[Q] My Galaxy S2 is having a plethora of issues! - Galaxy S II Q&A, Help & Troubleshooting

Okay, I will be as detailed as I can be. First things first, it's my moms phone. Me and my dad are the "tech people" in my house, and he doesn't know as much about Android as I do, so he referred her to me, and I'm lost...
What is it: Samsung Galaxy SII (GTI-1900), running Android 4.2 I believe (I upgraded it previously to fix some problems)
Now it seems some of the problems it used to have, have returned with a vengeance! For some reason, when she tries to shut it down by holding the power/sleep/wake button, it just shuts down. Upon being off, it simply goes through a cycle of showing the battery loading, then the battery being fully charged, then shutting off again, this is all while UNPLUGGED!
But wait, there's more!
Upon turning on, which you have to plug it in first to turn it on, the task menu, whatever it may be called, task monitor/manager I suppose, says that two things are running, the clock, which is understandable due to alarms that are set daily, and Google Play Music, which she doesn't use Ever. Somehow it has started at boot... Upon tapping "close all" it closes all, but the widget still shows 2 processes running, which does not show up after tapping the widget and opening the task monitor. My dad's phone is perfectly normal, yet is the SAME PHONE. any idea how this is happening?
EDIT: It also, after being unplugged, will show "Charged" on the lock screen. the lock screen is the default for the device.
P.S. The ROM I flashed to it is NOT CUSTOM. I got it direct from Samsung updates. It is however, I believe, the European version, as I could not find an american version. The phone is also not rooted.

nocht420 said:
Okay, I will be as detailed as I can be. First things first, it's my moms phone. Me and my dad are the "tech people" in my house, and he doesn't know as much about Android as I do, so he referred her to me, and I'm lost...
What is it: Samsung Galaxy SII (GTI-1900), running Android 4.2 I believe (I upgraded it previously to fix some problems)
Now it seems some of the problems it used to have, have returned with a vengeance! For some reason, when she tries to shut it down by holding the power/sleep/wake button, it just shuts down. Upon being off, it simply goes through a cycle of showing the battery loading, then the battery being fully charged, then shutting off again, this is all while UNPLUGGED!
But wait, there's more!
Upon turning on, which you have to plug it in first to turn it on, the task menu, whatever it may be called, task monitor/manager I suppose, says that two things are running, the clock, which is understandable due to alarms that are set daily, and Google Play Music, which she doesn't use Ever. Somehow it has started at boot... Upon tapping "close all" it closes all, but the widget still shows 2 processes running, which does not show up after tapping the widget and opening the task monitor. My dad's phone is perfectly normal, yet is the SAME PHONE. any idea how this is happening?
EDIT: It also, after being unplugged, will show "Charged" on the lock screen. the lock screen is the default for the device.
P.S. The ROM I flashed to it is NOT CUSTOM. I got it direct from Samsung updates. It is however, I believe, the European version, as I could not find an american version. The phone is also not rooted.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
I too faced a similar problem. The "UNPLUGGED CHARGING" was due to some fault in my micro usb cable in the phone. I resolved it by cleaning the usb port with a brush/needles. BTW dont force too hard. This may not be the only solution. But do try this. :fingers-crossed:

Related

[Q] Device Freezing / Dying?

