Phone rebooting when turning wifi on when in airplane mode

Jul 23, 2017
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Hello,

Below is the long, rambling post i'd originally penned when trying to diagnose this problem. Essentially, when the device is in airplane mode and I turn on wifi (a common scenario when travelling), the phone will reboot periodically (and get very hot!). When the phone is in this state animations generally still seem smooth but some functionality appears limited, eg: the keyboard won't open and the fingerprint scanner is unresponsive. I'm not sure how the problem resolves itself (but it does - and the phone works fine the rest of the time!) but I think turning wifi off (and making sure airplane mode is off too!), turning the phone off and restarting before turning wifi back on seems to help.

I will try a factory reset to see if this solves it.

UPDATE: So far a factory reset seems to have done the trick. Will monitor as I install apps to see if it's a rogue app.

Hi all,

I just wanted to highlight a problem i've experienced recently when travelling abroad; sometimes I find the phone will start rebooting and getting very hot. I've narrowed it down to being something to do with wifi and I think it's when encountering poor internet connections. I never have this problem when at home but I travel quite a bit so this could become a bit of a nuisance.

Initially I thought it may be something to do with coming out of power saving and/or airplane mode (I put both of these on during the day when traveling to save battery). I've tried not using power saving or airplane at all for a while and though it doesn't seem to be these features per se causing the problem, I notice it when wifi is off and then I go to turn it back on. The problem seems to present itself when the phone has not been connected to a decent internet connection for 24 hours or so. It's an odd problem as I have no issue generally at home with wifi being off/on. Having done a bit of Googling, it's recommended to try safe mode in this situation to see if rebooting persists; I tried this but noticed the phone still rebooted in safe mode.

On a recent trip, I noticed that the problem wouldn't present itself if the phone had some time on a decent internet connection - I wonder if this is to do with some issue with apps/background processes trying to update? Even in this situation however, when initially going to turn the wifi on the phone seems to go a bit crazy and reboot for a while before it settles. I had more success in this case when I simulated a 'battery pull' (volume + home button combo, something like that) and then phone settled a bit more quickly.

Apologies for the imprecision with this post but it's a difficult problem to narrow down as generally day-to-day at home I have no problem and have a very enjoyable experience of the S7. I'm just concerned this will be an issue when traveling when communication can be even more important! Thanks in advance.
 
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Michael Milford

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Dec 4, 2012
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Just replying to say I recently had a very similar experience, S7 edge on a longhaul plane trip in flight mode, periodic rebooting, hot, keyboard wouldn't open and fingerprint scanner wouldn't respond even after the initial swipe unlock. Has seemed to be fine back on the ground in normal mode so far however.

If you have any updates would be interested!

M

Hello,

Below is the long, rambling post i'd originally penned when trying to diagnose this problem. Essentially, when the device is in airplane mode and I turn on wifi (a common scenario when travelling), the phone will reboot periodically (and get very hot!). When the phone is in this state animations generally still seem smooth but some functionality appears limited, eg: the keyboard won't open and the fingerprint scanner is unresponsive. I'm not sure how the problem resolves itself (but it does - and the phone works fine the rest of the time!) but I think turning wifi off (and making sure airplane mode is off too!), turning the phone off and restarting before turning wifi back on seems to help.

I will try a factory reset to see if this solves it.

UPDATE: So far a factory reset seems to have done the trick. Will monitor as I install apps to see if it's a rogue app.

Hi all,

I just wanted to highlight a problem i've experienced recently when travelling abroad; sometimes I find the phone will start rebooting and getting very hot. I've narrowed it down to being something to do with wifi and I think it's when encountering poor internet connections. I never have this problem when at home but I travel quite a bit so this could become a bit of a nuisance.

Initially I thought it may be something to do with coming out of power saving and/or airplane mode (I put both of these on during the day when traveling to save battery). I've tried not using power saving or airplane at all for a while and though it doesn't seem to be these features per se causing the problem, I notice it when wifi is off and then I go to turn it back on. The problem seems to present itself when the phone has not been connected to a decent internet connection for 24 hours or so. It's an odd problem as I have no issue generally at home with wifi being off/on. Having done a bit of Googling, it's recommended to try safe mode in this situation to see if rebooting persists; I tried this but noticed the phone still rebooted in safe mode.

