[Q] Random reboot and bootloop issue - Galaxy S III Q&A, Help & Troubleshooting

Hi guys
Having some issues with my S3, bought in November 2012 and worked perfectly fine until a few months ago when it started turning off and rebooting, it would get to the initial 'Samsung Galaxy SIII' logo and loop on that until the battery is pulled. It'd work fine for a few moments after it booted to the lockscreen and then do it again.
I got it working again after I left the battery out for several hours, afterwards its been working fine apart from the occasional turning off, looping on the inital boot logo. Fixes itself first try so I've been happy to live with it if it only does it occasionally.
So about 20 minutes ago it turned off and looped. No worries, pulled battery out for a few minutes, put it back in and turned it off. Usually it would work absolutely fine after this, but instead it kept looping. Got a bit concerned, so pulled battery out for a few minutes, put it back in and it worked. Then it did it again, so battery pulled out for a few minutes, put back in and it works fine. I've had it charging since it started working and it seems to be going fine now (could be just a weird superstition of mine, charging it seems to keep it alive?).
I can usually tell when I'm using it if its about to reboot, if I go to lock the screen using the power button, it acts as if I long pressed the button (power options appears). So I use the back key to get out of it and try locking it again. Does the same thing and then it reboots within a few seconds. Could be power button getting stuck?
Adding music/data to the device does seem to flare this issue up for a little bit, but those could be completely unrelated
Factory reset fixes it for a little but that isn't possible all the time of course.
Any suggestions on how to fix or prevent this issue? Is it the sudden death syndrome flaring up? I'm on 4.1.2 XXEMG4, the latest for the region of the phone, so the sudden death fix is incorporated.
Thanks heaps
EDIT: Found the solution to the problem today. Seems that the issue is the power button sticking. I verified on my mothers s3 that holding the power button down does reboot the phone, by skipping the whole shutdown sequence and going straight to the bootup. It seems that because the power button is sticking, the boot sequence isn't able to complete so it will reboot endlessly.
Try pulling the battery out, and firmly (but not so firm it will break) and repeatedly press the power button around 10-15 times. The video I saw suggested smacking the side of the phone against a hard surface but that may be a little extreme. Anytime the power menu comes up when you go to lock the screen, quickly press the power button heaps of times until it locks and you will avoid a reboot

Sounds similar to the lead up I had to SDS. The Sudden Death fix can also cause freezes and reboots. Or teh NAND memory could be dying but from something other than SDS

rootSU said:
Sounds similar to the lead up I had to SDS. The Sudden Death fix can also cause freezes and reboots. Or teh NAND memory could be dying but from something other than SDS
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
These issues only began appearing a while after the updates including the SDS fix came out (which I know doesn't completely rule out SDS). Absolutely 0 issues when I was on 4.0.x, aside from Android itself crashing on a couple of occasions.
I still have until the end of october to lodge a warranty claim if need be, so I'll see how it goes

