Okay, so I have two problems.
Since I've owned the phone, I've stuck to Stock 4.0.4 ROM as well as the Stock Kernel.
Only problems I've had is the occasional SOD.
But today, my phone went through two mind numbing crashes.
First, my Extended 3500 mAh battery stopped working.
I got the dreaded Hazard sign when i try to charge it, so I left it be.
But, I've never had a problem with the battery prior to today (I've owned it for three and a half months).
Secondly, I used the Stock battery for the majority of the day, due to the previous battery problems.
Well, about an hour ago, I was using the phone as I always did.
Nothing out of the ordinary.
Suddenly, I got a white screen.
I rebooted the phone, and all the settings had turned to default.
And I can't go into silent mode through the power button.
And the home button is absolutely useless.
Can't close open apps, go to the home screen, etc.
And every time I get to the home screen, the launcher crashes.
Any ideas on what the heck is happening?
I'm a first time poster, long time visitor.
Related
Hi guys,
I've had me evo3d from the first day it came out here, august 6th. Never had any problems at all. Until now. Srry about the novel... I've highlighted the most important parts for your convenience.
About 2 weeks ago, i dropped my phone from about 60cm, but with no apparent damage. Later that night, my battery went completely empty (not unexpected, it was a long day). Plugged it into the charger when i got home, led flashed to indicate a completely empty battery then stayed on to indicate charging, no problem. Then it stopped charging after a little while and didn't resume.
I took the phone apart so see if maybe some wire had come loose from falling. None had, but after putting it together again, it did charge again for a moment (also showed flashing leds again), and then it stopped again.
A friend of mine suggested it might be that battery's contacts, so he scratched them with a screwdriver. This actually seemed to help and everything was fine for about a week and a half.
Now trouble has started again. Taking the battery out and blowing on the contacts (NES cartridge style) worked at first, giving me about 10 minutes until it died again. But it seems to be getting worse, and by now it will only turn on or even just charge sporadically. Always flashing the led, indicating the battery is completely empty.
additional info:
It's not the rom that's faulty, as i hoped at first (re-installed an old rom after trying some ICS-goodness the day before all this started), because it also crashed in Recovery at least once. And i've already installed a diffrent rom without any success.
When it crashes, it doesn't just die instantly. Instead, it freezes for about 1/3 of a second. When it crashed in Recovery, during this freeze the text got a weird yellowish background-color and a different font color as well.. but the parts of the screen without text retained their original looks.
What else could i try to fix this? I don't know anyone with a shooter, but i've heard pyramids battery works as well, is this true? Can i try one of those to see if it's just the battery that's tripping?
Let me know if you need any more info.
Thanks a lot for your help in advance!
I didnt had the same problem, but I had something similiar.
Try this:
1. Unplug from charger
2. Get battery out
3. Wait a bit, and put battery in
4. Press Volume Down + Power button
or
4. (better solution) Press Power + Volume Up + Volume Down + Camera button
5. Phone will start
6. Just plug it in
It's known as "Chargning bug" when you flash some roms
It's the charging bug due to flashing clockwork recovery-- search the forum there are many similar threads and solutions
Hi,
Thanks for your responses. But that's not what's happening. In fact, i have an old clockworkmod that's never been a problem at all and i never updated it.
I tried your solution, though, but it only allowed my phone about 15 minutes of charging before it died again.
If it charges, it charges just fine while the phone is off.
My S3 is about 10 months old, and over the last week I've experienced a problem where the screen will not wake up. The first time I thought the phone may have shut down, but then I noticed that in some cases the notification light was flashing, but pressing the home or on button didn't do anything. I tried calling it, and it appeared to ring (from the phone I was calling) but there was no tone and the screen remained off (with no missed call recorded). Only solution is to remove/replace battery and start it.
Tried to search online for a solution but all I could find is that either it's dying, or some app is causing this, with one entry mentioning chrome. Uninstalled chrome and the problem has not reappeared but it was quite random before, first happening once and then again after several days, and yesterday several times in one day, so I need more time to see if chrome was the culprit (I'm not too convinced otherwise there would be more mention of this).
If anyone has any idea please let me know. Phone in unlocked from purchase, not rooted, stock, fully updated.
This comes at a time when I want to buy a dual-sim android phone as I have 2 numbers for work/travel purposes. Annoyingly none of the top manufacturers produce high performance phones that are also dual sim. Closest I found is the Samsung Galaxy Grand Duos, which seems not bad bit lower spec than the S3 and a bit larger (S3 about as large as I'm prepared to go). Again if anyone has any advice I'd appreciate it.
just to add, I did a factory reset a short while ago as the phone felt a bit laggy compared to earlier use, and after reset was behaving better until this problem appeared
My S3 has behaved similarly 4-5 times since summer. Only removing battery helps. Few days ago it happened two times in row. Screen is off, no way to make it wake up. Removed battery, reboot. When screen went off again, same story again. Had to remove battery again. And in the night phone was making complete restart with PIN asking (usually it makes only android starting again without asking PIN code for SIM). I woke because of that Samsung starting sound. Next day phone just ate battery while being "idle". Basically from 100%-5% within workday just lying on the desk. After several reboots and charging to full battery it behaves as usual, -0,5% per hour.
