Note 8 (and GS8) Regularly Locking Up, Completely Unresponsive

[Matt Sloan]

I have both a Galaxy S8 as well as a Note 8. When I got the S8, I transferred my data over from my previous S7. After a week or two, I noticed that every now and then, my morning alarm wouldn't go off. The reason was, my S8 was completely locked up and unresponsive. However, the screen would show my clock, and sometimes be blinking due to notifications. However, the clock might be stopped at 2:30 AM, or some random early time. The phone would be completely inoperable, and the only thing I could do would be to hold down the power button and the volume-down button, to initiate the rescue reboot screen. I'd select the first option (Reboot) and press the Bixby button, which would reboot the phone. One horror story was that one morning I was a bit bleary-eyed, and I accidentally selected the Factory Reset option, which made for a very bad morning for me.

I thought, hey, maybe I got a lemon, and the Note 8 was about to come out, so I waited and tolerated the problem, and then got the Note 8. Welp, my Note is doing the exact same thing.

I've tried to address it with Samsung, but I'm getting the usual 1st tier "tech support" runaround, which isn't helpful.

Is anyone else having a similar issue, or perhaps know how to access event logs to see what's causing them to crash? The only good thing is, because my clock locks, it shows me the exact time of the event, so it should be easy to find.

 

[jacker]

Never had that problem and I use my alarms daily multiple times a day.

That's taking into account the S8+ and now the note 8.

 

[Matt Sloan]

It's not so much an alarm issue, that's just one of the first things that alerted me to the problem. I was actually at the lake on Saturday and pulled my phone out to take a picture of my nephew's first fish, and my phone was completely locked up then too, so I had to do the reset business right there on the bank. VERY annoying!

 

[Matt Sloan]

It seems to happen more overnight, but I've had it happen while it's on the charger sitting on my desk at work too. One might think it has something to do with being on the charger, but the weekend lake incident shows that it can also happen when the phone isn't plugged in.

 

[Fr0gburp3r]

The data transfer may have a caused a corruption. You said you did a factory reset. Did you restore from that same data? If so, try another factory reset with a clean install to see if you can replicate the problem.

 

[Matt Sloan]

I wondered about that myself. I honestly can't remember what I did after I accidentally factory reset my S8. I don't think I even had my S7 anymore, so I couldn't have done a direct phone-to-phone restoral, but I'm sure I used my Google account to at least partly restore/inform the restoral process. When I switched from my flaky S8 to the Note, I definitely did the phone-to-phone Samsung transfer process, which could certainly have passed along something corrupt. That said, the transfer really just transfers pictures and settings, the apps have to freshly download, and the Android OS doesn't hitchhike along the ride as far as I know.

But yeah, I'm about ready to just jot down a list of all my apps and wipe the thing and start fresh, just to see what happens. I installed a log-reader, but is MUCH murkier than I'd anticipated.

 

[Matt Sloan]

I wondered about that myself. I honestly can't remember what I did after I accidentally factory reset my S8. I don't think I even had my S7 anymore, so I couldn't have done a direct phone-to-phone restoral, but I'm sure I used my Google account to at least partly restore/inform the restoral process. When I switched from my flaky S8 to the Note, I definitely did the phone-to-phone Samsung transfer process, which could certainly have passed along something corrupt. That said, the transfer really just transfers pictures and settings, the apps have to freshly download, and the Android OS doesn't hitchhike along the ride as far as I know.

But yeah, I'm about ready to just jot down a list of all my apps and wipe the thing and start fresh, just to see what happens. I installed a log-reader, but is MUCH murkier than I'd anticipated.

 

[jimd1050]

The Google Restore does transfer apps though - when I got my Note 8, I picked it up at my local AT&T Store and told them not to worry about any data transfer, that I'd do it when I got home. I took the phone, got in my truck and drove home - by the time I got home, my desktop, if you will, was all setup with the wallpaper from my S7 Active, a Center Home Page and two pages to the left/Two pages to the right, populated with (most) of my apps? While I was driving home, the Google Cloud did it's thing without me even asking (which is kind of hinky actually) - all I had to do at home was re-initialize my email accounts and re-install a couple of odd apps that it didn't re-install for some reason. Otherwise, it was setup just like my S7 Active!

I guess what I'm trying to say is, you probably transferred your problem from the S8 to the Note 8 even though you hadn't planned on it!

 

[Deke218]

Yeah, I could tell from the second line that you need to factory reset and reinstall apps one by one.

 

[Carrie Greicar]

I have both a Galaxy S8 as well as a Note 8. When I got the S8, I transferred my data over from my previous S7. After a week or two, I noticed that every now and then, my morning alarm wouldn't go off. The reason was, my S8 was completely locked up and unresponsive. However, the screen would show my clock, and sometimes be blinking due to notifications. However, the clock might be stopped at 2:30 AM, or some random early time. The phone would be completely inoperable, and the only thing I could do would be to hold down the power button and the volume-down button, to initiate the rescue reboot screen. I'd select the first option (Reboot) and press the Bixby button, which would reboot the phone. One horror story was that one morning I was a bit bleary-eyed, and I accidentally selected the Factory Reset option, which made for a very bad morning for me.

I thought, hey, maybe I got a lemon, and the Note 8 was about to come out, so I waited and tolerated the problem, and then got the Note 8. Welp, my Note is doing the exact same thing.

I've tried to address it with Samsung, but I'm getting the usual 1st tier "tech support" runaround, which isn't helpful.

Is anyone else having a similar issue, or perhaps know how to access event logs to see what's causing them to crash? The only good thing is, because my clock locks, it shows me the exact time of the event, so it should be easy to find.