Related

[Help] Power button issue

I tried to turn the screen off, but it keeps turning back on. I've had this issue for a while and looked it up. Most people said it was a hardware issue, but the thing is...now it will not turn off the screen at all. I know the power button works because I can long press it to get the power menu as well as hold to restart, but not turn off the screen. Also, I can activate the "lock" feature in TWRP as well with the power button. I had this issue on an older rom, so I wiped EVERYTHING and installed revolt, yet I still had this issue and as I was typing this, I got the new issue of it never turning off. I don't know what's causing it. Any ideas? It's been happening for a few days now.
Attempt 2: Now I have the stupid turning off issue. Now, every time I press the power button the opposite happens. It turns on for a second and then turns back off. I'm thinking that this is a hardware issue. Anyone else disagree?
Attempt 3: Back to same issue, turns off and turns right back on in like 2 seconds. Going to call Samsung and see what this is about.
[EDIT]: I should mention, I have the same vibrate issue described in this thread. I'm suspecting a stuck power button. Great. Time to talk AT&T into giving me an early upgrade.
A stuck power button won't allow your phone to boot up completely. So you're probably ok there if you can boot up and type in an app.
You do have an issue though. Something got borked up somewhere. I would try going back to stock completely.
Backup important files, wipe EVERYthing on the phone at least twice. Then using Samsung kies on a PC do an emergency firmware update. Once your update completes perform another factory reset and see how she's working. If you still have a problem then contact Samsung. If no problem, enjoy your phone!
Eh, I tried the wiping everything (internal, not the sd card), but I guess I shall try moving it to stock as well. Do you suggest keeping TWRP or should I install stock kernel, recovery, and do a firmware update? I might also dump my phone in rice to see if maybe some water got in there (doubt it though). Also, I might be screwed if it's otherwise. Been over a year since I bought the note.
Also, are you sure it's not stuck (partially or sometimes maybe)? My phone is constantly rebooting on and off for no reason and sometimes this happens, other times the power button is okay. But when it does reboot, it vibrates a lot. Sometimes it'll just keep vibrating and never reboot like it's turning off and on constantly and I have to press and hold the power button a few times before it starts booting again.
EDIT: I also realize it could be a combination of issues and one of these issues might be a battery one. I do have another battery and I can feel a noticeable bulge so I'll go home, change the roms, battery, and do a firmware update and see how it goes.
Would just like to add that flashing an official firmware through kies did not fix my problem. Furthermore, now I'm getting the invalid sim problem and it keeps asking me to restart. I had this problem before and just recently (a week ago) got a new sim and now it's back. Maybe it's an hardware issue?

[Q] Samsung Galaxy S3 shuts off randomly. Won't turn on consistently?

