Why is my Note 3 randomly shutting down?

[rcwilkinson]

Note 3 - Random Shut down

Hello

I bought my note3 from an online retailer 2weeks ago, new.

The past week it has shutdown, on a several occasions, unexpectedly. I havnt seen it shudown unprompted, but have noticed that it wont 'wake' from sleep when I touch the screen (the screen remains off / black).

To turn the device on I have to hold the power for a long time (longer than when you usually turn it on).

When I bought the phone it prompted me to do a number of updates - but I assume this is normal (updating version of android etc).

I was wondering.....

Is there anyway to detect why my handset is turning off randomly? Is there anything I can to do to prevent this from happening? Or should I just ask for a refund? (i dont really want to do this, because the phone is GREAT, but dont want to live with somethign that shuts down without warning!

Sorry for the rambley message - any help would be greatly appreciated (please let me know if you need more info)

Thanks

Ross

P.S. This has happened twice today, but not once in the past 4days. (but had happened before then) Hope this makes sense

 

[B. Diddy]

Re: Note 3 - Random Shut down

Welcome to Android Central! It can be tough to pinpoint the cause of this kind of problem. Some things you could try:

1. Boot into Recovery and wipe the cache partition, which won't erase any personal data: https://support.t-mobile.com/docs/DOC-11017

2. A corrupt SD card can cause issues. If you have an SD, unmount it in Settings>Storage, remove it, and reboot. Use the device for a while and see if the shutdowns persist.

3. There could be a conflict between apps, or some app could be causing the instability. Boot into Safe Mode, which prevents 3rd party apps from starting up. If things remain stable for a while, start opening apps one by one. https://support.t-mobile.com/docs/DOC-11473

 

[rcwilkinson]

Re: Note 3 - Random Shut down

Thanks so much for your help and reply.

In response to your points:

1. I did this yesterday morning (after the first crash), but then it crashed again in the evening!
2. I dont use an external SD at the moment, so that rules that out (thanks for suggesting though)
3. OK I will give this a go if it continues crashing - thanks for the tip

Also, I read elsewhere that turning off "Scanning always available" (under advanced WIFI settings) can sometimes help stabilize the device - would agree?

Given the above - is it most likely that there is a conflict with my downloaded apps? I realise that you cant properly diagnose, but I guess I'm just wondering if I've bough a dud device!

Also, this doesnt happen that regularly, though twice yesterday, it only happened max3 times in the week before.

Thanks for all your help

Ross

 

[B. Diddy]

Re: Note 3 - Random Shut down

I don't know if the wi-fi scanning feature could cause crashes, but I find it somewhat useless anyway, so I always keep it off.

The only way to tell if the problem is due to downloaded apps is to use Safe Mode (or to uninstall every single app). Random shutdowns are so nonspecific that it's hard to say one thing is more likely than the other. Hopefully it isn't the phone's hardware or firmware!