My Galaxy S4 keeps boot-looping!

[Rajith Maligaspe]

Hey there.
I bought my (carrier free) GT-I9505 in late October of last year and things have run fine, until this morning. This morning I was playing Asphalt 8 and the phone suddently went into Boot-loop, with it going blank, vibrating, showing the 'GT-I9505' title, then going back to blank, vibrating, and then again showing the GT I9505 title, repeatedly. I then popped the battery in and out and restarted the phone, and it kept going into Boot-loop still. So I went on Google and saw that this is mostly caused by a disfunctioning battery or microSD card. I took out the microSD card and started the phone and everything worked fine. Then I loaded the SD card again and after a short while the phone started to bootloop again.
I went back on Google and one of the suggested solutions included formatting the card. So I did that too and not after a short while the phone went back to bootloop. Then I removed the SD card, popped the battery out and in (it had suddenly dropped to 15% from 20% odd just before) and I shut off the phone and put it to charge. Before it was fully charged I switched it on (this time I did not re-insert my microSD card) and I got a call so I unplugged it, and when I plugged it back it had gone from 100% to 95%. I put the phone back on charge (I was going out) and I heard the charge complete notification tone (I use Battery Doctor). When I unplugged the phone it read 97%. I plugged it back and it immediately read 100%. I unplugged it again and the battery went down to 97% once more. I then went out. For about two hours the battery remained at 97% before it started to reduce like it normally would. I came home about three hours ago and I did some light web browsing and gaming. The phone then again went into bootlooping. I then had to remove and reinsert the battery once again to get it working. So far no bootlooping, mainly because I'm keeping it at idle, except for when I check out my notifications.
The last time I popped the battery out i noticed it had swelled on the back slightly, I could feel it curved.

Update - I was just playing candy crush while typing this, and the phone went back to boot-looping. This is something to do with the battery right? Or is it just the microSD card, or both?

Another update - I popped the battery in again in an attempt to restart the phone, but now it doesn't even boot into the samsung logo, leave alone boot to the lockscreen. It just keeps bootlooping into the GT I9505 title, back to blank, and so on repeatedly.

HELLLLP!
Your help will be much appreciated.

 

[SpookDroid]

Samsung's phones, lately, don't seem to play nice with SD Cards, so my suggestion is, if yours already failed, don't use it anymore in that phone. You and your data will be safer.

As for the boot loop, try this, without the SD Card:

1) Power off the phone.
2) Press Power, Home, and Volume DOWN at the same time. Keep pressing until it restarts.

This should start your phone in "Safe Mode", with all 3rd party apps not starting up at boot. If that doesn't help, try the following:

1) Power off.
2) Press Power, Home, and Volume UP. Keep pressing until it goes into "Recovery Mode".
3) Find the "Clear Cache" option using the volume keys. Select with Power and confirm. WARNING: CLEAR CACHE ONLY, DON'T DELETE DATA!!!
4) Reboot.

 

[dancing-bass]

buy a new battery immediately. A swollen battery is never a good sign. The fact that it is swollen is a sign of internal failure, with potential of it rupturing the outer case - in which case you have a completely destroyed battery and a very good chance of damaging your phone beyond repair. There is a risk (slight, but still there) that charging said battery in your phone could cause a fire.

If you can buy a replacement battery locally, do it right away. do NOT charge your phone with this battery in it if at all possible. It is already failing and the more you use/abuse it at this point the worse it will get.

 

[Rajith Maligaspe]

@dancing-bass You're probably right. Right after I posted the thread I went to sleep and put the phone on charge throughout the night (Oops, shouldn't have done that), but as soon as I saw the thread reply I popped the battery out and left it until I go out to town to get this thing sorted out with the shop that sold me this. What I noticed when I was charging last night was that it was charging rapidly, and when I switched the phone on this morning (it bootlooped again after about 5 minutes), the battery dropped from 97% to 70% in like 5 minutes. I have a hardware warranty of 1 year, it should be able to cover battery packs yeah?

@SpookDroid At first I thought it was just the microSD card, but now it seems like the battery's the culprit. But I WILL try your method once I get the battery sorted out, since I really want to use my microSD card and its only 2 weeks old.