My Samsung Galaxy SIII smart phone has only recently been having issues. My phone will turn on, will be charged and function as normal - ie, no performance issues at all when the phone is actually on. But sometimes, my phone will randomly shut off with no prompt or message. Sometimes it will attempt to turn back on itself, other times I need to press or even hold the power button to turn it on.
The real problem is when it boots, it SOMETIMES (3/5 times average) will begin to boot, then the screen goes black again - ie, the Samsung logo will show up upon vibrating, then shut off or reboot and try again (this can sometimes happen singularly or in tandem). Other times, it will boot as normal, sometimes working normally, other times just randomly doing the abrupt shut down, and the cycle starts over.
I've tried taking the battery out, rebooting it, booting to safe mode, removing battery + keeping it out for ~10 minutes to discharge, etc. My phone isn't up to date, as my phone is rooted. However, I haven't modified my phone or done anything to it in a long time, and this has only has begun happening recently. My current firmware is rooted stock Android 4.2. Are there any other solutions besides formatting my phone? I cannot send it in/get it replaced by my provider as my warranty has expired. Thank you. :angel:
Go to the Play Store and download emmc brickbug check.
Get that diagnosed.
If it's good i suggest you do a full wipe and update it to the latest samsung 4.3 update.
Ultimate GS3 sudden death thread.
Well you better get up to date, best to start with a factory reset and the latest stock rom first.
I guess you're running an unstable leaked 4.2.2 firmware,so I would suggest you to install stable 4.3 firmware.
Maybe your power button got stuck..
To find out, push your power button and keep hold it even the "samsung galaxy s III GT-I9300" appear.
Do you experience the same thing or not.
TheoDores said:
Maybe your power button got stuck..
To find out, push your power button and keep hold it even the "samsung galaxy s III GT-I9300" appear.
Do you experience the same thing or not.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
I found a fix for my S3 which was doing EXACTLY what many of you are describing. I will get to the fix and it will sound ridiculous, but it worked for me and for the other people responding to the posted fix. ***** Hint: my problem was the power button and the fix was free and easy though may require you to be pissed at your phone as I was at the time.
Before getting to what fixed my phone. It seems like every one with a Samsung phone Sh*tting out in this manner should go through the well-conceived sequence I post below in the link. That guy though through the problem and made a great help list even though I found myself with a phone that was a mess even after all of those steps. My phone just vibrated when I tried to start it or maybe it began to show a graphic screen of the boot process before it went to black again and just vibrated. I am stuck with 4 more months of verizon contract so I was desperate and unahppy to say the least. I tried at least 50 time to boot my phone yesterday and went to a verizon store they were no help as expected especially when they saw a boot screen image that they did not recognize... I was one of those rooting creeps that they are not obligated to help...
first link:
http://thedroidguy.com/2014/03/fix-galaxy-s3-wont-turn-troubleshooting-guide/
A stuck or malfunctioning power button can cause... getting random reboots, lack of starting, lack of posting, getting stuck at various screens in the boot process and then going to a black screen which may just accompany a vibrating phone or a seemingly dead phone. Our problem is the power button being "stuck" underneath/inside of the janky, crappy little clip on power button that you are actually pushing in on your phone.
see this youtube video. In other words the thing you push is only pushing something else inside. I took my power button out (it clips in) cleaned out the cavity by blowing and with a toothpick and I was fixed!
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pQ-U-Q_NdOo
I was pissed at my phone so where the guy in the above youtube video says something like tapping his nail (finger nail) into the power button or whatever I was pretty aggressive and crammed my thumbnail down the sides of the power button until the janky little piece of crap actually popped out revealing itself as a clip kind of a thing. I then blew the hell out of the hole with all of the breath I could muster and took a toothpick and depressed the actual power button several times and "cleaned out" and cleared out any hair or gunk (really did not see any) that might have been in the socket. I put my power button back in (just clips in by itself if you put it in the socket the right way and push down) and I have had NO PROBLEMS since. Start with the first link I posted but be wary of the clearing Cache part unless you no what you are doing ahead of time. I had just done a factory reset and total wipe with TWRP before installing a new ROM so I did not have anything to lose. You might... I don't know enough about what resides in "cache" to advise you. Then if you are still in trouble listen to the second post which is a video. I actually crammed my thumbnail down into the power button cavity on both the top and bottom (the long axis) of the button aggressively enough that the visible button popped out. Then I did my blowing and cleaning, etc... crammed the visible button back int - which clips into place and I have been stoked since. Hope it works for you if not, sorry!
*As a side note, I sort of assumed that the problem with my phone (and I bet yours) has something to do with power: either getting to the right place in the phone from the battery or the power chord OR the f*ing power button on our cheap, janky plastic yet expensive Samsung phones might be a problem because before the weird random reboots and not booting began the power off dialog (like when you hold the power button down long enough and you get the "reboot" "power down" "airplane mode" menu kept coming up while I was surfing watching youtube or even talking. I figured it was time to install another ROM, did so twice and still had the same issues. I reflashed recoveries back and forth from TWRP to the other one several times too. Nothing worked until I cleaned out the power button. Go figure.
