Huawei prevents bootloader unlocking), you won’t be able to do much.

Try enabling the Disable absolute volume option in Developer options for Bluetooth headsets, but don’t hold your hopes high in regards to the built-in speaker.

4. UI lags, stutters, and ghost touch issues

Even though the included hardware (Huawei’s-own Kirin 710 chipset and up to 8 GB of RAM) should be enough for the P30 Lite to work without any issues, there are some reports about UI lags and stutters.

To fix this, you can try navigating to Developer options and reducing the Animation scaling, and disabling some third-party apps working in the background while gaming. Here’s how to access Developer options on the Huawei P30 Lite:

1. Open Settings.
2. Open the About phone.
3. Tap 7 times on the Build number.
4. Open Developer options.
5. Navigate to Animations and reduce them from 1 to 0.5.
6. Alternatively, enable the “Force activities to be resizable” option.

Besides that, some users reported a ghost touch, blaming protection film. However, it seems that issues continued even when the protective film was removed. If that happens, we can only suggest resetting your device to factory values.

5. No updates available

Huawei is not known for its timely Android updates. They are even an OEM that has the biggest OS fragmentation on their devices as users wait for months for the new release of EMUI.

Now, since the P30 Lite is a part of their P series from this year, updates to EMUI 10 are to be expected in April 2020 at the latest.

However, some users read that there’s a firmware update available. Now, if you haven’t enrolled in the Beta program for Android 10, you won’t be able to get it until the global release sees the light.

However, you should still receive monthly security updates and patches on EMUI 9.1. If that’s not the case, make sure to check for updates manually. If the problem persists, reset your device to factory settings.

6. Camera issues

A major differentiating point going for flagship devices in previous years was high-end lenses with amazing photo quality. However, mid-range devices are getting there and, with all hardware included, the P30 Lite should be more than a competitive photo-taking smartphone.

And that’s true for the most part. The triple camera setup is great with an above-average front-facing selfie camera. However, some users are having a hard time with the camera integration in third-party apps (e.g. Facebook Messenger, Instagram).

Seemingly, the quality declines a lot and the whole photo-video-taking experience is substantially slower. Especially when compared to similar or even cheaper devices.

Ways to tackle this are fairly limited, so we suggest clearing cache and data from the Camera app and affected apps, checking permissions, and keeping your phone up to date. Hopefully, the problem will be sorted out with future updates.

7. Apps won’t install

The Google Huawei split led to multiple obvious software-related issues on devices introduced in 2019. Due to limitations imposed by Google, all Google services are prohibited on certain versions of the P30 Lite.

Now, the Europan version (MAR-LX1A) should integrate Google services without any issues as most of the others. However, there’s a slight chance you got a device that goes by the Huawei Nova 4X, chances are you won’t be able to get Google services.

If you are certain that your version works with Google services, make sure to first update your device. If the problem persists, reset the device to factory settings.

8. Overheating issues

Overheating is, as the majority of problems here, a not quite widespread issue on the Huawei P30 Lite. However, the problem seems to occur for some users, especially while talking on the phone. Namely, the handset gets hot after some time. In other instances, like extensive gaming sessions, overheating is not uncommon.

There are multiple ways to reduce overheating on your handset, so check out the steps below:

• Remove the protective casing while talking on the phone.
• Make sure you have good network coverage as the bed network coverage will lead to overheating on some devices.
• Don’t use your device while charging.
• If the problem started after an update, reset your device to factory settings and restore it from a backup.

9. Gallery images are corrupt

This one is simple. There’s no chance that photos or videos on your device will “get corrupt”. The SD card, on the other hand, is quite capable of getting corrupt.

The only reason why images or any other multimedia file is missing might be due to either the SD card not being loaded (might be a physical problem in placement or permission issue) or being corrupt.

If the latter happened, there’s not much you can do. You can try connecting your SD card to a PC and extracting data that way. Other than that, you can only format it and start from scratch.

10. Useful troubleshooting steps for the Huawei P30 Lite

Factory reset:

1. Back up your all data from the internal storage.
2. Choose Settings.
3. Open System.
4. Choose Backup & Reset.
5. Select the Reset phone option.
6. Confirm the selection.

Wipe cache partition (to resolve app certain app issues):

1. Power off your device.
2. Press and hold the Volume Down key and Power Button simultaneously.
3. When the phone starts, use the Volume Down to navigate through the menu.
4. Select the Recovery mode with a single press of the Power button.
5. Press the Power button to start the Recovery mode. The Android robot with exclamation points should appear.
6. Hold the Power Button and press once Volume Up key. The menu should appear.
7. Use the volume buttons to scroll to “wipe cache partition” and confirm with a single press of the Power Button.

With that said, we can conclude this article with the Huawei P30 Lite’s common issues and their respective solutions. You can send tickets to Huawei and inform them about bugs. Thank you for reading and don’t forget to share issues we overlooked in the comments section below.

Editor’s note: This article was initially published in December 2019. We made sure to revamp it for freshness and accuracy.