Freezing problems on Samsung Galaxy S3

[Danny Gorter]

Freeing up some memory did the trick for mee. Had 700MB left on phone memory. Now with 2.5GB it works great again!

 

[Loutradis Haris]

same problem with me guys... i think that the problem goes with chrone or facebook or google play store... i am really dissapointed by samsung

 

[meyerweb#CB]

same problem with me guys... i think that the problem goes with chrone or facebook or google play store... i am really dissapointed by samsung

Seriously? You think the problem is with an app, but blame Samsung? You do realize there are many thousands of people (including me) running Chrome, Facebook and the Play Store app on the GS3 with no problems at all? I suppose it's easier to just blame Samsung for everything than to actually try to debug the problem.

 

[Loutradis Haris]

the thing that i know best is that i am a user who paid for a phone... I work as a doctor... and today i am on duty with a serious possibility of being out of contact. This had never happened to me with any other device previously... anyway.. I have tried Removing all apps.... I have tried factory reset via the menu.. i have tried hard reset with the button combination.. I upgrated the firmware via kies to the current version 4.1.2 and still after all these it happened for the galaxy to get stuck again... Only once though.. During the night it stayed stable.. But neither have i updated anything from the playstore or set app any settings.. I am desperate.. 600 euros in the garbage....
Any other suggestions?? I dont thing there is much to achieve by upgrading one by one the apps as it happened again to get stuck immidiately after i did all the above...

 

[meyerweb#CB]

If it's freezing after a factory reset, with no apps installed, I would have to agree the phone is defective. You might try pulling the battery for about 5 minutes, then restarting, but I doubt that will be the fix. Time to take it back where you bought it, I think.

 

[ch78_ro]

I have my S3 since October 2012, but now since ~ 1 week (20.03.2013) I am experiencing this discussed freeze also.
It came as a sudden thing, and ever since is unbelievable annoying: sometimes I have to remove the battery every 2 minutes (or now I realized that I can press the Power button very long and it will do a hard Reset), or sometimes runs for a day without a problem! And I could not identify any specific actions that I do before the freeze happens.

Status:

• Stock phone, with normal applications installed (minimalistic), never rooted
• I am not using the original Samsung Internet browser, but Chrome (since the beginning)
• I don't have any task killer, battery saver, or such apps installed

After reading this thread, I did also:

• make > 2.5 GB available space
• remove battery for > 20 min.
• manually force stopped the Samsung Internet browser and erased all its data

But, after all these steps nothing changed; I see the same chaotic behavior. :'(

Next I will do a Factory Reset!
Please give me any crazy ideas that might help ... I am desperate, since I also realized that I am missing incoming calls, alarms, etc.!!!
Thanks guys!

Remark: after 4 days since I had the phone brand new, the Display broke. I had it exchanged by the company that sold me the phone. Could such a repair have something to do with this behavior, after more than 5 months?

 

[meyerweb#CB]

Did you force stop and clear data for the Chrome browser? Or any of your other apps? I don't know why you think clearing data on an app you don't use would affect anything. It's most likely an app issue, so I'd start with clearing cache for all your apps, and if that doesn't work clear data for them. Since you imply you have only a few apps, I'd do them one at a time so you can figure out which one was the culprit.

As for the repair, it's certainly possible they screwed something up. If they damaged the circuitry in some way it could certainly cause the phone to work improperly. If all else fails, and a factory reset doesn't fix it (don't install any new software or change any settings after the reset), then it is most likely a hardware issue.

 

[Jai Lai]

Hi Guys.

i Don't know if you guys can help

i had my galaxy s3 for nearly a year now not had much problems with it till now

recently well a couple of days ago i go in to my gallery and try load my pictures up and delete some but it seem to be very slow and then crashes?
i don't know if i got to many pictures or what but i never had this problem,
phone works fine jus when i go in to gallery it lags just freezes all together when i load my pictures up.
i tried restarting the phone take the battery out still the same

please help if anyone knows the problem causing this, or i will have to fomat my phone again which i will lose alot and games iv been play for a long time

thanks in advance

 

[meyerweb#CB]

A couple of possibilities come to mind. It's possibly a corrupt image file. It could be one you added recently, but not necessarily. It could be a bad SD card (physical failure, or corrupt directory structure) if your photos are on the card. Or possibly a corrupt cache.

The last is easiest to check, and fix. Go to Settings / Application manager, and scroll all the way to the right. Scroll down to Gallery, tap it, and tap clear cache. Now to back to the gallery. If may take a while to load if it has to rebuild the cache.