I was pissed at my phone so where the guy in the above youtube video says something like tapping his nail (finger nail) into the power button or whatever I was pretty aggressive and crammed my thumbnail down the sides of the power button until the janky little piece of crap actually popped out revealing itself as a clip kind of a thing. I then blew the hell out of the hole with all of the breath I could muster and took a toothpick and depressed the actual power button several times and "cleaned out" and cleared out any hair or gunk (really did not see any) that might have been in the socket. I put my power button back in (just clips in by itself if you put it in the socket the right way and push down) and I have had NO PROBLEMS since
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
I tried a similar approach and it looks like it actually worked. I just took the plastic cover of and removed he 10 little screws and played around with the plastic thingy that depresses the power button. I don't know what exactly fixed it but is seems to work.
So you might not have to remove your power button but instead just play around with it first and see if you can't get it to function properly again.
Thank you so much brjoon1021!
Galaxy SIII I9300 shuts of randomly but only when not used
I have a problem with my S3 since about a week now. First it was a standard S3 with stock ROM and not rooted. The phone would turn itself of 3 - 5 times during daytime and also at night when charging.
What I tried:
- Clearing battery connections
- Cleaning power button
But finally I think it's not a hardware problem. Loose contacts, battery connections or a power button problem would probably cause more shut downs when I was using it. But in my case it's the opposite: it always shuts down when I am *not* using it.
So I rooted the phone and flashed a custom ROM on it: [ROM] [4.4.4] [CyanogenMod] [GCC 4.8] [Excellent] [31/12/14] ArchiDroid V3.0.2
That was succesfull, but after that I still had the same problem.
When do I have this problem: as stated: always when I am *not* using the phone. It's lying on my desk or next to my bed, charging and no program is running.
When I don't have the problem: when some program is running on the foreground, at night during charging if I keep the clock on the foreground (daydreaming), when I have waze running (in my car) etc.
I have the impression the device only shuts itself down when in deep sleep mode.
I also tested if it was a case of Deep Sleep of Death, but when the phone is shut down, I can not text to it, the LED does not light up.
I can boot the phone by pressing the power button once for about 8 seconds, so that seems a normal boot and not a reboot.
Any suggestions on what I could test? Or how I can find out what the problem is?
Thanks!
Dion64 said:
I have a problem with my S3 since about a week now. First it was a standard S3 with stock ROM and not rooted. The phone would turn itself of 3 - 5 times during daytime and also at night when charging.
What I tried:
- Clearing battery connections
- Cleaning power button
But finally I think it's not a hardware problem. Loose contacts, battery connections or a power button problem would probably cause more shut downs when I was using it. But in my case it's the opposite: it always shuts down when I am *not* using it.
So I rooted the phone and flashed a custom ROM on it: [ROM] [4.4.4] [CyanogenMod] [GCC 4.8] [Excellent] [31/12/14] ArchiDroid V3.0.2
That was succesfull, but after that I still had the same problem.
When do I have this problem: as stated: always when I am *not* using the phone. It's lying on my desk or next to my bed, charging and no program is running.
When I don't have the problem: when some program is running on the foreground, at night during charging if I keep the clock on the foreground (daydreaming), when I have waze running (in my car) etc.
I have the impression the device only shuts itself down when in deep sleep mode.
I also tested if it was a case of Deep Sleep of Death, but when the phone is shut down, I can not text to it, the LED does not light up.
I can boot the phone by pressing the power button once for about 8 seconds, so that seems a normal boot and not a reboot.
Any suggestions on what I could test? Or how I can find out what the problem is?
Thanks!
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Hi
I have the exact same problem!
I tried factory reset, wipe cache, I have bought new battery ... nothing helped so far...
S3
pagep said:
Hi
I have the exact same problem!
I tried factory reset, wipe cache, I have bought new battery ... nothing helped so far...
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Turn off sync. See if that helps it fixed mine.
zern said:
Turn off sync. See if that helps it fixed mine.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Well it started to get worse every day, so we tried factory reset once more and after that, the phone just died. (only colored rubbish is shown on the screen) ...
Never ever buying Samsung again. Piece of crap ...
Anyway we had chance to buy LG G2 on the sale. I know it's quite old, but the price was perfect and it's many times better than S3. :good:
Dion64 said:
I have a problem with my S3 since about a week now. First it was a standard S3 with stock ROM and not rooted. The phone would turn itself of 3 - 5 times during daytime and also at night when charging.
What I tried:
- Clearing battery connections
- Cleaning power button
But finally I think it's not a hardware problem. Loose contacts, battery connections or a power button problem would probably cause more shut downs when I was using it. But in my case it's the opposite: it always shuts down when I am *not* using it.
So I rooted the phone and flashed a custom ROM on it: [ROM] [4.4.4] [CyanogenMod] [GCC 4.8] [Excellent] [31/12/14] ArchiDroid V3.0.2
That was succesfull, but after that I still had the same problem.
When do I have this problem: as stated: always when I am *not* using the phone. It's lying on my desk or next to my bed, charging and no program is running.
When I don't have the problem: when some program is running on the foreground, at night during charging if I keep the clock on the foreground (daydreaming), when I have waze running (in my car) etc.
I have the impression the device only shuts itself down when in deep sleep mode.
I also tested if it was a case of Deep Sleep of Death, but when the phone is shut down, I can not text to it, the LED does not light up.
I can boot the phone by pressing the power button once for about 8 seconds, so that seems a normal boot and not a reboot.
Any suggestions on what I could test? Or how I can find out what the problem is?
Thanks!
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
my is also the same problem..if u have found solution for it please tell me .