Has anyone experienced their phone freezing/locking up? I'm not talking about lagging/freezing applications, but the whole phone actually locking up.
My phone seems to be freezing up about twice a week and has been for the last 3 weeks. Each time it has been when the device was in my pocket or on charge at night (and subsequently the alarm does not go off).
When the device is frozen like this, it has no indications of even having power.The power button will not turn the phone off, on, or wake the device. Plugging the phone into power doesn't even turn the orange/green charging lights on, nor play the tone for when power is connected.
I physically have to remove the battery for a few seconds from the phone and re-insert before the phone will start up. I have even performed a hard reset on this device.
Has anyone else experienced anything like this? I'm thinking that it might be a hardware fault, or at a really wild guess maybe the HTC Attentive App.
I'm having no problems with crashing or freezing!
I have actually found the device to be very stable, a lot nicer cleaner and stable than my previous device (Sony Ericsson Xperia X10).
Had exactly that problem a couple of times already. The only solution is to pull the battery out.
Still - better than an iPhone crash which requires you to plug it back into the PC before it will work again.
I had a similar situation:
I was making an international call (card service), when finished i heared the card IVR prompt if i need to make another call. I wanted to hang up but the screen was black adn dead. power button did not bring into life and i was keep on hearing the active call. had to take the battery out to kill this situation.
typically windows behaviour
Thought I had narrowed this down to the HTC attentive app, but alas the phone froze again this morning after hitting snooze 3 or 4 times. Oddly enough, the power button would turn the screen on and off, but the lock screen wouldn't show, nor could anything be moved or controlled on the screen (live tiles were still animated though). Battery pull again.
Yeah, typical windows behavior. No where near as bad as Windows Mobile which I came from though
I have the same issue. Can be in the middle of a call or anything. Had it reboot once while on charge too. Did you just remove the attentive app? Would it be worth trying a Hard Reset if that wipes the device. If so how easy is it to put your old Apps back on. Or do I need to write a list and search manually.
I did a hard reset and just didn't install the app again.
"When you buy or download apps from the Zune PC client, those apps are automatically redownloaded to the phone when you reset the device and login with your Windows Live ID again. When you download apps from the phone itself, you have to go to the Marketplace again to manually find and redownload the apps you want."
http://www.winsupersite.com/paul/mailbag/101023.asp#9

