AT&T Galaxy S4 has started randomly freezing (especially at swipe to unlock screen), what can I do?

[dheian]

AT&T Galaxy S4 has started randomly freezing (especially at swipe to unlock screen)

My friend gave me her old sim-less AT&T Galaxy S4 in September. Since I have a dirt cheap non-smartphone plan, I basically use it as a mini-tablet and wi-fi VOIP phone.

It's been a champ all these months. Just in the last 2-3 days, I've experienced some problems with it freezing. My lock screen is PIN-protected, but most of the freezes seem to occur when it first drops to the "swipe to unlock" screen just before it's fully locked. Swiping does nothing. Occasionally it will lock on an app screen if it's been sitting idle for a few minutes. I'm assuming it's freezing at the stage where it's about to go to the lock screen.

I've rec'd a couple of TouchWiz or system process not responding messages. I switched last night to Nova launcher in case some Touchwiz update had mangled something.

Phone info:

Samsung SGH-I337
Android version 4.4.4
Baseband version:
I337UCUFNJ4

What steps should I be taking to rectify or debug this? Is there any reason why Smart Switch (which seems to take forever to connect) isn't offering me an upgrade to Lollipop?

Thanks.

 

[sydneycooper1979]

Re: AT&T Galaxy S4 has started randomly freezing (especially at swipe to unlock screen)

Hello! You can try clearing your cache partition. This may help with the freezing issues. Also doing a factory data reset, while a pain, may help as well. As far as an update, I believe you will have to insert an active SIM card to get the update on a carrier device.

 

[dheian]

Re: AT&T Galaxy S4 has started randomly freezing (especially at swipe to unlock screen)

Thanks. I'll give that a shot and see how it goes.

 

[dheian]

Re: AT&T Galaxy S4 has started randomly freezing (especially at swipe to unlock screen)

Sadly that didn't work. Going to try a factory reset.