[Q] Power/Shutdown Menu Randomly popping up

My samsung galaxy i9300 has been working great for a year and suddenly started to act funny.
One day it works without any problem, then from nowhere, phone lying on the table and the power/shutdown menu starts randomly appearing and popping up, like I would want to turn the phone off or restart it. And Im not even touching it.
I tried many different ROMs, official, custom, I took it to the samsung service and they changed the power button.
I tried different batteries, chargers, switched the main board to different s3 phone, but it still, once in a while, does that popping up power off menu thing.
If I let the menu appear for a certain period of time and do nothing, the popping up frequency gets higher and higher until it restarts the phone and then ends in bootloop.
Sometimes if I remove the battery for a certain period of time, the phone starts up and works like nothing happened a minute ago. Other times it does not boot up and stays in bootloop.
I figured out that if I continue to push power button in a one second intervals after powering the phone, it continues to boot up and starts up. I enter the PIN code and then the phone either acts again like nothing happened, or starts the popping thing again.
If I keep pushing the power button while the popping up shutdown menu is happening, I kind of cancel the whole thing and phone works okay, ending again either in no problem state and working like a new phone, or restarting itself and bootlooping.
It doen not happend at certain time or while doing any specific activity or while in specific app, or anything, totaly random thing, sometimes during the call, week later during the night, 2 days after in my pocket, 10 hours later while lying on the table.
Thank you for any ideas what could be causing this.
Better ask for a new replacement from Samsung.
Sent from my GT-I9300 using xda app-developers app
I had this exact same issue. It's simply the power button acting funny/getting stuck. Mine got changed and now everything works as it's supposed to again.
badaeng said:
I had this exact same issue. It's simply the power button acting funny/getting stuck. Mine got changed and now everything works as it's supposed to again.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
He alr said he took it to samsung to ask them to change and they did alr. Unless samsung didnt fix it properly, it shldnt be tat case.
Sent from my SM-N9005 using xda app-developers app
It acts really wierd. Its been working for another 3-4 days, and then yesterday, the issue started again for like 5-10 minutes. Since then, its been okay again. The power button is perfectly fine, I even tried to dissambly the whole phone, power button is not loose at all.
It feels like there is some kind of interuption for a while and it starts the issue. I dont understand much about frequencies, but could any radio frequency or whatever cause such a thing?

Galaxy S3 Freezing. Help

hi all,
i have a very unusual freezing problem that is driving me nuts. i have read loads of posts about people using dummy file generator, clearing defaults, factory resetting etc. but my problem remains after all of the above.
here is what happens with my device.
device is galaxy s3(gt-i9300)
running stock vodafone branded but open to all networks 4.3
baseband i9300buugnf1
build number jss15j.i9300xxugnh4
the problem started back in october last year. the screen would freeze and the only way of getting it back would be to hold the power button in for about 10 secs, or pulling the battery. i tried leaving it overnight to see if it would unfreeze itself, but no joy.
this was just occasionally to start off with, but has now become too frequent to allow the phone to be usable. sometimes the phone would go for about 20 mins without a freeze, but other times it would freeze after just a couple of mins.
sometimes, when i reboot the device, it freezes on the samsung logo, but the logo still pulsates as if it is still booting up. but never does. it also freezes when turned off and charging. i have to hold the power button in for about 10 secs again to get it to start up.
the phone is out of warranty. i did have a problem with the phone over a year ago and sent it away to samsung, where they changed the motherboard as it was force closing all my apps. but just after a year of it working perfectly, this happens. it seems samsung have put a self destruct timer on their devices. lol.
has anyone had the same sort of problems, if so did you manage to fix the problem?
any help with this would be greatly appreciated.
Thanks

HTC One M7: Power button doesn't work, but only when screen is on?

So about 3 weeks ago, I dropped my HTC so now I have a large crack running down the middle of the screen. However I haven't had any other problems up until last night. The ringtone volume turns itself up without me even touching the phone every now and then and once it does that, the power button stops working. But it does work again once the screen is switched off, meaning I can turn in on but not off. The power button functions fine until the volume button acts up the first time after restart.
I factory reset my phone thinking it may have had something to do with the software but the problem came back within the hour when all the updates started rolling in. Once it did, i booted it into safemode and the problem seemed to stop but I don't know what's causing it. Could it be an actual bug in an update or is the damage to the screen simply too much for the phone itself? Has anyone ever dealt with a problem like this? Any help will be appreciated as I know it's expensive to fix these things and I don't want to go to the shop to get it fixed only for the problem to come back as it's software related.

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