[Q] Galaxy S3 lockscreen hang and also unresponsive blackscreen

Hey guys,
I know there has been a couple of posts like this that I have found through searching but none have actually found a solution, so instead of resurrecting a old thread I thought I would start a new one.
Basically I am having some issues with my new pebble blue (yey) S3 . I have found that sometimes when the phone is sleeping when I press the power button to bring it out of sleep the lock screen begins to hang. This is followed by a number of different things, the screen either glitches for a bit and then begins to work or it stays locked and needs a battery pull. As well as this I've found that randomly either when charging or not and the phone is sleeping it simply becomes unresponsive, staying on a black screen and needing a battery pull to fix (this has only occured a few times, the hanging lock screen occurs quite often).
I have done some searching and found little in the way of a solution or what the problem is, however I have found that when the lock screen hangs -if it begins to work again after glitching out the 'WIFI connected to ****' appears at the bottom of the screen. Anyway if anyone has any ideas or also recieves this problem I would really appreciate some help as it's driving me crazy and I'm unsure if it is a common S3 bug or a faulty handset, in which case I have limited time to RMA.
Cheers in advance
Hmm, sounds like a faulty phone to me. Try taking it back to get it exchanged for onother one. S3 was built to fly not crawl.
You'll want to go through a process of elimination to figure out when might be causing it.
Something you can try and test with (one at a time)
-turn on airplane mode
-turn off live wallpaper
-shut down all running tasks
-change your lock screen security method
-limit the number of widgets running on all the screens
-reduce the number of active screens
Probably other things you can try to pull out of the equation, but thats a good start
After looking up dial-a-phones returns policy it would seem that I have 28 days to return if the handset is faulty, so this atleast gives me some breathing room to try out any suggestions for fixes. I will begin to eliminate each of the suggested items above however as the lock screen problem is intermittent it make take a day so actually see if it has had an effect, which is annoying at the least.
On another note a numberupted of people are stating high battery life on their devices however mine doesn't seem to be as good and I do have power saving on as well as nfc etc. turned off. This makes me believe my handset could have a fault, but tbf I haven't allowed for a discharge to 5% and the recharging to 100% which I heare allows for optimisation of the battery.
EDIT**** I have changed the lock screen previously and found it had no effect on the problem and I do not have a live wallpaper in use.
Phone Freezing after reboot and auto wifi signal found on.
Same here, been happening the last few days after I installed Avast. Also, turning off and on the auto on wifi seemed to replicate the problem.
The phone will boot to the lock screen and freeze a bit, and sometimes the news ticker freezes, and then after unlocked, I try to turn off wifi signal has been found on the notification dropdown and then tries to auto connect to wifi, the phone will freeze up if I dont turn it off in time.
Once the auto wifi connect is off and reboots, then the phone will keep glitching up until it catches up processing alot of processes it was trying to do for about 1/2 hr. Also, if phone freezes up for too long, like after trying too many time of unlocking the screen while freezing up, the phone gets stuck at the lock screen and the phone almost overheated, in an area right below the battery. I had to pull the battery out to cool it off.
It seems to be a glitch in the auto wifi, especially if alot of resources are being used. Once Avast was on my phone about 1.5GB RAM is being used sometimes and since has really slowed the phone down. Going uninstall alot of apps.
JCrinage said:
Hey guys,
I know there has been a couple of posts like this that I have found through searching but none have actually found a solution, so instead of resurrecting a old thread I thought I would start a new one.
Basically I am having some issues with my new pebble blue (yey) S3 . I have found that sometimes when the phone is sleeping when I press the power button to bring it out of sleep the lock screen begins to hang. This is followed by a number of different things, the screen either glitches for a bit and then begins to work or it stays locked and needs a battery pull. As well as this I've found that randomly either when charging or not and the phone is sleeping it simply becomes unresponsive, staying on a black screen and needing a battery pull to fix (this has only occured a few times, the hanging lock screen occurs quite often).
I have done some searching and found little in the way of a solution or what the problem is, however I have found that when the lock screen hangs -if it begins to work again after glitching out the 'WIFI connected to ****' appears at the bottom of the screen. Anyway if anyone has any ideas or also recieves this problem I would really appreciate some help as it's driving me crazy and I'm unsure if it is a common S3 bug or a faulty handset, in which case I have limited time to RMA.
Cheers in advance
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Same problem.
No problem if Wifi is switched off prior to sleep.
No problem if Wifi connection is still available.
Problem to lockscreen if Wifi connection is broken (move away from connected router).
Any suggestion?
sassorock said:
Same problem.
No problem if Wifi is switched off prior to sleep.
No problem if Wifi connection is still available.
Problem to lockscreen if Wifi connection is broken (move away from connected router).
Any suggestion?
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Exactly the same here. Driving me crazy. I did root the phone using the Samsung Galaxy S3 Toolkit. I don't know if the problem also exists on non rooted devices.
S3 black screen after unlocking
Has there anyone experience S3's screen went on black? I have pebble blue S3 - GT-I9300. Cases when unlocking, answering an incoming call or attempting to turn off an
alarm? Mine happens when after unlocking the screen then it goes black and screen becomes unresponsive. It happens intermittently and even after 3 times of
reprogramming. I am now going to have it replaced. I am having a lot of troubles -- it exits on its own when im reading or composing an SMS; files were deleted after
restarting the unit, and an app opens up even not touching the scree. This is expensive and I am paying a lot just to experience this king of inconvenience.
DavidNieuwpoort said:
Exactly the same here. Driving me crazy. I did root the phone using the Samsung Galaxy S3 Toolkit. I don't know if the problem also exists on non rooted devices.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
I also rooted my S3 a few days ago (with the S3 toolkit), and have had lots of problems with unresponsive lockscreens (I use PIN, because of exchange connection). It takes a few seconds or maybe up to as long a minute before I'm able to punch in the PIN-numbers. Before this the screen lights up but does not respond to input.
