How to fix your frozen / unresponsive Samsung Galaxy Note 5 [Troubleshooting Guide]

High-end smartphones like your #Samsung Galaxy Note 5 (#Note5) may still suffer from minor to serious performance issues. Freezes and lags are among the most common minor problems many owners encountered. However, if the phone becomes frozen or unresponsive indefinitely or until the battery runs out, that’s a serious problem that has to be addressed as soon as possible and that’s the very purpose of this post.

Galaxy Note 5 frozen unresponsive

If a phone becomes frozen after a firmware update, it’s possible that some of your apps are no longer compatible with the new system that’s why they don’t run as smooth as before and probably cause conflicts that may lead to crashes that may leave the phone frozen indefinitely. So, if your Galaxy Note 5 is suffering from this issue or if you’re experiencing a different performance problem, continue reading this post as it may help you solve it.

But before we jump right into our troubleshooting, if you happen to find this post because you were trying to find a solution to a different problem, then visit our troubleshooting page for we have already addressed hundreds of problems reported by our readers. Find ones that are similar with yours and use the solutions or troubleshooting procedures we suggested. If they don’t work for you or if you need further assistance, fill up our Android issues questionnaire and hit submit to contact us.

Troubleshooting a frozen / unresponsive Galaxy Note 5

There are a few factors we need to consider when troubleshooting a device that froze without apparent reason. We have to look into the possibility that perhaps, this is just one of those cases wherein the device becomes unresponsive due to system or hardware glitch. Then, there’s the possibility that some apps keep crashing and affected the overall performance of the device and we also have to consider a firmware issue brought about by new updates or corruption of some files. With all that being said, here’s what I suggest you do…

Step 1: Perform the Forced Reboot procedure

If a phone doesn’t respond to your screen touches as well as button presses, it’s a sign that the system crashed. While it mainly concerns the firmware, it leaves the hardware unresponsive which also leaves your phone useless.

This procedure is very simple and easy to do yet effective in addressing issues like system crashes and glitches. All you have to do is press and hold the Volume Down button and the Power key together for 15 seconds and your phone will reboot. Hopefully, after this, the phone won’t freeze again but there’s no guarantee.

Step 2: Start your phone up in Safe Mode and observe

Try to bring the phone to boot into its diagnostic state wherein all third-party apps and services are temporarily disabled. This will give you an overview whether or not the problem is caused by some apps and if they are third-party or pre-installed. This is how you boot your phone up in safe mode…

  1. Turn off the phone completely.
  2. Press and hold the Power key.
  3. Once ‘Samsung Galaxy Note5’ shows, release the Power key and immediately press and hold the Volume Down button.
  4. The phone will restart but keep the Vol Down button pressed.
  5. Once the phone has finished restarting, ‘Safe mode’ will be display in the lower-left corner of the screen.
  6. You may now release the Volume Down button.

Once that phone has booted up in this mode, continue using it as long as you want to confirm if the problem still occurs even if all downloaded apps aren’t running because if this is the case, then the problem should be with the firmware, otherwise, you just have to find the apps that are causing this problem and clear their cache and data or uninstall them directly.

How to clear app cache and data on Note 5

  1. From the Home screen, tap the Apps icon.
  2. Find and tap Settings.
  3. Under the ‘APPLICATIONS’ section, find and touch Application manager.
  4. Swipe to the left or to the right to display the appropriate screen but to display all apps, choose the ‘ALL’ screen.
  5. Find and tap the app that has issues.
  6. Touch Clear cache to delete its cached files.
  7. Touch Clear data and then OK to delete downloaded data, login information, settings, etc.

How to uninstall app from your Note 5

  1. From the Home screen, tap the Apps icon.
  2. Find and tap Settings.
  3. Under the ‘APPLICATIONS’ section, find and touch Application manager.
  4. Swipe to the left or to the right to display the appropriate screen but to display all apps, choose the ‘ALL’ screen.
  5. Find and tap the app that has issues.
  6. Touch Uninstall, then OK.

Step 3: Reboot your phone in Recovery Mode and wipe cache partition

System caches get corrupted more often and when it happens and the firmware continues to use those files, performance problems may occur with lagging and freezing the most common issues owners may first notice. In some cases, the firmware itself may crash leaving the phone frozen and unresponsive. While you can make your phone respond again by doing the procedure in the first step, there’s no guarantee the problem won’t occur again. Therefore, it’s imperative you clear corrupt caches by booting your device into the recovery mode and wiping the cache partition.

  1. Turn off your Samsung Galaxy Note 5 completely.
  2. Press and hold the Volume Up and the Home buttons first, and then press and hold the Power key.
  3. Keep the three buttons pressed and when ‘Samsung Galaxy Note5’ shows, release the Power key but continue holding the other two.
  4. Once the Android logo shows, release both the Volume Up and Home buttons.
  5. 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.
  6. Use the Volume Down key to highlight the option ‘wipe cache partition’ and press the Power key to select it.
  7. 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.
  8. The reboot may take a little longer to complete but don’t worry and wait for the device to become active.

If the phone still freezes up or becomes unresponsive from time to time after this procedure, then you should move on to the next step.

Step 4: Master Reset your Galaxy Note 5 to bring it back to its factory default settings

The previous step deletes all system cache but the reset will not only delete system data that might have already been corrupted but also reformats both the cache and data partitions. But the catch is that your files and data stored in the internal storage of your phone will also be deleted together with your settings and preferences. Therefore, make sure you backup important files first before doing the reset.

  1. Turn off your Samsung Galaxy Note 5 completely.
  2. Press and hold the Volume Up and the Home buttons first, and then press and hold the Power key.
  3. Keep the three buttons pressed and when ‘Samsung Galaxy Note5’ shows, release the Power key but continue holding the other two.
  4. Once the Android logo shows, release both the Volume Up and Home buttons.
  5. 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.
  6. Use the Volume Down key to highlight the option ‘Yes — delete all user data’ and press the Power key to select it.
  7. 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.
  8. The reboot may take a little longer to complete but don’t worry and wait for the device to become active.

I hope that this troubleshooting guide can help you fix the problem but if not, then you should seek assistance from a technician.

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