How to deal with Galaxy Note 5 virus infection issue, other Note 5 problems

Some users may be wondering why their #GalaxyNote5 may have suddenly started showing ads and popups from nowhere so one of issues we cover in this post is just exactly that. We also added 5 more Note 5 issues taken from reports since last week so we hope that this material can be a good source of solutions for Android community. For those looking to see if their own problem is unique to their own device, or if there’s already a published solution for it, please visit our main Note 5 troubleshooting page.

In the meantime, below are the issues that we cover in this post today:

Galaxy Note 5 drains battery fast | Galaxy Note 5 loses battery power in 2 hours even with gentle use
Galaxy Note 5 screen, keyboard app, voice calls, etc. not working properly
Galaxy Note 5 “Unfortunately Google Play has stopped” error | How to reinstall Google Play Store app on Galaxy Note 5
How to deal with Galaxy Note 5 virus infection issue
Galaxy Note 5 apps keep crashing
What to do if you encounter problems after updating your Galaxy Note 5

If you are looking for solutions to your own #Android issue, you can contact us by using the link provided at the bottom of this page, or you can install our free app from Google Play Store.

When describing your issue, please be as detailed as possible so we can easily pinpoint a relevant solution. If you can, kindly include the exact error messages you are getting to give us an idea where to start. If you have already tried some troubleshooting steps before emailing us, make sure to mention them so we can skip them in our answers.

Problem #1: Galaxy Note 5 drains battery fast | Galaxy Note 5 loses battery power in 2 hours even with gentle use

Hi Guys! Thank you so much for the incredible working to help us and for the awesome posts. I bought a Galaxy Note 5 Verizon from eBay. it’s used gently and seems like it’s new. But I have a battery drain issue and I’ve read the posts about this issue here… and I got lost because my phone seems to be good without using and it stays on for a day. Once I start to use it a gentle using, the battery goes down fast. What’s app, Web browsing with a WiFi connection! Should it take all of this power?

I use only 2 hours and it won’t get me half the day. When I go to the battery using in settings.. it shows that the screen takes the power the most.. nothing else.. while the brightness is 30%.. lost!!! How can I know that my battery works normal? — Troy

Solution: Hi Troy. Well, based on your problem description, the battery of your device does not seem to work normally. 2 hours of usage is way too short, especially that you’ve already did things that should slow down battery consumption. Try to factory reset the device and observe how battery works without your apps. If the behavior remains the same, you must find a way to have the phone repaired or replaced.

For reference, these are the steps on how to factory reset your Note 5:

Create a backup of your important files and contacts.
Turn off your Samsung Galaxy Note 5 completely.
Press and hold the Volume Up and the Home buttons first, and then press and hold the Power key.
Keep the three buttons pressed and when ‘Samsung Galaxy Note5’ shows, release the Power key but continue holding the other two.
Once the Android logo shows, release both the Volume Up and Home buttons.
The notice ‘Installing system update’ will show on the screen for 30 to 60 seconds before the Android system recovery screen is shown with its options.
Use the Volume Down key to highlight the option ‘Yes — delete all user data’ and press the Power key to select it.
When the process is complete, use the Volume Down key to highlight the option ‘Reboot system now’ and hit the Power key to restart the phone.
The reboot may take a little longer to complete but don’t worry and wait for the device to become active.

Problem #2: Galaxy Note 5 screen, keyboard app, voice calls, etc. not working properly

Screen won’t work half the time. Keypad won’t work, screen blacks out and resets the page, won’t load anything. When on a phone call it will continuously switch from speaker to regular or it will drop the call. Phone keeps lighting up like it’s being charged when it’s not. Will keep saying irregular charging and battery will show charging symbol to none at all, so therefore phone will die. Phone will be powered off and when turned on will have less battery than when turned off. Erases everything I text when glitches. I have factory reset 2 times already and am at a loss to what’s wrong. — Tula

Solution: Hi Tula. We don’t know the full history of your device so we can only speculate here. The symptoms you mention here though appears to have no pattern at all. If factory resets did not improve the situation at all, you can scratch the possibility that software is to blame. There may be a general hardware malfunction that causes all these erratic behaviors so you have the phone’s hardware examined. If it’s still covered by a replacement warranty, we strongly suggest that you use it to get a new device.

