my phone has stopped being charging and in order for my insurance to do anything about it they want the softwear version, my phone is totally dead, so how do I find this out?
If your phone is the Samsung Galaxy Ace?!
That means your firmware is (Ginger Bread 2.3.6)
The next thing you need to do is log into (sammobile.com) and go in the firmware download page and type your device model name (example: GT-S5...) and search for the firmware available for your country and network.
If your phone is the Galaxy Ace 2 ?! Than is Jelly Bean 4.1.2 and you find the firmware in the same way I mentioned above.