Yeah, it typically doesn't matter which carrier the phone is from (although I think there are few rare instances of one carrier variant having slightly different steps for Safe Mode than others). Also, Samsung tends to have the same Safe Mode steps throughout their devices.
The reboot brought it back. Weird, wonder what caused this. Another odd thing. The Bluetooth indicator on status bar was showing as ON, BUT in the quick settings it was off. And wifi indicator not showing on, but it was on in quick settings. Turned it off, rebooted again, all back to normal. Very strange behavior, wonder how that happened? But all good now, thanks
Hard to say -- there could be an app she installed that's causing some oddness. But it can be hard to tell without doing a lot of tedious trial and error. I'm glad it's working, though!