The Untimely Death of the Note 5

[CMSevilla]

Ok, perhaps the title was a bit dramatic, but nevertheless, I wanted to share my odd tale and see if anyone in the community had any similar issues.

I've owned my Note 5 since September, and I've been quite satisfied with it. Unlike every other Samsung phone I've owned (or any Android phone, for that matter), I never rooted this one. It was always snappy to use, and after installing a custom theme making the UI look more like a Nexus phone, I couldn't be happier. Rarely ever experienced any sluggishness, battery problems, or anything. It was by my unreasonable standards (Android purist by heard), a phone I was happy with out of the box.

But then something happened, something changed. My reliable Note 5 now started to show something strange in the form of weird issues, and it all began around the time I began using Samsung Pay.

Now let me preface this and say I don't believe Samsung Pay killed my phone, but things got strange around that time, so I can only use that as a starting point for this tale.

Monday night I was tinkering with my phone and I had finally taken some time to read a bit more about Samsung Pay. It had what is called MST technology letting you use your phone to do payment over standard card-swiping terminals. "Neat!" I thought, now I won't be limited to just NFC enabled terminals. So I wiped out all my info/cards from Android Pay, uninstalled it/disabled it, and loaded my cards on Samsung Pay. Everything seemed for the most alright. I went to bed with no real incident that night.

Tuesday I was hit with various updates for apps I normally use and have used for months. From the bunch, the only newly installed app on my phone was Solid Explorer so I could access my FTP server. Beyond that it all seemed normal. Once again, Tuesday was overall with little to no incident. I began noticing the phone for a bit sluggish from time to time, but I figured it was nothing.

Wednesday (today) I woke up and went to a Walmart to buy a piece of hardware for my bathroom and figured I'd finally give Samsung Pay a shot. I turned on my phone to see if it was ready, but noticed the Samsung Pay docked card wasn't present (if you haven't setup Samsung Pay before, it'll show a little tab on the bottom of your home screen/unlock screen that enables you to simply pull up and it shows your default card). Confused, I opened the Samsung Pay app and noticed all my cards were wiped out, almost like I never set them up. I couldn't remember if it had been updated, but I figured maybe it did update with the bunch recently and it just wiped the cards for security? I wasn't sure what to make of it. I paid for my hardware and went home.

Later that afternoon, I received a Note 5 Supcase case from Amazon and I turned off my phone, cleaned it up from dust, and put it in the new case. I turned it on and it seemed fine...until the screen went to sleep and it wouldn't wake up. None of the buttons were responsive, nothing. I forced a hardware restart (Vol Down + Power) and I got it back up and running. Within a minute of it being back on, it locked up again. This time the screen was on and again, it was unresponsive. Reset again, this time started it on Recovery Mode and wiped out cache and rebooted phone. Once I got the phone on, now working longer than a minute, I uninstalled the last 4 apps I've installed over the last month...locked up....rebooted, same deal over and over again. Now It was time for a complete factory reset, I was done wasting time, so I did the factory reset. It stayed at "Formating Data" (not exactly what it said, but I know it said at least "format" and "data") for about 2 hours until I manually rebooted it. The phone came back up and it showed as if it had been wiped clean. As I entered my basic info to start the phone, it locked up again...did the factory wipe again...locked up again. Then it got worse, it began locking up right at the Recovery Mode screen....

Long story short, T-Mobile is shipping me a replacement phone overnight so I'll get my new one tomorrow.

What happened? Why did this happen? I am at a loss as to what's going on. Obviously given that the phone locks up in the Recovery Mode tells me something is seriously wrong with the device, but what? Samsung Pay couldn't have done this, could it?

Any ideas would be appreciated, as I'd like to avoid this with my replacement phone if I can.

 

[Tommy Bayshore]

Android Pay sucks because it makes you get rid of your fingerprint and use a pattern, are they nuts?! Didn't install because of that..
Samsung Pay only works with like 3 or 4 cards out of millions, when i installed SP it took forever, had to reboot my phone, after reading your email i just deleted SP off my phone. It's easier for me to pull a card out for 2 seconds anyway than it is to bang my phone on things hoping it works.