On a recent trip, I noticed that the problem wouldn't present itself if the phone had some time on a decent internet connection - I wonder if this is to do with some issue with apps/background processes trying to update? Even in this situation however, when initially going to turn the wifi on the phone seems to go a bit crazy and reboot for a while before it settles. I had more success in this case when I simulated a 'battery pull' (volume + home button combo, something like that) and then phone settled a bit more quickly.

Apologies for the imprecision with this post but it's a difficult problem to narrow down as generally day-to-day at home I have no problem and have a very enjoyable experience of the S7. I'm just concerned this will be an issue when traveling when communication can be even more important! Thanks in advance.
 
Jul 23, 2017
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Yes this sounds familiar. It was a problem that only seemed to present itself when traveling. I never did deduce if it was airplane mode or battery save but it was definitely happening when switching on WiFi. The reset as described in the update above definitely seems to have solved it. I have been on a few trips recently and have had problems with airplane mode, power save and WiFi on/off.
 

chanchan05

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Nov 22, 2014
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I tried setting airplane mode and wifi on, and my phone is fine. So that rules that bit out. You may need to be actually traveling to trigger it.
 
Jul 23, 2017
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I tried setting airplane mode and wifi on, and my phone is fine. So that rules that bit out. You may need to be actually traveling to trigger it.

Had your device been experiencing these issues? In my case, though the wifi/airplane combo may not have been the original trigger (I think it was happening after an update), this was definitely reproducing the problem. I eliminated roaming as well as I had two sim cards so was able to test with the 'native' and the 'foreign' sim card.
 

chanchan05

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Nov 22, 2014
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Had your device been experiencing these issues? In my case, though the wifi/airplane combo may not have been the original trigger (I think it was happening after an update), this was definitely reproducing the problem. I eliminated roaming as well as I had two sim cards so was able to test with the 'native' and the 'foreign' sim card.
Nope. My device has no issues at all that I know of. I just tried if I can replicate your problem.
 

sstp

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Oct 28, 2017
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I've the same wifi instability issue and I also can't tell what combination of wifi + flight mode + power saving is triggering it, but I can say with certainty that it only occurs when roaming (or maybe once the non-roaming sim card has identified it's in a foreign country), because it stops once I swap in a foreign sim card.

I took out any sim card + sd card and tried the following combos:
1. No power saving + flight mode on/off + no wifi: stable
2. No power saving + flight mode on/off + wifi: wifi connects after restarting itself, then restarts continually
3. Power saving + flight mode off + wifi: wifi connects after restarting itself, then stable
4. Power saving + flight mode on + wifi: wifi connects after restarting, then restarts continually

In all cases, wifi/flight mode can't be switched on/off until it restarts itself. Keyboard won't load.

Not terribly scientific, but any ideas? I'm also data-constrained while travelling and so not inclined to do a backup + factory reset.
 

sebyastiens

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Dec 28, 2017
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Good to see I'm not the only one with that issue.
Even though, I am travelling quite often, the issue is appearing not only while travelling for for a good week or 2 after landing.
I also realized that during those unstable situations, the phone isn't able to connect correctly to wifi network which are already known (wifi + password saved in the phone). What I mean by that is that when I got home or to some friend's, my phone recognized their wifi but wasn't able to connect to it and kept turning off (+ phone turning off).
Also, I realized non of you mentioned it, but I get this error message : "Process system isn't responding : - Close app ; - Wait" (I think only after the phone rebooted). Are there any updates about how to fix that and what is the root cause of it ?
 

sebyastiens

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Dec 28, 2017
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Forgot to add as well :
- the font of the icones on top of the screen are is not white anymore and it makes it hard to distinguish them depending on the background image
- when someone is calling on Whatsapp during this faulty process (if wifi is on for a few seconds), you cannot hear them
 

Cheatek

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Aug 13, 2018
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This just happened to my brother, we thought of connecting a keyboard via OTG, enter his password and disable the airplane mode and wifi. After that it restarted one last time and it's been working fine since. Good luck :)
 

zulu_tango

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May 14, 2019
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Same problem on Samsung Galaxy S6. Do any of you use Samsung GearVR with the Oculus software? The problem started about the same time I stated using my GearVR, but it could be co-incidence, or I just never had the need to turn off all radios except wifi before. For me, not worth the hassle of a factory reset at this point.
 

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