How to recover a frozen s5 without a battery pull ?

[ranpkri55]

So yesterday my s5 froze while I was using it. I was simultaneously using whatsapp and viber. The screen went unresponsive, (but no black screen). I waited for 2-3 minutes but it stayed frozen at that point. I use nova launcher.
Long pressed power key, no response. Finally had to do a battery pull to reboot.

Two questions.
1. Has anyone experienced such freezes while using the phone? Should I be worried ? This is the first freeze I saw on this phone, and I have been using the phone for about 2 weeks now.

2. Is there any hard key combination I can use to recover the phone ? I am coming from the Lumia 920 which had such a key combo. Removing the phone out of my Spigen Tough armor is an annoyance, albeit a minor one.

 

[sirmaru]

Long press on the power key and you can either do a full power shut down (usually that's enough) or a phone reset.

 

[jonebk12]

Official manual says power button plus volume down simultaneously for at least 7 seconds.

 

[Fastfwd]

Me too. It was the Facebook app for me. Really embarrassing. It happen at a local sort of upper crust hangout and I’m sure everyone was watching me snap a pic of my drink and go to post it and the phone froze up. Same scenario though – Otterbox Defender case and I almost pulled it apart to pull the battery, but before I fully disassembled it a pop up reported that Facebook stopped responding or whatever and let me submit a report.

I was holding down the power, trying the home button and power, everything I could think of and wondering the very same thing. The screen timed out a few times while I was trying, but nothing let me force a shutdown, reboot, etc.

 

[Fastfwd]

Official manual says power button plus volume down simultaneously for at least 7 seconds.

Excellent to know! I was red faced over it.

 

[ranpkri55]

Official manual says power button plus volume down simultaneously for at least 7 seconds.

Thanks. So this will just force reboot the phone, without any kind of factory reset/data loss. Correct ?

I thought days of Android randomly freezing are over. Guess not. Hopefully this was an isolated incident.

 

[ffejjj]

I thought days of Android randomly freezing are over. Guess not. Hopefully this was an isolated incident.

It's less about android freezing and more about the specific device doing so. I've been freeze free for 2 years on 2 separate devices by the same manufacturer.



Sent from my EVO using AC Forums mobile app

 

[Golfdriver97]

I'm inclined to agree with ffejjj. I have had the Moto X for almost a year, and only one freeze. My Nexus is about 6 months old and has yet to freeze.

Sent from my HTC One_M8 using AC Forums mobile app

 

[Kelli Sheller]

yes, very frustrating,
held the volume down and power button, 7 secs it works, but its a bloody new phone
why ? :-\

 

[Carol Wallis]

to hold the volume down button and power button for at least 7 seconds worked like a champ. Thanks for the tip.

 

[coupledocs]

After trying any number of random combinations of external buttons on my own, my Google search found your post with this response to another user's question about restarting a frozen screen on the Galaxy S5 -- and lo and behold, it's a winner.

Many thanks on Christmas day for restoring my month old Samsung Galaxy S5 to full use.

Coupledocs

 

[Erdling]

Thanks it worked as described.

 

[Amanda Field]

I can not tell you how much I appreciate this advice. Nothing else worked, then I saw your post. Quick and easy. You saved me from hours of frustration Thank You!

 

[Stephlq]

power and volume button worked a treat! thanks heaps

 

[Andrew Tennant]

holding volume down and power button works
thanks i thought i did it but it took about 10 seconds
thanks

 

[James Stennett]

Power button plus volume down for 7 seconds did the trick. Thank you VERY much.

 

[MCRodgers2]

The procedure of pressing the down volume and power button simultaneously for 10 to 20 sec worked for me, but only after I removed my S5 from it's otterbox case.

I think that was because it was easier to press both buttons simultaneously without the case and it's rubber buttons. Otherwise one button or the other was getting pressed first.

 

[teresa0005000]

volume down and power button worked for my galaxy a3