Yep mine has done the same thing a handful of times too. I'm on Telstra in Aus. Most recently did it yesterday after my Facebook app froze and wouldn't let me use the screen. Turned screen off with the power button to see if I could get it working but then got the black screen and soft key lights for between 5-10 min. Gave up and took the battery out (previously it's only lasted a few min and then sorted itself out)
Galaxy S5 black screen upon wake up
- Thread starter isurvivorz
- Start date
Mine is doing the same thing. Usually locks when playing an app intensive memory hog type game like Simpson's Tapped Out. But also if I'm listening to Pandora. After a few screen timeouts, I'll go to unlock (finger print scan) and nothing will happen except the two bottom lights light up. I still hear music and can change volume. I hold the power button or just click it with no results. Wait forever with no results. I think it might be a memory issue since I have less than 1GB free on the phone and apps tell me I'm low. Crazy how these phones need so much. Stupid bloatware... grumble grumble....
But you don't need to pull the battery every time. That sucks, especially when you have a case on it. Just hold the Volume + Power + Home for about 2-5 seconds. A menu will come up to go into normal, something, or safe mode (I didn't think to write it down). Anyway, just hit the Home button to select the top item which is boot normally. Sucks that this happens, but don't pull the battery unless you have to or are told by Samsung/Verizon or if you don't have a case and don't care. Hope this helps.
But you don't need to pull the battery every time. That sucks, especially when you have a case on it. Just hold the Volume + Power + Home for about 2-5 seconds. A menu will come up to go into normal, something, or safe mode (I didn't think to write it down). Anyway, just hit the Home button to select the top item which is boot normally. Sucks that this happens, but don't pull the battery unless you have to or are told by Samsung/Verizon or if you don't have a case and don't care. Hope this helps.
So, it happened to me again today, and I called Verizon Tech Support. The guy walked me through a few things to try, like booting into Safe Mode, wiping the Cache partition and so on. He told me to just play it by ear, and if it happens again, try to remember what I was doing last. It could be that an app that I have installed is causing the problem. If nothing else, I should try a factory reset, but he seemed pretty convinced that it’s a software issue.
That actually got me thinking…I had a VERY similar issue with my last phone (LG Spectrum 2), but I had assumed that it was just a crappy phone. But now that the same thing is happening again on my S5, I’m trying to think of things that I’ve been doing with both devices that could cause it. The only thing I can think of is the fact that on both devices, I’ve been disabling a lot of the bloatware apps that I never use. In fact, I remember that for a few of them, it gave me a warning that disabling it could cause other apps to malfunction, or something like that. So, just out of curiosity, anybody else with this problem been disabling system apps? If so, I'd like to know which ones are unsafe to disable.
That actually got me thinking…I had a VERY similar issue with my last phone (LG Spectrum 2), but I had assumed that it was just a crappy phone. But now that the same thing is happening again on my S5, I’m trying to think of things that I’ve been doing with both devices that could cause it. The only thing I can think of is the fact that on both devices, I’ve been disabling a lot of the bloatware apps that I never use. In fact, I remember that for a few of them, it gave me a warning that disabling it could cause other apps to malfunction, or something like that. So, just out of curiosity, anybody else with this problem been disabling system apps? If so, I'd like to know which ones are unsafe to disable.
T-Mobile tech support thought it was my SD card. Did a factory reset, took the card out and things seem to be working fine for now.
When this happened to me the second time it was within 24 hours of exchanging my first phone. I hadn't gotten around to fully customizing.
Hey guys. I've had the same problem with periodic slowdowns. I took my phone to the AT&T store and had it replaced. I'll let you know if the situation improves. I'm not running lots of different apps problem.
I wanted to take my phone in and it replaced because I think that sends the clearest message to the manufacturer about problem.
I wanted to take my phone in and it replaced because I think that sends the clearest message to the manufacturer about problem.
Same problem with me. Phone will not wake from sleep when you press the home button. The button to the left and to the right will light up. The phone vibrates. You can even ring the phone, but the screen will not come on - stays black.