Problem #3: Galaxy Note 5 “Unfortunately Google Play has stopped” error | How to reinstall Google Play Store app on Galaxy Note 5

Re: the error “Unfortunately Google Play has stopped,” Harold provided a beautiful article to help. In my case, I jumped the gun and uninstalled Google Play and now his instruction doesn’t work for me. I am unable to locate any link to reinstall the app, and I thought I could settle with getting apps simply from the Store site. This proves incorrect as 3 apps I’ve downloaded only arrived to my Tablet and not my Note5. Can you help? P.S. the Australian carrier Telstra is not listed in your form so I chose Verizon because they were the carrier I had before leaving the States. — Ikudama

Solution: Hi Ikudama. We don’t think we understand your problem correctly based on your problem description but if you’ve uninstalled Google Play Store by mistake (which we think is not possible at all), the only way to get it back again is by factory reset. As far as Harold’s article is concerned, we don’t think there was any suggestion to remove Google Play Store app at all. The closest to app uninstallation suggestion made was to clear the app data, which is basically a virtual equivalent of uninstallation. But that doesn’t actually remove the APKs or the app specific core folders from the system. Anyway, as we’ve said, if you want to get Google Play Store app re-installed in the system, you must do a factory reset (refer to the steps above).

Problem #4: How to deal with Galaxy Note 5 virus infection issue

I have problems with my Samsung Note 5.

It automatically install short cut Apps on my home screen. Most of these app have pornographic names like sex videos, hot sex, cecao, panda hot ladies among others. Even when the phone is set to disable installation of apps from unknown sources.
It slows down in performance as soon as mobile data or wifi is connected and instead of opening tapped Apps like Whatsapp or Facebook (any App), whenever I want to use it instead loads a browser page and says page empty.
It also displays messages like “App manager, Contacts, Twitter, etc automatically stopped” on my home screen. So I no longer use it for internet duties like Facebook, WhatsApp because the apps will never load when connected to internet. Regards. — Kiima

Solution: Hi Kiima. All these three issues may be due to one cause, which may be a malware infection or bad app. There’s a chance that your phone may NOT be infected with a real virus but since popups and ads keeps popping up out of nowhere, a bad application may be present in the system.

To check, below are the things that you can do:

Boot your phone in safe mode. Virus or malicious software infection in an Android device is almost always caused by a bad app first. If you are fond of installing apps without checking where it comes from, it’s highly likely that your phone may be hosting a form of virus or malware. There’s also a chance that a bad app may be behind all the troubles so booting your phone in safe mode is worth checking. Because safe mode prevents third party apps and services from running, it’s a good troubleshooting step to do in your case. Here’s how it’s done:

Turn off the phone completely.
Press and hold the Power key.
Once ‘Samsung Galaxy Note5’ shows, release the Power key and immediately press and hold the Volume Down button.
The phone will restart but keep the Volume Down button pressed.
Once the phone has finished restarting, ‘Safe mode’ will be display in the lower-left corner of the screen.
You may now release the Volume Down button.
Observe the phone for 24 hours to see the difference. Remember, if the issues you mention here won’t happen when safe mode is enabled, one of the third party apps must be to blame. In this case, you need to uninstall apps until the problems are eliminated. Safe mode won’t help you pinpoint the actual offending app so you must do trial-and-error in identifying it. The most effective way is to uninstall apps individually then observing how the phone behaves afterwards.
On the other hand, if the issues remain even when the phone is booted to safe mode, proceed to the next step.

Wipe the cache partition. This procedure will not remove malware or virus on an Android system but it may be of help is there’s an issue with the phone’s system cache. Apps can sometimes show erratic behaviors if the system cache gets corrupted so it’s good if you can wipe the cache partition. This will force the phone to build a new system cache. To wipe the cache partition, follow these steps:

Turn off your Samsung Galaxy Note 5 completely.
Press and hold the Volume Up and the Home buttons first, and then press and hold the Power key.
Keep the three buttons pressed and when ‘Samsung Galaxy Note5’ shows, release the Power key but continue holding the other two.
Once the Android logo shows, release both the Volume Up and Home buttons.
The notice ‘Installing system update’ will show on the screen for 30 to 60 seconds before the Android system recovery screen is shown with its options.
Use the Volume Down key to highlight the option ‘wipe cache partition’ and press the Power key to select it.
When the process is complete, use the Volume Down key to highlight the option ‘Reboot system now’ and hit the Power key to restart the phone.
The reboot may take a little longer to complete but don’t worry and wait for the device to become active.

Install an antivirus app. There are many free effective antivirus app in the Google Play Store so installing one of them may help. If you plan try more than two antivirus products, make sure that you uninstall the first one first before installing the second one. Having multiple antivirus running on one system will not only be taxing for the system, but can even create a conflict that results to more complications. Also, keep in mind that more recent viruses or malware may be able to dodge attempts by antivirus apps to identify them. If popups remain even after trying multiple antivirus apps, proceed to the next step.

Wipe the phone clean via factory reset. Restoring all software settings to their known working state via factory reset is the most effective way to get rid of a virus or malware from an Android device. Refer to the steps above on how to do it. Make sure that you observe how the phone behaves after a factory reset.

Prevent virus or malware from being installed again. What many Android users do after a factory reset is to re-install the same set of apps. This is fine as long as they are 100% certain that the apps are safe. In majority of cases though, users fail to check if apps come from reputable sources. This makes

Factory reset useless. In your case, make sure that you don’t fall into this trap. Never install apps outside of Google Play Store. If you can’t help but install one from third party sources, be ready to accept the consequences for your action. We’re not saying that all apps outside of Google Play Store can’t be trusted but users who install them are assumed to know the risks involved. This means that if they encounter problems after installing apps outside of the Play Store, they should be able to handle the situation themselves.

