Diagnosing/troubleshooting freezing/rebooting of an Android mobile phone

[NY]

I asked the following in comp.mobile.android and the silence and lack of responses was deafening...

My Android 8 (Samsung Galaxy S7) phone has just started freezing, sometimes with a bit of screen corruption, rebooting and sometimes overheating rather alarmingly. This began about a fortnight ago and seems to be getting gradually more common.

I restored the phone back to factory settings in case it was a duff update to an app, but that made no difference. If anything it's been worse since then. I've sometimes seen the phone freeze even during the boot process, long before I've had chance to run any apps such as browser, email. I wonder at what stage auto-started background processes get started. I'm now lucky if I can get the phone to boot right through to the desktop and to stay alive long enough to read a text message. I had one freeze during boot before I'd even installed any third-party apps, when the phone only had Android and the Samsung-specific apps. It happens both when the battery is fully charged and when it's almost empty, and even when the phone is connected to a charger. It happens even without a SIM and SD card fitted, when wifi is the only network connection.

Any suggestions - or should I just cut my losses, assume it's a hardware fault and buy a new phone?

[Rod Speed]

What has happened with the time between recharges ?

Much more likely to need a new battery than anything else and that can be good value.

No simple test for whether that is the problem tho.

[Andy Burns]

Sensibly, yes at 7 years old, it's new phone time ...

[jim.gm4dhj]

yes get an nokia 1100 and you won't hve these problems ...

[jim.gm4dhj]

really? my nokia 1100 has lasted over 20 years

[R D S]

That's what I did with my Huawei P20, son the same with his P30. Many man hours were spent trying to resolve.

[alan_m]

Some software crashes can only be resolved by removing the battery for a few minutes (without the charger connected). Is you phone a model where the battery can be easily remove by taking the back from the phone?

[The Natural Philosopher]

Crikey. My phone is about 6 years old and I have no intention of changing it. It does what I bought it for, still.

[Michael Chare]

If like me you have a local phone repair shop you could take it there. They probably won't charge if they can't repair it.

I had an Android phone that would not boot, after trying to get it to work myself, I tried a local repair shop and they could not fix it either. So I bought a new phone for a simlar price to the old phone. The new phone is a bit better.

[NY]

Yes, I have never been the sort of person who has bought a new phone (or a new car) simply because the old one is no longer "the latest". The only reason I'll buy a new one is if the old one breaks or some new technology comes out which the old phone cannot do.

I actually wrote my original question a few days ago and it got stuck in my outbox and then I discovered it and accidentally pressed "Send Now" instead of edit to bring the story up to date.

Since I wrote the question, my phone started failing most of the time and only occasionally booting. I took the decision: time for a new phone. It took about half an hour to get it to stay up long enough for me to be able to run my credit card app to authorise payment for a new phone and to be able to receive texts for 2-factor authentication. That new phone has just arrived a few minutes ago so I'm about to start "playing"...

[Andy Burns]

Presumably the battery was getting a bit clapped-out at that age? and genuine replacements won't be available, almost universally they not end-user replaceable, though probably DIY-able if your trust "compatible" replacements, many of which turn out to be reclaimed clapped-out batteries with a shiny new sticker on saying they're about twice the original mAh rating.

If the battery has had it, it might be the cause of the overheating, in turn the unreliability?

[soup]

This:-

to be good advice.

Mind you his ultimate solution is "Factory reset" which you have done.

Maybe try disconnecting the battery if that doesn't work I would assume something (hardware) is broken . It is up to you to decide if it is worth repairing or whether to buy a new 'phone. Yes 'phones can last for years, especially if you are not a superuser, but in seven years technology has come on in leaps and bounds, so a new 'phone may well be on the cards.

Maybe try the repeated restarts (till it stays booted for however long) and try to backup your photos etc (you know all the guff you have accumulated in seven years) do not bother with backing up apps get them fresh for the new 'phone.

[The Natural Philosopher]

The likely truth is that the old phone has developed an intermittent hardware fault that would take someone several hours to find, (or not), and then a few minutes to fix. For a £700 phone, OK, it might be worth it. For a piece of chinese sub £200 crap its barely worth the trouble.

[The Natural Philosopher]

My battery died and split the phone apart. Too much sun. The replacement is better than the original

No. Its the other way around, Overheating causes batteries to fail Definitely some hardware fault., Might be a capacitor starting to leak badly

This is where you make a you tube video featuring a thermal camera that shows what chip/component is getting hot, and replace it using tweezers and a heat gun. Racking up more labour hours than the phone is in fact worth,.

[Theo]

Random reboots are often something seriously wrong - hard to diagnose, even harder to replace whatever tiny chip might be the cause. It *could* just be a battery failure, but it could be something much more complicated. Some phones have had flash die, some have power management issues, some soldering troubles, etc.

It might have been a £700 phone once, but it's now a £50 phone. So the best way to fix it would using the repair technique called 'buying a working one', but at that point the question is why not put your £50 towards a newer model?

Theo

[alan_m]

I've had mixed experience with replacement batteries. I've had some phone batteries that have only lasted 3 months and the replacement for those from another retailer lasted years.

[charles]

and, I understand, some replacement batteries have been known to burst into flames when charging.

[mm0fmf]

Bullshit. It didn't go on sale until October 2003.

[Brian Gaff]

It could be a bad joint under one of the surface mount chips when it gets hot, or indeed much the same inside a chip. Unless there are any obvious capacitors in it that can be changed, which could allow noise on the supply lines, Its going to be time to junk it.

How old is it? I have heard a number of people suggest that Some Samsungs do have reliability issues, but never made a note of which. I mean apart from the exploding battery .

Getting hot makes me suspect that the cooling substrate may not be working very well in the main chip. Brian

[alan_m]

And some OEM batteries have done the same