But the WiFi-connection issue might be what is the triggering factor, because after a boot it wotks just fine for several hours, if I'm not moving out of my current WiFi zone. First I thought it was either Secure Settings or Tasker that made my device lock up in this matter, but now as they are both uninstalled, the problem still occurs.
Are you running some kind of custom rom, or just the latest stock ROM, but rooted?
Flodas said:
I also rooted my S3 a few days ago (with the S3 toolkit), and have had lots of problems with unresponsive lockscreens (I use PIN, because of exchange connection). It takes a few seconds or maybe up to as long a minute before I'm able to punch in the PIN-numbers. Before this the screen lights up but does not respond to input.
But the WiFi-connection issue might be what is the triggering factor, because after a boot it wotks just fine for several hours, if I'm not moving out of my current WiFi zone. First I thought it was either Secure Settings or Tasker that made my device lock up in this matter, but now as they are both uninstalled, the problem still occurs.
Are you running some kind of custom rom, or just the latest stock ROM, but rooted?
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Just the latest stock ROM but rooted. I've found out that turning off the wifi power safe mode fixes the problem for me. To do this:
- In the dailer enter *#0011#
- Press the menu key
- Select wifi
- Press the on/off button.
The wifi power safe mode will however be turned on during boot. So rebooting will set it back on.
*#0011# seems does the trick. But is annoying had to do this every time after power off (change battery, change Sim, flying).... Anyway to keep the setting?
I am also on stock Rom and rooted. Interested to know any non-rooted phone got this problem?
BTW. I found a quick (at least quicker than pull the battery) way to get out of the forzen lock screen (sometimes forgot to do the 0011 trick): press the power button (screen will Dim instead of OFF), then hold the home button for few seconds, as soon as you see the "menu" and "back" button lit up, the lock is un-freeze...
A permanent solution is appreciated for such an advance phone....
sassorock said:
*#0011# seems does the trick. But is annoying had to do this every time after power off (change battery, change Sim, flying).... Anyway to keep the setting?
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Not that I know of.
Problem solved. For me anyway. Hope works for all of you having the same trouble.
My trouble begin with recent upgrade to LH3. My S3 was rooted by S3 toolkit v2.0. CWM installed was v4 something.
I un-rooted the phone. Uninstalled S3 toolkit v2.0. Re-installed the S3 Toolkit v5.0. Rooted the phone again (CWM become v6....).
I do not know it was CWM version caused the trouble or not. But my S3 is ok now.
I got it on my non-rooted phone, any additional solutions/suggestions? or service?
I found solution for problem . And my phone is working well. I downloaded rom file android 4.1.2 and flash my phone
JB 4.1.1 caused these WiFi issues on my phone
Jodatnia said:
I found solution for problem . And my phone is working well. I downloaded rom file android 4.1.2 and flash my phone
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Exact opposite for me...never had the problem then since loading stock JB 4.1.1 with root I get lockups or freezes whenever WiFi is turned off or I leave my router's range. As soon as I disconnect from WiFi the whole phone freezes.
The *#0010# also locks up the phone when I turn off the WiFi power saving feature.
None of this happened before JB...and I replaced my phone with week via warranty due to this and the new phone does the exact same thing as soon as I upgraded to JB with root.
Any ideas?
Black screen / random reboot solution
Hi All,
I've had the black screen / random reboot issue for a few days. The only way to restore functionality on black screen lockup was to remove the battery.
I tried changing to Chrome browser and stopping the stock browser as suggested in some threads but it kept crashing.
I searched everywhere and most threads suggest a dodgy motherboard.
For me the issue was related to either a single PDF download via the stock browser or the fact I had quite alot of saved PDF files on my phone (S3 Stock firmware I9300XXELLA)
After deleting all the files listed in Internet downloads (look for Downloads with a green arrow Icon in apps) my trusty S3 has returned to normal. No black screen lockups, no hanging, runs like a dream!
I appreciate this may not solve everyones black sceeen issues but I haven't found any other thread with this solution. Hope it works for you.
Thanks,
Giz.
giz_zard said:
Hi All,
I've had the black screen / random reboot issue for a few days. The only way to restore functionality on black screen lockup was to remove the battery.
I tried changing to Chrome browser and stopping the stock browser as suggested in some threads but it kept crashing.
I searched everywhere and most threads suggest a dodgy motherboard.
For me the issue was related to either a single PDF download via the stock browser or the fact I had quite alot of saved PDF files on my phone (S3 Stock firmware I9300XXELLA)
After deleting all the files listed in Internet downloads (look for Downloads with a green arrow Icon in apps) my trusty S3 has returned to normal. No black screen lockups, no hanging, runs like a dream!
I appreciate this may not solve everyones black sceeen issues but I haven't found any other thread with this solution. Hope it works for you.
Thanks,
Giz.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Thanks for the tip...
Was this happening on JB for you? You mention stock firmware (not familiar with I9300)...so I am guessing it was ICS.
For me the issues are with JB and I had no files at all in the Downloads folder after a certain point when I wiped / formatted the SDCard...so I do not think my lockups were related to PDFs. But I did (and still do) have a ton of music and a lot of movies on the External MicroSD Card....and quite a few custom notification and ringtone MP3s on the Internal SDCard. Next time I load JB I will run it a few days with none of this media loaded....
Jodatnia said:
I found solution for problem . And my phone is working well. I downloaded rom file android 4.1.2 and flash my phone
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
For me this also worked. Resolved everything. (on i9300 int)
Boomer6345 said:
Thanks for the tip...
Was this happening on JB for you? You mention stock firmware (not familiar with I9300)...so I am guessing it was ICS.
For me the issues are with JB and I had no files at all in the Downloads folder after a certain point when I wiped / formatted the SDCard...so I do not think my lockups were related to PDFs. But I did (and still do) have a ton of music and a lot of movies on the External MicroSD Card....and quite a few custom notification and ringtone MP3s on the Internal SDCard. Next time I load JB I will run it a few days with none of this media loaded....
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
This is on JB 4.1.2, Phone had been updated to 4.1.2 for about a month. The issues started after a pdf download. Once all pdf's were deleted the handset works perfectly.
Giz