 

[arrestable]

I have the Samsung S3, white 32gb, OS 4.1.2, from US Cellular and I'm having the same problem it seems. I have had the phone since June of 2012, pre-ordered it when it was first released. I recently had that phone replaced due to the charging port gone bad and would not charge. Now a month after getting the replacement, and after the update in the OS, my phone takes a turn and decides to freeze up. I mean totally freeze, It being on the night stand charging while I sleep, and no calls, texts, alarms, notifications, notta will come through when it freezes. It freezes for hours and will not return to normal without me taking the battery out of it. I plan on trying to reset it and then try that first. If it doesn't work I may try the wipe and rebuild it. I agree the ROM sometimes doesn't like old files saved and jacks with the computer at times when its unhappy. I'll let you know how it ends up.

 

[ch78_ro]

Update:
As I mentioned in my earlier post (besides the > 2.5 GB available space, remove battery for > 20 min., manually force stopped the Samsung Internet browser and erased all its data) last week I did also a clean wipe/Factory Reset.
I used the phone for a few days only with the original SW on it, without any Apps. But its behavior was unchanged: self resets without me even being near the phone (just heard the jingle or found the Insert SIM PIN screen), or complete screen freeze.
One time I had the surprise that while the phone was on the table, without touching it, the screen lit and it showed my latest screen, not the Lock Screen.

Conclusion: yesterday DHL received it and is on its way to Service shop ....

 

[Angela Wilpula]

I've got the white galaxy s3. I've had it for less than three months. This morning it froze and become non-responsive while I was surfing pinterest. I tried taking the battery out to reset it - no response. I finally got it to come on and it stopped on the startup screen (black screen with white Samsung galaxy s3 text) but it won't budge any further than that. I took it in to Verizon store and they tried hard reset (all three buttons pressed and held together) to no avail. Nothing seems to be working - it's beyond frozen at this point as it is non-responsive. Verizon is supposed to be shipping me a replacement...

 

[meyerweb#CB]

Sometimes things fail. It's a fact of life that no manufacturing process is perfect. That's why we get warranties. Sorry yours died, glad Verizon is doing the right thing.

 

[Rajnish Mittal]

just delete downloaded email apps & go for factory reset.

 

[Angela Watkins]

My galaxy s3 won't even let me touch the screen and I already held the home+volume up button and power button and reseted it but it won't even let me select my settings what do I do?! Please help

 

[esrains]

I unfortunately am also having problems with my Samsung Galaxy S3 freezing. My problem has always been when my screen is asleep and I go to use the phone. I push button to wake and NOTHING. I have to pull my battery out and re-install in order to get anything. It is getting worse each day and seems like it all started after doing a factory update which put lots of new apps on here that I don't use. Is there a way to completely remove these apps that I'm not using? I've went through my other apps and taken off all that I didn't use regularly. Please someone tell me what to do cause I'm sick of having to take my phone out of the cover and open it up to fix this.

 

[meyerweb#CB]

My galaxy s3 won't even let me touch the screen and I already held the home+volume up button and power button and reseted it but it won't even let me select my settings what do I do?! Please help

OK, let me make sure I understand. You can see icons and programs on the screen, but when you touch it nothing happens? If you did the factory reset as you describe, and the screen still doesn't respond to your touch, I'm afraid ti sounds like a hardware problem. If you haven't already, pull out the battery, wait for several minutes, then try again, but I don't think that will solve anything. You can try taking it back where you bought it, or go to Samsung's web site and look for support, and find out what you have to do to return it for warranty repair.

 

[meyerweb#CB]

I unfortunately am also having problems with my Samsung Galaxy S3 freezing. My problem has always been when my screen is asleep and I go to use the phone. I push button to wake and NOTHING. I have to pull my battery out and re-install in order to get anything. It is getting worse each day and seems like it all started after doing a factory update which put lots of new apps on here that I don't use. Is there a way to completely remove these apps that I'm not using? I've went through my other apps and taken off all that I didn't use regularly. Please someone tell me what to do cause I'm sick of having to take my phone out of the cover and open it up to fix this.

By factory update do you mean an over-the-air firmware update pushed from your carrier? If so, then you probably need to do a factory reset. Unfortunately, these OTA updates occasionally cause serious problems. Make sure you contacts and calendar entries are backed up to Google, or using Kies, then go to Settings / Backup and Reset / Factory data reset.

 

[ch78_ro]

Update:
3 days ago I received the S3 from repair shop, and now it seems everything is back to normal!
Unfortunately, they did not want to disclose which was the problem (the product was still under warranty), but I'm happy that I can use it again.
For me, I see it now ~ 99% as a HW issue.

Good luck everyone!

 

[Mohd Adil1]

I have lately started experiencing same Freezing problem, is this freezing issue has anything to do with water damage. My phone is not a water damaged but since the water indicator shows as if it is a water damage I am concerned. And yes if a phone is water damaged would it be able to turn on and perform everything except freezing up.