I did not remove and replace the battery. I don't want to do this every 24 hours.
Took phone back to where I bought it, showed them the problem, and they exchanged it.
My advice - if this happens to you, don't remove the battery or attempt to fix it yourself (by applying random updates and hoping for the best), get it exchanged. I spoke to two people at our office with a Samsung Galaxy S3 - they said that this type of problem has never happened to them in 2 years.
One other thing - I called Samsung Support. The person I spoke to had not heard of the problem. They told me their engineers would not be have the ability to service the phone for two months since it is too new.
I did not remove and replace the battery. I don't want to do this every 24 hours.
Took phone back to where I bought it, showed them the problem, and they exchanged it.
My advice - if this happens to you, don't remove the battery or attempt to fix it yourself (by applying random updates and hoping for the best), get it exchanged. I spoke to two people at our office with a Samsung Galaxy S3 - they said that this type of problem has never happened to them in 2 years.
One other thing - I called Samsung Support. The person I spoke to had not heard of the problem. They told me their engineers would not be have the ability to service the phone for two months since it is too new.
that's one thing i do not like about Samsung support, I was using an iPhone 5 before i switched over to the S5, and I got my i5 exchanged 3 times due to some hardware problems, but everytime i called in, they willing to exchange it with no hassle at all, no annoying questions, no nothing, just "ok we will send u a new phone, all we need is that you send us ur defected phone back to us within 10 days of receiving the new phone" there is a lesson to be learn here Samsung....
Yep. That's one of the advantages of Apple. Advanced exchange is a big deal since you aren't without a phone
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Good to know. If it happens again to me, I'll try taking out the SD card.
Good point, but the thing is, if the problem is being caused by something that we're doing, such as disabling certain apps in my case, exchanging the phone isn't going to do much good if you just turn around and do the same things again. That was what the technician pointed out to me. It might also explain why it sounds like some people on here have exchanged the phone more than once with the same problem. I'm not saying that it definitely is user error, but I would rule that out for sure by tinkering with the software first before you get an exchange, just to try to avoid an endless headache.
From what I've gathered, it sounds like this problem is kind of a rarity since Samsung hasn't ackowledged it yet, and they did acknowledge the camera bug, so it's not like they don't admit to their product flaws. Although it is kind of messed up if they're telling you that they can't fix a problem if it's "too new." What's up with that?
Anyway, I re-enabled all of the system apps, and the phone ran for a few days, and the problem did not come back. Now, I've disabled a bunch of apps again, but I left all of the Google apps enabled (Google Games, Music, etc), cleared the cache and the problem has not come back. I think that might have been what was wrong with mine. I'd suggest others try the same if they've disabled apps.
Same thing happened to me and they replaced it with a new phone. Unfortunately after 10 days usage the new phone is doing the same thing! It's really annoying as I love the phone apart from this. Not sure what to do now as it's such a pain to get it replaced as it takes me days to customise my phone to how I like it, and am thinking what's the point if it's just going to eventually happen again!
Locked on me again today with the new SD card. T-Mobile has finally agreed that it's defective and I will be exchanging it this afternoon. Samsung encouraged me to exchange it last week but I had to go through T-Mobile technical assistance before I could return it.
To recap my experience with this phone (new as of 04/28, black screen/locked out on 04/29) -- I took out the old SD card and did a factory reset. Refrained from personalizing the phone for at least 24 hours and waited 48 hours before installing the new SD card. Started re-intalling generic apps+music on Friday afternoon and the phone was fine until this morning when it died (05/06). I'm still locked out right now, holding the power or home button doesn't wake up the phone (NO lights). I screen locked the phone coming off of the bus and I went to use it at my desk it was a brick. I have not done a system restore or battery pull because seriously?!? I don't want to deal with this phone a day longer. That and I want the Manager at the T-Mobile store to see it bricked. She and her technical know-how claimed it was my case when I brought it in the first time.
Switching to the HTC One (M8)... sad because I really did like the Samsung. Maybe next time.