[Q] HELP: Galaxy S2 not turning off screen

I have a strange problem.
My Galaxy S2 (9100) is not turning off the screen anymore.
When I press the power button, usually the phone would turn off the screen and go into sleep mode.
Now the phone immediately wakes up again, showing me the lock screen.
I got that phone on Android 2.3.3 (Gingerbread) where it ran fine in the beginning.
Then this behaviour appeared. I have updated to ICS (4.0.4) via Kies software and problem still exists.
I then thought I might try a completely new ROM, so got CyanogenMod latest stable release from their website and installed that (with google apps).
No other software installed, so I can exclude this as a problem.
Problem still persists.
So it seems not connected to any ROM neither to any software.
The strange thing is:
The power button is working, because I can
- long press to bring up the menu to shut down the phone (which works ok)
- short press and the screen will turn off - only it comes on a second later again.
Obviously this drains the battery quickly.
Help please!
TheMobilist said:
I have a strange problem.
My Galaxy S2 (9100) is not turning off the screen anymore.
When I press the power button, usually the phone would turn off the screen and go into sleep mode.
Now the phone immediately wakes up again, showing me the lock screen.
I got that phone on Android 2.3.3 (Gingerbread) where it ran fine in the beginning.
Then this behaviour appeared. I have updated to ICS (4.0.4) via Kies software and problem still exists.
I then thought I might try a completely new ROM, so got CyanogenMod latest stable release from their website and installed that (with google apps).
No other software installed, so I can exclude this as a problem.
Problem still persists.
So it seems not connected to any ROM neither to any software.
The strange thing is:
The power button is working, because I can
- long press to bring up the menu to shut down the phone (which works ok)
- short press and the screen will turn off - only it comes on a second later again.
Obviously this drains the battery quickly.
Help please!
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Hmm this is really strange
Maybe it's a "loose connection" of homebutton?!
Try do press a bit "harder" "softer" "more up" etc... hope u know what I mean....
If one of the pressings work it seems to be a hardware prob.
If always the same it must be a software problem and u can try to flash a new kernel (if u also on Cyanogenmod)
Much success
CHEERS
Of course I have already tried to press the power button in any way I could imagine (soft, hard, more up, more down, etc) - always the same result: Screen turns off and comes back on immediately.
The question is, what kind of hardware failure can this be? The power button seems to works.
Are there any hardware features on this phone that would either automatically turn on the screen or prevent the phone from going into standby? I know some of the newer phones have a function that detects if one is watching the screen and then prevents standby. Maybe such a feature is malfunctioning? Only I am not aware that the S2 has such a thing.
I don't think it is a software issue, because I have had the same experience with 3 different ROMs now (Gingerbread, Stock ICS, CyanogenMod 9)
Same issue Here .......

