Galaxy s9 dex mode enabled?

[grire974]

Has anyone who owns a Samsung Galaxy s9 purchased through Fido bee able to get dex to work?  This is the feature that allows you to dock your phone to a computer monitor, keyboard and mouse using the Samsung Dex accessory (or compatible usb-c dongle) and effectively turn your phone into a desktop computer.

I plug my dongle in to an HDMI monitor; and nothing happens, at the very least, screen mirroring is supposed to happen.  Nothing happens..

According to Samsung's documentation: https://www.samsung.com/us/support/troubleshooting/TSG01001565/

Knox can be configured to disable Dex.. Knox is the security configuration tool that Samsung provides that allows carriers like fido to customize their phones (e.g. how they make it so that you can't delete the Fido apps from your phone).  When I look at the settings of my phone, they do match what's shown in the link - in that some Knox configurations have clearly been implemented.  

Has Fido done this to disable Dex?  If so this would be very disappointing to the enthusiast & power user community.

I asked tech support - this is what I got in return (clearly they missed the point, as I can't contact Samsung to ask them what Fido did to my phone after they sold it to them)

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Hello Reece,

Thank you for reaching out to our department and for being so patient for a response. Although our website states that we address concerns within 24 hours and we would love to meet that goal, a shortage in specialists has created a long wait period.

I can understand your concern and that it can be frustrating when you’re trying to use this feature and it’s not working.

As much as we would like to provide you with an answer, the dex app isn’t something that’s offered by Fido so we don’t offer technical support on it.

If you wish to have more support with your Samsung phone and this feature, you would need to contact Samsung to troubleshoot. Here is their contact page: https://www.samsung.com/us/support/contact/

While I am happy to provide you an answer today about your concern you shared with us, I would like you to know that this channel should be used only for when you already contacted customer service and spoke to a supervisor, and you are still not satisfied about the resolution provided. If this happens, we’ll review the interaction that you had with us based on your feedback so that we can improve our procedures to deliver a best-in-class customer experience and enhance all aspects of the journey with us. 

[FidoNick]

Hey @grire974!

We checked it out on our end with our device teams in order to get the info you need. They were able to confirm that Samsung Dex is an OEM feature and it's not something that we can disable on our end. 

We suggest you contact Samsung to see what's going on  

[grire974]

Well that's odd.. I plugged into one of my colleagues' s10 from Bell; and Dex worked fine; so its not my dock; it must be my phone.. If something's wrong with my phone though - don't I return it to Fido, where I purchased it from; surely that would make the most sense - if you buy a samsung TV from best buy, you wouldn't return it to Samsung.

[FidoNick]

Hey @grire974!

If it's the phone, please drop it off at a Fido store that handles repairs, and we'll take care of things!

You can find the nearest one here. 

You do also have the option of going directly through Samsung though, the choice is yours!

Hope that helps.

[grire974 · Accepted solution]

Phone was out of warranty so I didn't take it in.  However I did find out what the real problem was and fixed it - so I'm posting my solution here in case it helps others @FidoNick you may want to change this to the accepted solution:

Was a very low tech solution in the end, my USB-C port was just clogged full of dust and debris.  At a glance it seems like there's nothing in there, but I was also starting to have problems charging the phone (taking a long time, and the charging cable easily falling out of the USB-C port).  Under the advice of another s9 forum I got a small safety pin and started gently digging down into the usb port with the pointy end of a safety pin.  A surprising amount of dust came out that had been packed in there over time.  Some people recommend compressed air (e.g. like the cans used to clean computer keyboards).  But the consensus seems to be safety pins are more effective; be gentle, of course you don't want to damage the port.

After this, all my charging woes were gone, and dex worked instantly.  Hope this helps someone!

[KAPABLE-K]

Hello @grire974,

Try this, take the phone off the DEX adapter unplug the power adapter from the DEX now put the phone back on the DEX adapter and the phone should power the DEX by itself if you get a display on the monitor you can plug in the adapter again.

[grire974]

@KAPABLE-K thanks for the suggestion.. however as stated in my previous I was able to get it to work very easily on another compatible phone sold by Bell...  I did spend at least a half an hour playing around with it on my phone, testing various cable configurations.