Why does my note 4 keep crashing?

[Willitz]

Hi guys,

I have had my note 4 for about a year now and it has recently began to act funny. About a month ago it began to randomly freeze and slow down. Now it does it more often (about once an hour on average) and just this week it has been crashing randomly. Yesterday it crashed and went into recovery mode, displaying the android guy and "downloading, do not turn off target" with "could not perform regular boot" at the top of the screen among other text. It's done this twice now and the only way to get out of recovery mode is to pull the battery. It also will take a long time to boot up, or get stuck in a boot loop for 5 or so minutes.

I have done a factory reset and unmounted the SD card (someone suggested it may be corrupt and causing this). I've also cleared the cache partition to try to fix this, but while booting into recovery it said it was installing a system update for 15 minutes, then said something like "no target" (cant remember exactly) with a dead android guy. After clearing the cache partition, it got stuck in another boot loop and again randomly went into the recovery "download" mode. So far i have been able to get it to boot back up again after each crash, and i can't find a pattern as to when the phone freezes and crashes.

Im not sure what to do here. I thought it was a rogue app but the factory reset should have fixed that. Any ideas? Also, thanks for your time.

 

[B. Diddy]

Welcome to Android Central! It sounds like either the firmware has become corrupt, or there's a hardware problem. Try bringing it to your local Best Buy Samsung Experience store, and see if they can help you. They might try reflashing the firmware.

 

[Willitz]

Well, that will be a problem because I am currently traveling and the closest best buy is about 700 miles away . If reflashing the firmware will fix the problem I will attempt that, but i am wondering if anyone else has experienced this issue and can verify that will fix it.

 

[Willitz]

So I decided to reflash the firmware myself. I downloaded ODIN, the Samsung USB drivers, and the most recent Sprint Note 4 release I could find (android 5.1.1). Following instructions, I flashed the firmware successfully, according to ODIN, but when the phone was supposed to reboot at the end of the flashing process, it appeared to stay off. Pressing the power button or any other combination of buttons did nothing until i removed the battery. The phone booted directly into recovery mode, so i did a hard reset from the recovery screen and flashed the firmware again.

Now my phone either boots directly into recovery mode or directly into download mode. When i tell it to reboot or turn off at the recovery menu it will become unresponsive with a black screen until i pull the battery. I have tried flashing the firmware again, but with the same results. I am not sure what to do at this point. After the second flash, the phone appeared to begin booting normally, displaying the green android guy with a small loading bar underneath, but the loading bar got half way and disappeared, then the phone went into recovery mode. UGH.

 

[B. Diddy]

You got the firmware from here? Firmware for Samsung SM-N910P - SamMobile

 

[Willitz]

No, I downloaded the firmware I found here (I am unable to post a link):

the android soul . com/n910pvpu4cog5-stock-firmware-for-sprint-galaxy-note-4-82773/

the firmware file is called: "ALL_SPT_N910PVPU4COG5_N910PSPT4COG5_CL5303209_QB5691107_REV00_user_low_ship_MULTI_CERT.tar.md5.zip"

I attempted to download from SamMobile, but I was not able to use a download manager with their download, and it would have taken a week and likely failed due to a lost connection (my connection here is pretty shoddy).

 

[B. Diddy]

I've never downloaded a file from SamMobile, but you can buy a 2 wk premium membership for 7.50 euro for faster downloads. If this is really important to you, it may be worth it. Premium Download - SamMobile