A50 power button issues

[Mooncatt]

My daughter's A50 power button stopped turning the screen off and on, or performing any other functions. Most online answers to this indicate a hardware problem. What's throwing me is if the phone is off, pressing and holding the power button will start the boot cycle. If powered off and holding it and the volume down button while plugging into a PC, the phone will enter what I think is a custom OS downloader screen and can reboot from there by pressing the volume down button.

This seems to be more of a firmware issue than hardware. She said there wasn't any recent OS updates and that it started happening during normal use. Anyone have any suggestions before I go nuclear and factory reset the phone? I tried to reboot into safe mode to test, but can't do that because all the instructions I found require using the power button while in a powered up state to do it.

 

[mustang7757]

Couple things

Does the power button feel tactile, maybe remove a case if has one or clean with rubbing alcohol around it .

Try safe mode for a day

Another thing make sure it's not a shortcut to another function usually in settings>advanced features>side key

Your pull down notifications panel even locked pulled all the way down has power button

 

[mustang7757]

Showing a screenshot in settings>advanced features>side button what you can change it to , sometimes it's default to an assistant or another shortcut

 

[Mooncatt]

Does the power button feel tactile, maybe remove a case if has one or clean with rubbing alcohol around it .

The button feels nice and clicky as new, even without a case.

Try safe mode for a day

Like I said in my original post, I can't get in to safe mode. Unless there's another way that doesn't require the power button I'm unaware of?

I've also already been through the side key settings to no avail.

 

[mustang7757]

The button feels nice and clicky as new, even without a case.



Like I said in my original post, I can't get in to safe mode. Unless there's another way that doesn't require the power button I'm unaware of?

I've also already been through the side key settings to no avail.

Ok so pull your notifications panel all the way down tap the power button on the screen you should see these options power off long press the power off on the screen until safe mode appears than tap it .

I don't know what Android version your on but I believe this works from Android 14 to current

 

[B. Diddy]

How about this method to boot into Safe Mode from a powered-off state? https://www.verizon.com/support/knowledge-base-225249/. You mentioned that pressing and holding Power from a powered off state will start the boot cycle, so hopefully this would work.

 

[Mooncatt]

Well none of that worked. Pressing and holding the power off button on screen (and the confirmation button) doesn't pull up the safe mode option. Trying the method from the Verizon site just sent it into a boot loop involving a maintenance screen (not the recovery screen) as long as I held the volume down, and that would flash too quick to actually read what it was. When I gave up and released the volume down button, it factory reset the phone. It did this with zero confirmation or chance to cancel the reset, so was unable to back up anything. Seems I'm not the only one this happened to either.

https://www.reddit.com/r/samsunggalaxy/comments/o5fmx8/a50_factory_reset

And after all that, the power button still isn't working right, so I'm guessing it is a weird hardware problem.

 

[B. Diddy]

Ugh. And the problem persists even after the factory reset?

 

[Mooncatt]

Correct, it's still not working right. There was even a few times it popped up a notice while going through the setup process to press the power and volume down buttons to power off without me actually pressing anything. I'm thinking that maybe the button itself is ok, but the contacts are messed up to make it think it's always being pressed.