tomuser said:
My S3 has behaved similarly 4-5 times since summer. Only removing battery helps. Few days ago it happened two times in row. Screen is off, no way to make it wake up. Removed battery, reboot. When screen went off again, same story again. Had to remove battery again. And in the night phone was making complete restart with PIN asking (usually it makes only android starting again without asking PIN code for SIM). I woke because of that Samsung starting sound. Next day phone just ate battery while being "idle". Basically from 100%-5% within workday just lying on the desk. After several reboots and charging to full battery it behaves as usual, -0,5% per hour.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Thanks, will see if the problem goes away for me also. I normally charge it fully quite often, since I usually keep it on charge overnight, and I have a second battery with a battery charger so I often swap batteries to put a fresh one in. I rely on my phone a lot for work so not sure I can afford to wait much longer, I think I'll buy the Grand and just put up with the lower specs...
Hello,
I have an international unlocked Samsung Galaxy S III (GT-I9300) that is no longer in warranty and that started behaving strangely (unresponsive) a couple of weeks ago on Android 4.1.2 (official ROM, rooted with CF-AutoRoot).
After reading several threads here on XDA I believed it was subject of Sudden Death. So I started with a factory reset and rooted the phone again with CF-AutoRoot but after that I still experienced the same freezes and started my mission to try and resolve this using whatever method was required.
I starting with trying the DFG app but to no avail. The freezing was provoked but did not go away after many days of iterations and freezes (it always recovered out of a freeze).
Next I tried the eMMC check app to verify on what version I was so that I could help my in further pinpointing the problem. It said I was safe, but while running that app the phone freezed again but this time the screen turned purple/pink and it did not recover from the freeze after several hours until I finally removed the battery. The purple/pink turned into purple/pink with black lines and after removing the battery I could not power on the phone.
In all desperation I started trying out different "SDS-safe" custom kernels, ROMs and bootloaders (all flashed using Odin on my laptop) but the problem did not go away. In fact, I discovered a very strange correlation between the time that I leave the battery out the phone and the time it takes before the purple/pink freeze occurs again.
If I wait half an hour, put the battery back in the phone and boot it (in whichever mode) it would freeze/flicker/die after about 20 seconds. If I would wait several hours, put the battery back in the phone and boot it it would freeze/flicker/die after a solid 1 or 2 minutes.
Whether the phone is connected to the laptop or not makes no difference. I also tried with a different battery but the same behavior occurs.
After waiting a solid day, in still in act of desperation, I decided to flash the leaked 4.2.2 (I9300XXUFME7) official ROM. But even after a factory reset and wiping of cache I found that the problem still remained.
Now I believe I've tried almost everything I've found on these forums I'm not sure what I can still do. It seems it's not battery, ROM, kernel or bootloader related and it also does not seem a case of Sudden Death (I never heard mention of the purple/pink flickering, and it also never snaps out of the freeze; also the strange correlation between battery out of the phone and time before it freezes is something I haven't read about).
From all the research I've done I've not encountered anyone with the same symptoms (does not wake out of freeze, purple/pink lines appear on screen when freeze starts and keep flickering for hours, there seems to be a correlation between the time the battery is out of the phone and how long I have before it freezes again when I turn it on) and I'm running out of ideas.
I believe it is hardware related (but not a screen issue) rather than software related because the USB connection with the laptop disconnects when it freezes, purple/pink flickering and no recovery; but I have no idea what options I still have.
Before I give up on the phone does anyone have any recommendations of what I can try before sending it to a Samsung repair center?
Attached are 4 pictures to show the typical process after waiting ~4 hours and powering on the phone:
Phone boots OK
The phone freezes and a purple/pink overlay appears
More and more flickering making the screen turn more and more purple/pink
The screen seems to be divided in 4-5 parts
Everything is pink and black lines start to appear
Thank you for your time.
I'd say you need a new motherboard or screen, possibly both - you've ruled out any software causes.
just had this issue
Did you find a solution, given the fact that this happened a long time ago?
I was watching a video and my screen turned pink like the 4th photo you posted.
Now it wont work, get the pink screen everytime is turned on.
dendera said:
Hello,
I have an international unlocked Samsung Galaxy S III (GT-I9300) that is no longer in warranty and that started behaving strangely (unresponsive) a couple of weeks ago on Android 4.1.2 (official ROM, rooted with CF-AutoRoot).
After reading several threads here on XDA I believed it was subject of Sudden Death. So I started with a factory reset and rooted the phone again with CF-AutoRoot but after that I still experienced the same freezes and started my mission to try and resolve this using whatever method was required.
I starting with trying the DFG app but to no avail. The freezing was provoked but did not go away after many days of iterations and freezes (it always recovered out of a freeze).
Next I tried the eMMC check app to verify on what version I was so that I could help my in further pinpointing the problem. It said I was safe, but while running that app the phone freezed again but this time the screen turned purple/pink and it did not recover from the freeze after several hours until I finally removed the battery. The purple/pink turned into purple/pink with black lines and after removing the battery I could not power on the phone.