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This is what happened to me. My first thought was... what could I be doing to cause two phones to have the same problem? I've done a factory reset, changed my SD card, went without an SD card and staggered the install of my apps (which are all benign). Not much more to say, having worked in the tech industry it's hard to test for a "perfect storm" type bug which seems to be going on here.
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I've exchanged my phone once. The first time it took about 1 week before the problem showed up. It's been about one week again and my phone has stared having problems again. I did notice that InflationRPG (game) seemed to have periods of running slow in the past day or so.
I was having exactly the same issue and it was driving me mad, it would happen pretty much every other time I tried to use my phone.
My partner had a look at it and seems to have fixed it - he turned the Battery Guru app off and also unchecked data sharing under preferences, I also had the power saving function enabled so under Restrict Performance he unchecked CPU Performance.
I have used it for several days now without the issue reoccurring.
My partner had a look at it and seems to have fixed it - he turned the Battery Guru app off and also unchecked data sharing under preferences, I also had the power saving function enabled so under Restrict Performance he unchecked CPU Performance.
I have used it for several days now without the issue reoccurring.
Good to know. If it happens again to me, I'll try taking out the SD card.
Good point, but the thing is, if the problem is being caused by something that we're doing, such as disabling certain apps in my case, exchanging the phone isn't going to do much good if you just turn around and do the same things again. That was what the technician pointed out to me. It might also explain why it sounds like some people on here have exchanged the phone more than once with the same problem. I'm not saying that it definitely is user error, but I would rule that out for sure by tinkering with the software first before you get an exchange, just to try to avoid an endless headache.
From what I've gathered, it sounds like this problem is kind of a rarity since Samsung hasn't ackowledged it yet, and they did acknowledge the camera bug, so it's not like they don't admit to their product flaws. Although it is kind of messed up if they're telling you that they can't fix a problem if it's "too new." What's up with that?
Anyway, I re-enabled all of the system apps, and the phone ran for a few days, and the problem did not come back. Now, I've disabled a bunch of apps again, but I left all of the Google apps enabled (Google Games, Music, etc), cleared the cache and the problem has not come back. I think that might have been what was wrong with mine. I'd suggest others try the same if they've disabled apps.
My 1st phone did this the 2nd day I got it and I had not put a SD card in it or I had not added/changed/or deleted/disabled any apps or anything. I exchanged it on day 3. My new phone does it too, just very very seldom (like 4 times in a month now).
Anyway, it's not an SD card or app causing it since on my first phone I didn't have any.
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If (for example) all I'm doing to cause the black screen is using Hangouts as the default SMS app, have headphones plugged in and lock my phone while connected to work WIFI -- who's problem is it? I tier installed my apps over 5 days (Google and Amazon) and didn't disable any default processes and still had the problem. My husband and I had three s5 phones encounter the same issue, which I feel was enough of a variable to ditch it all together. Carrier companies have to do a decent amount of paperwork when a phone is returned because of defect. Perhaps it's my paranoid nature but I would be cautious to take a Samsung or carrier technician's word at face value.
Moral of the story, trust your gut. If you phone is getting a black screen and you feel you've done everything you can to prevent the issue then try to exchange it. Or like me, you just don't like that it has a bug that can cause the random lock... period.
/END RANT
Moral of the story, trust your gut. If you phone is getting a black screen and you feel you've done everything you can to prevent the issue then try to exchange it. Or like me, you just don't like that it has a bug that can cause the random lock... period.
/END RANT
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Ok I can say with 99.9999% certainty that this is NOT due to an SD Card. I have gone through 4, yes 4, Galaxy s5s. Every single one of them has done this blank screen thing and none of them have ever had an SD Card in them. Whats crazy is yesterday at work somebody came up to me and asked me about this ever happening to me as it happened to her. Not sure what the issue is but this is definitely the thing that can get me off this device rather quickly.
This afternoon this has been happening to me constantly... not sure why. Going to hard reset later I think.
This afternoon this has been happening to me constantly... not sure why. Going to hard reset later I think.
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