Note 2 locking up for no apparent reason

[NC_Doofus]

My wife's Note2, bought new from Verizon, never rooted, never messed with. It's begun to lock up without provocation, and the only way to get it to respond is to remove the battery and restart.

1. It does this regardless of remaining battery. The battery does not discharge especially quickly or abruptly.
2. By "lock up" I mean that the screen goes black and becomes non-responsive.
3. Sometimes, but not always, the blue notification light will pulse slowly.
4. It locks up both while in use and if it's been left dormant for a while.
5. I have NOT tried a factory reset,

We'd like to NOT have to replace this phone, as it has been a good tool and she likes it. Any ideas about a possible solution?
Thanks in advance

 

[B. Diddy]

Welcome to Android Central! After you pull the battery and restart, is the battery level where it was before, or has it dropped precipitously?

How often does this happen? If it's relatively frequent, you could boot into Safe Mode and see if that prevents the problem from occurring.

You could also try wiping the cache partition: https://support.t-mobile.com/docs/DOC-11018

 

[NC_Doofus]

Thanks. The battery doesn't drop especially fast, but it is the original battery, so I'm buying a replacement. What should safe mode tell me?

 

[B. Diddy]

Safe Mode temporarily disables all 3rd party apps that you installed. If one of those apps is causing instability, then disabling them via Safe Mode can narrow the problem down to one of them (as opposed to the firmware or hardware).

 

[NC_Doofus]

There is very little 3rd party stuff on the phone and nothing that's been added within the time frame that we've experienced issues. Part of the mystery is that this just kind of cropped up without any clear suspects.

 

[B. Diddy]

It's still worth trying. Who knows, maybe a recent update caused things to go funny, and Safe Mode might help catch that.

 

[callmejoe]

My wife's Note2, bought new from Verizon, never rooted, never messed with. It's begun to lock up without provocation, and the only way to get it to respond is to remove the battery and restart.

1. It does this regardless of remaining battery. The battery does not discharge especially quickly or abruptly.
2. By "lock up" I mean that the screen goes black and becomes non-responsive.
3. Sometimes, but not always, the blue notification light will pulse slowly.
4. It locks up both while in use and if it's been left dormant for a while.
5. I have NOT tried a factory reset,

We'd like to NOT have to replace this phone, as it has been a good tool and she likes it. Any ideas about a possible solution?
Thanks in advance

same exact thing with my note 2. black screen, unresponsive, blue led. just started acting up. probably an update or recent app. pain in the next to troubleshoot though. not looking forward to it