My Notification bar freezes yet continues working invisibly?

[Android Central Question]

Samsung galaxy j1 2016- I swipe down to read/clear notifications, when i swipe up, the overlay stays blocking the status bar, frozen with whatever notes&settings&time it was opened on. swiping down continues showing frozen details, but if i tap on where new notifications should be, it'll open them up. only way i found to fix it is turning off& on, but it freezes again by the 2 or 3rd time i swipe down. the frozen overlay will also show on my lock screen, but again the new notifications are there and accessible, just invisible.