GS4 Randomly Shuts Off

[porcelain]

This past week I have been having an issue with my GS4 randomly shutting off despite having plenty of battery. A week ago, the phone shut off and wouldn't turn back on until I plugged it in to charge and left it for a couple minutes. The battery was around 60% at the time.

I figured maybe it was just a fluke, but yesterday it happened again. The phone was sitting idle for probably about 15 minutes when I picked it up to find it had shut off. Then it shut off two or three more times while I was using it. I wasn't playing games or doing anything that would have been stressing the battery. All of these times the phone turned right back on without charging. Again, plenty of battery.

I've done a little searching and I've read people saying it's probably a bad battery because Samsung had issues with some batteries swelling. Mine appears to be fine though.

Samsung told me they think it's the battery or the charger (I'm using a Verizon charger because that's what they sent me when my Samsung charger broke). Verizon says it's most likely the phone, not the battery. Tech support ruled it was the phone because he had me shut my phone down and take the battery out while it was charging and said my LED light should have stayed on. (What?! I don't have the LED set to be on during charging anyway.)

Should I assume it's a bad battery? If so, are there any non-Samsung batteries you would recommend (Anker, etc.?) or should I stick with a factory battery? I did purchase two Anker batteries via Amazon, but I'm hesitant to use them since I've heard mixed reviews.

 

[B. Diddy]

It could be a few different things causing these random shutdowns. A bad battery is always possible, even if it isn't bulging in the middle. When it shuts down and you restart it, is the battery still at a decent level, like 50-60%? Or does it ever suddenly read much lower, like 10-20%? If you see that, then it's much more likely to be a battery problem.

But there could also be issues with misbehaving apps, bad data in the system cache, or a corrupt SD card. You could try booting into Recovery Mode and wiping the system cache partition, which won't erase any personal data: Reset: Samsung Galaxy S 4 | T-Mobile Support. If that doesn't help, you might want to try unmounting your SD card (in Settings>Storage), removing it, and rebooting. You could also insert the SD card into your Windows computer and run chkdsk to see if there are any bad sectors: http://forums.androidcentral.com/am...guide-using-chkdsk-fix-corrupted-sd-card.html

 

[porcelain]

The battery has still been at a decent level when I've turned the phone back on. Fortunately, it hasn't happened since Wednesday, so there's no telling when it'll happen again.

I'll have to see if it's anything to do with the system cache or the SD card. I don't have a Windows computer, so I'll have to see if there's a way to check the SD card on my Mac or borrow someone's Windows computer.

Thanks for the advice!