[Q] S II 'soft' reboot

Apologies in advance for the potentially vague description, but I also cannot find a solution elsewhere on the forum.
Earlier today, I was watching a YouTube video and then I locked my phone and left it to charge whilst I went downstairs (as I often do). When I returned roughly an hour later, I found the screen on, which I only ever do if I've left Draw Something open, or some similar app - but it was on the lock screen.
(none of that is necessarily important, I just wanted to clear up the "what did you do to make it start rebooting" question)
Anyway, after unlocking the phone, the screen went to black and the phone restarted.
However, it wasn't a "real" reboot, because the boot screen didn't come up, etc. It's just like just the UI is restarted. I can usually use the phone for about 30 seconds at a time. This seems extended when I have flight mode on, and is even longer still when I have the phone locked.
I've uninstalled some potentially-offending apps, removed the SD card, cleared some apps' data, but to no avail.
I'm using default 4.0.4 from Samsung. The only issues I'd had with it until now were that some apps crashed occasionally, but I attributed that mainly to the apps themselves.
The most annoying thing for me is that is seems like it's an issue that can be fixed quite simply, without having to uninstall every app or factory reset the phone.
Anyone have any other ideas as to what I could do? Thanks!
RobHannay said:
Apologies in advance for the potentially vague description, but I also cannot find a solution elsewhere on the forum.
Earlier today, I was watching a YouTube video and then I locked my phone and left it to charge whilst I went downstairs (as I often do). When I returned roughly an hour later, I found the screen on, which I only ever do if I've left Draw Something open, or some similar app - but it was on the lock screen.
(none of that is necessarily important, I just wanted to clear up the "what did you do to make it start rebooting" question)
Anyway, after unlocking the phone, the screen went to black and the phone restarted.
However, it wasn't a "real" reboot, because the boot screen didn't come up, etc. It's just like just the UI is restarted. I can usually use the phone for about 30 seconds at a time. This seems extended when I have flight mode on, and is even longer still when I have the phone locked.
I've uninstalled some potentially-offending apps, removed the SD card, cleared some apps' data, but to no avail.
I'm using default 4.0.4 from Samsung. The only issues I'd had with it until now were that some apps crashed occasionally, but I attributed that mainly to the apps themselves.
The most annoying thing for me is that is seems like it's an issue that can be fixed quite simply, without having to uninstall every app or factory reset the phone.
Anyone have any other ideas as to what I could do? Thanks!
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
just go to recovery mode and fix permissions

[Q] Lock Screen Won't Stay Off

Sunday, I started having a problem where my phone (AT&T Galaxy Note 2) would bring itself out of the lock screen without me touching anything. The screen will stay on for 10-15 seconds and then shut off again. It will then stay off anywhere from a few seconds to a few minutes.
Very odd, right? I figured I downloaded a bad app that was causing the issue. I removed practically every app I could (I wasn't going to go through all of them to see which had permissions to bring the phone out of standby). It still kept doing the same thing.
So I did a hard reset on the phone. That should clear everything, right? The problem still kept happening.
I start thinking maybe it's a hardware issue... EXCEPT for it doesn't happen when the phone is in Airplane Mode! Which brings me back around to thinking it's some rogue app, but it still happens even when there's nothing but the default software installed from after a hard reset. It can't be the power button or a bad proximity sensor if it doesn't happen in Airplane Mode, right?
So I took it to the AT&T store and I didn't expect much. The one guy tried to play with my settings and didn't find anything wrong. He took it to the manager in the back room and the manager said I should do a hard reset (ignoring the fact that I told his employee I already had done so twice).
I've looked for answers online. The ones I've found I've tried. I've removed all applications. I've changed the screen time outs. I've even downloaded a Lock Screen replacement program. I've tried using anti-virus to scan for problems. It starts to happen again immediately after I perform the hard reset. I've moved the brightness settings. I've removed the S-Pen thinking it might be causing issues. I've turned on and off motion options. I've turned on and off wi-fi, GPS, screen rotation, multi-window, etc. Power Saving mode doesn't help. Blocking Mode doesn't help. The only thing that works is Airplane Mode.
I have NOT tried rooting my phone. I'm scared to do so, even though I'm a UNIX admin and a techie and shouldn't be scared of something like this.
Has anyone ever experienced this? I'm running whatever the normal, latest AT&T android version (4.1.2) for the Note 2. This is killing my battery and reducing screen life (is that a big deal though? I don't know).

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