My Samsung S3 GT19300 is frozen on the Start screen

[DeeSmith_63]

My phone started doing weird things a few weeks ago. It wouldn't hold a charge for more than 5 hours. On Sunday while I was charging it the charge reached 50% and then froze.
I have tried leaving the battery out for a few hours and then tried again to charge it. When I insert the battery the start screen comes on and that's where it stays.
I had upgraded the software prior to these problems. When I checked to see whether there were other updates I received a pop up message that said the latest upgrade was installed.
Any advice on how to solve this problem would be greatly appreciated.
I am based in South Africa and use the Vodacom Service provider.

 

[the tall guy]

Hi, it could be down to the fact your phone is rather old. Have you considered replacing the battery or performing a factory reset on the device? Bare in mind a reset will wipe the phone so make sure you back your data up.

Posted via the Android Central App

 

[DeeSmith_63]

I replaced the battery a few months ago. Cannot get into anything on the phone so how would I go about doing a factory reset? I don't want to lose anything on the phone, so again with it frozen how would I perform a back up?
This phone has never given me any problems before this. I update the software as and when needed.