Some apps from the Play Store are not all good too. If you never installed an app outside of Play Store but still encountered the problems you mention here, you must also be wary when reinstalling apps after a factory reset. If the issues return once you’ve reinstalled your apps, that’s clear proof that one of the apps is problematic. Just like in safe mode, you must uninstall apps individually until you’ve eliminated the cause of the problem.

Problem #5: Galaxy Note 5 apps keep crashing

Hello. My Galaxy Note 5 has been driving me crazy for more than a couple of months now, and I REALLY need your help on this guys. ALL apps are crashing occasionally whether I’m using them or not. I have read the article you wrote about that problem and I tried everything in it but nothing worked. Yes I did a factory reset, and every time I do a reset nothing changes and all apps crash like crazy.

Google+ crashes the most, like every 10 minutes. I get 3-4 messages in a row saying “Unfortunately, Google+ has stopped.” I get a lot of -504 errors when I try to download any app from the Play Store. Other popular apps like Facebook and Whatsapp also crash occasionally but less frequent than Google+. I’m talking 4-5 times a day which is a LOT. Other apps like S Note and even apps I’ve never used and never knew was on my phone are crashing and showing the same message “Unfortunately, (app) has stopped”.

One time I did a reset, I found that everything was going fine until the apps that are preinstalled on the device started updating. So I did a reset once again and this time, since Google+ crashes the most, I turned off automatic update for it and for Google app. And guess what, it’s much better now! Crashes are less, but still much more than normal, and I still have errors when downloading apps from Play Store, and recently there are problems with some apps when I’m connected via wifi. Apps like Telegram and Facebook don’t take a huge time to connect and update, while wifi is actually working well.

I did some basic hardware checks using the code *#0*# but I found nothing extraordinary. I was thinking maybe it’s Samsung fault in this particular version of the software, and maybe if I rooted the phone and installed another version of the software my problems will be solved. I really don’t know what else can I do.

Thanks in advance for your help! — David

Solution: Hi David. The symptoms in your problem description don’t provide enough details to help us pinpoint where the problem lies (we’re not saying you can provide any more details anyway). We’re not saying that we’ll be able to know for sure what the reason is as Google can’t even do so. Some Android sites would recommend wiping Google Services Framework and Play Store cache and data. The general rule in fixing Google Play Store related issue though is factory reset. There’s no specific solution that’s reserved when a certain error code shows up due to a bad Play Store app.

That factory reset did not improve the situation at all is an indication that software may not be to blame at all. This means that rooting or flashing stock or custom ROM to your device will not help too. There may be a hardware issue that’s causing the software to behave erratically. If the phone is still covered by a replacement warranty, we strongly suggest that you have the phone replaced.

Problem #6: What to do if you encounter problems after updating your Galaxy Note 5

My Samsung Galaxy Note 5 recently did an update (Marshmallow) and I was unable to get into it. I normally use the finger print but as you know I also had a back up password, which it told me was wrong and ended up having to factory reset my phone in order to use it. Whatever, right? Well now all the luxuries I got of making this phone my own are gone. All the features from changing the LED indicator, different colors to the widgets I had on there previously are just gone. I would like to know how to get them back or why it’s happening or why it wouldn’t let me into my phone in the first place after this stupid update. Not to mention the update happened twice in one day and then again the next day before all this stuff happened. Please help me! — Maya

Solution: Hi Maya. Telling you the reasons why your phone’s software behaved erratically after installing an update would be like a doctor giving you distinctive diagnosis for a headache right away without properly examining the symptoms, checking your medical history, or doing some tests. We’ve heard of some users being unable to log back in to their phones via factory reset or PIN but causes vary. Some of them noticed the issue after installing an update (like you did), while others happened during a normal course of action. To tell you frankly, even Samsung and Google have not identified the cause of these problems at all so third party technicians like us can only speculate and talk about it in a general sense.

An issue like yours can be caused by one out of the many possible variables that includes bad apps, operating system glitch, unknown hardware malfunction, or simply a poorly coded update. In an Android environment, identifying a bug can be very resource demanding so many developers (even those from Samsung and Google), may not be able to fix an issue right away. If you received the update via over-the-air (OTA), that is, from a notification that’s pushed by your carrier, make sure that you let them know about the issues so they can take note of them. Your carrier’s customer service representative may not be able to fix the issues but if other users have the reported similar or related problems, their software developer team may act on your report.

For the cosmetic changes that happened after an update, try to do a little more research with help from Google. Try to use specific terms like “change widget colors Marshmallow update Note 5,” or change LED light indicator Android Marshmallow” to be able to get better results.