 

[precon22]

My last replacement had a similar issue, I was utilizing the video call feature on my phone everything was fine and when i hung up I went to use snap chat opened up the app, and set my phone down for a few seconds and the phone had rebooted..... I was CA little perplexed, but when it review it stayed on the T-Mobile splash screen and would go past it I hard reset and it finally did but when it finally booted all the way up of was sluggish and very unresponsive so I wiped cache and factory reset my phone but it just didn't with the same after that. T-Mobile sent me a new phone in box. And everything had men wonderful since.

 

[russel5150]

How did you get a note 5 last june?

Posted via the Android Central App

 

[CMSevilla]

How did you get a note 5 last june?

Posted via the Android Central App

Sorry, I meant later, as in September. I got my Note 4 in June and then upgraded later to the Note 5. Fixed in the post.

 

[vel7wil]

Thanks for your tale of woe....I by nature tend to let new phone ideas set and fester awhile until they are properly fixed, thus no Samsung pay for me just yet. As you stated might not have caused your issue, but viruses are everywhere nowadays. Could have been in the reader from previous users. Never know IMHO........

 

[CMSevilla]

I was browsing some forums while I was troubleshooting saying that people experienced the phone locking up on them too until they disabled Samsung Pay. What was confusing to me was that after the factory reset, it was still acting up.

 

[zoxxo]

It could be that you just got a bad phone. I had a s6 Edge that slowly manifested various problems until it became unusable. I got a refurbished phone from Verizon and all was well. Of course when I needed to extend my contract to retain my unlimited data, I got a sweet deal on a Note5 and couldn't be happier! I love the big screen and it's so much faster. I lost some memory when I changed phones, but so far it's been great!

 

[CMSevilla]

It could be that you just got a bad phone. I had a s6 Edge that slowly manifested various problems until it became unusable. I got a refurbished phone from Verizon and all was well. Of course when I needed to extend my contract to retain my unlimited data, I got a sweet deal on a Note5 and couldn't be happier! I love the big screen and it's so much faster. I lost some memory when I changed phones, but so far it's been great!

It's possible. It just sucks because I've only owned the phone for 2 months and it was great up until yesterday.

Good thing I didn't root it or anything...lol

 

[anon8380037]

It's possible. It just sucks because I've only owned the phone for 2 months and it was great up until yesterday.

Good thing I didn't root it or anything...lol

Going by your original post, can I book you now for next Halloween to tell ghost stories to the local kids here.
You'd be awesome.
Free bed and gas money (I'm in London).

Meant as a compliment. You should consider writing mysteries or whodunits.

 

[Tadrift]

You are looking for answers as to "why". It sounds like just a defective phone to me. Samsung Pay is a complex setup behind the scenes in the phone. Once activated, it sets into place certain encryptions and hidden OS features that no other app would use. It is very possible that it messed up the formatting in some stage.

The timing may make it feel like Samsung Pay, but really it could be any App, even one you have used before. When they update, they basically replace the whole app with a new updated one, leaving the user data in place. I wouldn't be afraid to use Samsung Pay on the new replacement phone. If it was that, chances of it happening again are very slim, unless you start to hear of a more wide spread problem with other users.

We all want answers (us geeks) when something goes wrong. But sometimes it is just "one of those things" and the hardware fails.

 

[CMSevilla]

You are looking for answers as to "why". It sounds like just a defective phone to me. Samsung Pay is a complex setup behind the scenes in the phone. Once activated, it sets into place certain encryptions and hidden OS features that no other app would use. It is very possible that it messed up the formatting in some stage.

The timing may make it feel like Samsung Pay, but really it could be any App, even one you have used before. When they update, they basically replace the whole app with a new updated one, leaving the user data in place. I wouldn't be afraid to use Samsung Pay on the new replacement phone. If it was that, chances of it happening again are very slim, unless you start to hear of a more wide spread problem with other users.

We all want answers (us geeks) when something goes wrong. But sometimes it is just "one of those things" and the hardware fails.

I agree, it may just be defective. Honestly I may wait a bit longer before trying it again. Maybe ensure there are patches or updates done to ensure next time I try it, it won't mess with anything.