My Samsung Note 4 is running very slow often freezing and restarting

[AC Question]

I LOVE my Note 4 and i have had it a couple of years. This past few weeks it has been running VERY slow, often freezing and restarting. I have cleared caches of all apps, I have also cleared cache partition, but it is still not performing well. I currently have 18.19GB used out of 32GB on the device storage, and only 2.87GB used on my 7.39GB card. Hardly full! I don't use Cloud, and I don't want to. I bought a new battery a few weeks ago as I had charging/draining issues and I had been using it for a couple of years and it wasn't new when i bought it, and the new battery is working fine. I hardly make any phone calls (very poor reception around me, it's a joke) but I do use my phone mainly for Facebook, Etsy for my business. The "clearing caches" has seemed to speed it up a tad, but it is still very slow, freezes and restarts. Looking like a factory reset, but don't really want to do that. Any other ideas? I have also tried to buy another Note 4 but a LTE, but can't seem to find a good one that doesn't come with some dubious background, so, sacrilege, I just bought an iPhone 6 plus! Everything else I have is MAC but I did so love my Note 4 for it's wonderful camera in particular. Any ideas?

 

[Aquila]

There could be some troubleshooting to figure out what's wrong, basically trying to isolate misbehaving apps, but with the age of the device and the software on it, it might be more practical to upgrade to a better device. If you enjoy Samsung devices, the Note 5, S7 Edge, S8, S8+ are all major upgrades on software, battery life and camera.

 

[qwalls]

If you have a lot (thousands) of text messages, that can slow your phone down. The older samsung phones seem to slow down after a couple software updates. Factory reset is probably your best option. I finally got tired of the lag with my Note 4 and picked up a LG V20 on Swappa. Lots faster. A little taller. Don't miss the stylus too much. Miss the amoled screen a little. Otherwise a great upgrade.

 

[D000D]

I LOVE my Note 4 and i have had it a couple of years. This past few weeks it has been running VERY slow, often freezing and restarting. I have cleared caches of all apps, I have also cleared cache partition, but it is still not performing well. I currently have 18.19GB used out of 32GB on the device storage, and only 2.87GB used on my 7.39GB card. Hardly full! I don't use Cloud, and I don't want to. I bought a new battery a few weeks ago as I had charging/draining issues and I had been using it for a couple of years and it wasn't new when i bought it, and the new battery is working fine. I hardly make any phone calls (very poor reception around me, it's a joke) but I do use my phone mainly for Facebook, Etsy for my business. The "clearing caches" has seemed to speed it up a tad, but it is still very slow, freezes and restarts. Looking like a factory reset, but don't really want to do that. Any other ideas? I have also tried to buy another Note 4 but a LTE, but can't seem to find a good one that doesn't come with some dubious background, so, sacrilege, I just bought an iPhone 6 plus! Everything else I have is MAC but I did so love my Note 4 for it's wonderful camera in particular. Any ideas?

If a new battery, factory reset, and reflashing firmware has not solved the problem then most likely your phone has a hardware problem. That is what happened to my Note 4 after 2 years and 2 months of use. I finally called Samsung Customer Service (at 1-800-SAMSUNG) and they said if I would send the phone in to them they would diagnose the problem and let me know what it would cost to repair the phone. They asked permission to put a hold of $70.31 on my credit card so they could send me a UPS shipping label (fully refundable if they could not fix the phone). I agreed and sent the phone in. They diagnosed the problem and said they would fix it for the $70.31. I agreed and they went ahead with the repairs. The required repairs were extensive including a new motherboard, new LCD screen, new home button, another printed circuit board (whose purpose I never determined), new mid-frame, and they replaced the mid-frame surround to fix cosmetic damage around the USB charging port. When I received the phone it looked and worked like new (perhaps even better than new). I am thoroughly pleased that Samsung would completely repair a 2+ year old phone that was long out of warranty for only $70.31. I would highly recommend contacting Samsung at 1-800-SAMSUNG if you've exhausted all other possibilities.

 

[ChetManley762]

Factory reset and turn animations to 0.5 or 0 in developer options. I just did this last week and my Note 4 is speedy as hell, like brand new almost.

 

[TechNut79]

If a new battery, factory reset, and reflashing firmware has not solved the problem then most likely your phone has a hardware problem. That is what happened to my Note 4 after 2 years and 2 months of use. I finally called Samsung Customer Service (at 1-800-SAMSUNG) and they said if I would send the phone in to them they would diagnose the problem and let me know what it would cost to repair the phone. They asked permission to put a hold of $70.31 on my credit card so they could send me a UPS shipping label (fully refundable if they could not fix the phone). I agreed and sent the phone in. They diagnosed the problem and said they would fix it for the $70.31. I agreed and they went ahead with the repairs. The required repairs were extensive including a new motherboard, new LCD screen, new home button, another printed circuit board (whose purpose I never determined), new mid-frame, and they replaced the mid-frame surround to fix cosmetic damage around the USB charging port. When I received the phone it looked and worked like new (perhaps even better than new). I am thoroughly pleased that Samsung would completely repair a 2+ year old phone that was long out of warranty for only $70.31. I would highly recommend contacting Samsung at 1-800-SAMSUNG if you've exhausted all other possibilities.

I hate calling places. I wonder if I can email them instead?

 

[D000D]

I hate calling places. I wonder if I can email them instead?

Go to this web site: Support | Samsung US
Select Email Support

 

[quatermass]

Try putting in SAFE MODE.
Take out battery after you turn it off. Put battery back in and hold down the volume down button constantly then hold down power button.
Then release power button and whilst still holding down that volume button, only release volume button when you see your home screen.

You should see SAFE MODE in the bottom left of screen.

Basically only a few core apps will run and you should be able to see if the problem has gone or not.
If it has, you need to find which app is causing the issue. Come out of safe mode. This is a long and tiresome business as you need to keep the phone running from a factory reset only adding an app at a time (disable Google updates) trying it for an hour or two before moving on to the next app.

Best keep a list of which apps seem to work.