I've actually had this happen twice now and it wasn't over night or charging at the time. I was wondering if mine was a dud. Nothing new was downloaded on my phone and I did a clean install.

 

[Tsepz_GP]

I have both a Galaxy S8 as well as a Note 8. When I got the S8, I transferred my data over from my previous S7. After a week or two, I noticed that every now and then, my morning alarm wouldn't go off. The reason was, my S8 was completely locked up and unresponsive. However, the screen would show my clock, and sometimes be blinking due to notifications. However, the clock might be stopped at 2:30 AM, or some random early time. The phone would be completely inoperable, and the only thing I could do would be to hold down the power button and the volume-down button, to initiate the rescue reboot screen. I'd select the first option (Reboot) and press the Bixby button, which would reboot the phone. One horror story was that one morning I was a bit bleary-eyed, and I accidentally selected the Factory Reset option, which made for a very bad morning for me.

I thought, hey, maybe I got a lemon, and the Note 8 was about to come out, so I waited and tolerated the problem, and then got the Note 8. Welp, my Note is doing the exact same thing.

I've tried to address it with Samsung, but I'm getting the usual 1st tier "tech support" runaround, which isn't helpful.

Is anyone else having a similar issue, or perhaps know how to access event logs to see what's causing them to crash? The only good thing is, because my clock locks, it shows me the exact time of the event, so it should be easy to find.

I've actually had this happen twice now and it wasn't over night or charging at the time. I was wondering if mine was a dud. Nothing new was downloaded on my phone and I did a clean install.

Have you both used Greenify or Disabled any Samsung apps?

I had a similar issue after disabling Samsung Gear service and a few other things on my S7 Edge and ever since then the issue would comeback randomly.

The issue once happened when sleeping over at someone's place I was going to visit. I forgot to alert friends and family that I was staying over, the following morning she got messages in the same group that I was in but I wasn't getting anything, I picked up my S7 Edge and boom, locked up, my friends and family were worried that I may have been hijacked and taken hostage, as this happens a lot here in South Africa, when I finally rebooted the phone and saw all the group messages, and missed calls I had a lot of explaining to do. Worst Saturday morning EVER.

When I got the Note8 I did a clean install of everything and have only disabled Google apps I didn't want and so far it has not missed a beat.

Very weird issue. I get the feeling it's related to WiFi and and the Cellular Modem as it only happened when I was not connected to WiFi.

 

[Carrie Greicar]

Have you both used Greenify or Disabled any Samsung apps?

I had a similar issue after disabling Samsung Gear service and a few other things on my S7 Edge and ever since then the issue would comeback randomly.

The issue once happened when sleeping over at someone's place I was going to visit. I forgot to alert friends and family that I was staying over, the following morning she got messages in the same group that I was in but I wasn't getting anything, I picked up my S7 Edge and boom, locked up, my friends and family were worried that I may have been hijacked and taken hostage, as this happens a lot here in South Africa, when I finally rebooted the phone and saw all the group messages, and missed calls I had a lot of explaining to do. Worst Saturday morning EVER.

When I got the Note8 I did a clean install of everything and have only disabled Google apps I didn't want and so far it has not missed a beat.

Very weird issue. I get the feeling it's related to WiFi and and the Cellular Modem as it only happened when I was not connected to WiFi.

Nope I haven't disabled and Samsung aps and I haven't used greenify

 

[Tsepz_GP]

Nope I haven't disabled and Samsung aps and I haven't used greenify

Absolutely awful that it is happening on your Note8.

Honestly I'd say rather do a Hard Reset and just do fresh install of everything.

If this happens again, kick up a storm at Samsung, they NEED to replace the phone, this may be a hardware issue.

 

[srvctec]

Haven't seen this mentioned yet and it's way better than doing a factory reset (seems that's one of the first suggested fixes for just about everything around here). Try wiping the cache partition before going nuclear and doing a factory reset. I've had this option fix all kinds of weird unexplainable stuff over the last ten years on all my Android devices. IMO, it should be the first or second suggested option instead of a factory reset.

How to wipe the cache partition on a Note 8:

Back up data on the internal memory.

Turn off the device.

Press and hold the Volume Up key and the Bixby key, then press and hold the Power key.

When the green Android logo displays, release all keys ('Installing system update' will show for about 30 - 60 seconds before showing the Android system recovery menu options).

Press the Volume down key several times to highlight 'wipe cache partition'.

Press Power button to select.

Press the Volume down key until 'yes' is highlighted and press the Power button.

When the wipe cache partition is complete, “Reboot system now” is highlighted.

Press the Power key to restart the device.

 

[sparkeater79]

Every time I unlock my galaxy s8 it takes a restart for most apps to be able to retrieve any info and load a page. It is really annoying me as I barely use the s8. If I use it regularly it is less of a problem but since it stays home most days i barely use it and I have to restart it to use most apps. It definitely doesn't help my view of Samsung after all these years. Samsung has all the best specs, best screen, removable storage and all that yet still falls short to whatever iPhone I am using at the time. Underwhelmed is a good word to describe my feeling towards Samsung smartphones.

 

[RimeshP]

I just found your post when I was researching my issue. I've had my Note 8 lock up several times in the last few weeks.

Each time it happened, I was driving and listening to music/audiobook via Bluetooth. The audio stops midstream and the phone becomes unresponsive. I haven't bothered pulling over until I get to my destination, but did notice the time on the Always On screen doesn't change.

 

[toenail_flicker]

when I get a new device the first thing I do after the forced initial setup is a trip to Google Play to turn off the auto updating of apps. it always loads a few before I can get to the store, but I prevent major hiccups by doing it this way.