In all desperation I started trying out different "SDS-safe" custom kernels, ROMs and bootloaders (all flashed using Odin on my laptop) but the problem did not go away. In fact, I discovered a very strange correlation between the time that I leave the battery out the phone and the time it takes before the purple/pink freeze occurs again.
If I wait half an hour, put the battery back in the phone and boot it (in whichever mode) it would freeze/flicker/die after about 20 seconds. If I would wait several hours, put the battery back in the phone and boot it it would freeze/flicker/die after a solid 1 or 2 minutes.
Whether the phone is connected to the laptop or not makes no difference. I also tried with a different battery but the same behavior occurs.
After waiting a solid day, in still in act of desperation, I decided to flash the leaked 4.2.2 (I9300XXUFME7) official ROM. But even after a factory reset and wiping of cache I found that the problem still remained.
Now I believe I've tried almost everything I've found on these forums I'm not sure what I can still do. It seems it's not battery, ROM, kernel or bootloader related and it also does not seem a case of Sudden Death (I never heard mention of the purple/pink flickering, and it also never snaps out of the freeze; also the strange correlation between battery out of the phone and time before it freezes is something I haven't read about).
From all the research I've done I've not encountered anyone with the same symptoms (does not wake out of freeze, purple/pink lines appear on screen when freeze starts and keep flickering for hours, there seems to be a correlation between the time the battery is out of the phone and how long I have before it freezes again when I turn it on) and I'm running out of ideas.
I believe it is hardware related (but not a screen issue) rather than software related because the USB connection with the laptop disconnects when it freezes, purple/pink flickering and no recovery; but I have no idea what options I still have.
Before I give up on the phone does anyone have any recommendations of what I can try before sending it to a Samsung repair center?
Attached are 4 pictures to show the typical process after waiting ~4 hours and powering on the phone:
Phone boots OK
The phone freezes and a purple/pink overlay appears
More and more flickering making the screen turn more and more purple/pink
The screen seems to be divided in 4-5 parts
Everything is pink and black lines start to appear
Thank you for your time.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Really hope someone can help me here.
I rooted, and put CM10.2 on my phone a month or two ago (don't play that much with ROMs, etc), but fancied a change from stock.
Anyways, it's been fine (although battery life not quite as great as before, but hey ho), this evening just got a WhatsApp message, dropped the notification bar down, clicked on it to open Whats App, and the phone rebooted... And then continued to just reboot over and over after 2-3 seconds (showing the i9300 Samsung logo with the red ! in the top left).
Removing battery stops this obviously, but weirdly when I put the battery back in boots straight away, and continues to just loop like that. Holding power, home, vol up/down makes no difference (been playing with this for about an hour now, and searching other peoples solutions, someone said 5 times wait, and release). Just can't get anything other than this loop, just weird that I can't actually turn it off either.
Suggestions please?
Thanks Gunja
Booting as soon as battery is inserted indicates power button sorted out, try wiggling it or seek a repair.
Yes I believe thats the case, as I have actually got it into the "Accept different OS" mode, stays there for 2 seconds and reboots. Nothing seems physically weird about the power button.
It did the sudden die thing a few months back, and I returned it to Sammy UK and they fixed it (due to 2 year warranty) in 2 days. It's still under 2 years old, so will give them a call. Was rooted before, but didn't show the red ! in the left left. Hope that they don't mind that, as this does seem to genuinely be a physical hardware problem not software.
If you just hold the power button on the S3 when it's booted, just it just turn off eventually? How annoying, 2nd problem with it in the last 4-5 months, wonder if will get another sammy when upgrades due in a couple of months. Lets see how their support is again this time round!
Hi,
I've had my Z3TC for around 5 years now and still love it but has been having a few issues recently, notably the battery life is getting worse, but it's still usable. However, yesterday, something strange happened to it. The power on/off button stopped working when I pressed it once (double press for camera still worked), so I couldn't turn it off or turn the screen off (other than my closing the case cover) and one of the volume buttons didn't work either.
Then, the battery dropped from around 40% to 0% and it shut down. I charged it overnight and this morning when I turned it on, all the buttons were working again but it was in safe mode. I tuned it off/on multiple times, restarted it, rebooted in safe mode then rebooted again hoping it would go to normal mode, but none of this work.
I've now done a full factory reset and it is still stuck in safe mode (and I've restarted it, turned on/off multiple times). Are there any suggestions for how I can get it back to normal?
Thanks,
Frank
Nearly the same thing happened to me. It happened about 3 years ago. The power button stopped working (just like you), so I chucked my Z3TC. To this day, it was - and is still one of the best - phones I ever had. I ALWAYS got asked questions about it. I own an iPhone now, but I still love the Z3TC. The camera was terrible, but everything else about the screen was solid. Just wished they updated the OS on it, but due to Google and the chip restrictions, never got far. Either way, I'll never forget this phone. Pity our time came to an end due to that power button breaking.
Also stuck
Same thing also happened to me.
I had the tablet for quite some time and the battery would start going straight to 0% from quite a high number. And also my volume down button doesn't work and I am stuck in safe mode. Rebooting, poweroff, etc doesn't make it get out of safe mode.