How to fix a Galaxy S6 black screen issue [troubleshooting guide], other issues

More and more #GalaxyS6 owners are reaching out to us due to power- or boot-related problems so this troubleshooting article is meant to address some of them. Power- or boot-problems can take a few forms although the most common includes symptoms such as black screen issue, won’t charge issue, random reboot issue, or won’t turn on at all. This troubleshooting post for today addresses some of them. We hope you’ll find our solutions helpful.

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.

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 S6 keeps restarting on its own

My Samsung S6 keeps restarting. I bought it refurbished from Amazon about a week ago. I first noticed unprompted restarts yesterday. The restart frequency increased until it wouldn’t restart at all. I was able to restart the phone in safe mode. It seems to restart with greater frequency when the phone is plugged into my computer to charge. It will restart while in safe mode when plugged into the computer. I haven’t see it restart in safe mode unplugged, but I’ve only been trying that for the last 20 minutes. I tried a factory reset yesterday, and the problem started up again this afternoon. “About phone” shows the last system update to G920VVRU4DQL1 at 11:40 this morning. — Alex.bonnar

Solution: Hi Alex. Poorly-coded third party apps can interfere with the system and can lead to random restart issue. To check if you’ve installed a troublesome app, you need to load the phone to safe mode and observe it for at least a day. This should give you enough time to see the difference. 20 minutes is not a half-hearted way of troubleshooting the issue.

The same is true after doing a factory reset. Since we don’t know if the problem is due to a bad content or app, you should let the phone run for at least 24 hours after a factory reset. Make sure that you don’t install any app during this time.

If both procedures result to the same outcome, that is, random restart persevering, you can bet bad hardware is to blame. To fix the problem for good, you should have the phone repaired or replaced.

Problem 2: How to access Galaxy S6 files when repair is not successful

Hi. I was replacing the battery on my Galaxy S6 (not the edge) and was peeling away the front screen to get to the midframe and accidentally peel away the last layer of the digitizer. It is the layer that is closest to the battery. I don’t see any crack in my screen. I put in the new battery and charged it and initially the charging light was red and then it turned green. And when I tried to turn on the phone, the right half of my screen (vertically) flashed a whitish color light and then the screen goes black and the notification light goes from dark blue to light blue continuously non-stop. Sometimes the bottom key will light up, the back arrow.

And so I tried to reset the phone by holding down the power, volume up, then volume down, then all three buttons and then all 4 buttons including the home key for 20 seconds, plugged into and not plugged into my laptop and at one point when i pressed one of the combinations while my phone was plugged into the laptop the blue light stopped pulsing between the dark blue and light blue. My computer recognized that the phone was plugged in, the notification light was flashing but more like I had an email, it wasn’t changing from dark blue to light blue anymore, but the screen was still black.  So i continued to play with the buttons to “reset” it hoping the screen will come back and now I’m back to the pulsing dark blue to light blue light and my laptop doesn’t recognize the phone. When the phone is stuck in that mode, I have to disconnect the battery connector to turn off the phone and every time I try turning it on again I see half of my screen flash before it goes black and I see the blue light pulsing from dark to light again.  Not sure what version of android i’m on.  but i didn’t do the latest software update.  I changed (or try to change) the battery on Dec 24th. 1) Did I break my digitizer by peeling away the last layer? 2) Does what I did to my digitizer have anything to do with why my phone is getting the pulsating blue light, it’s as if the phone is trying to start up but it can’t and it’s just stuck in a loop?  Or is it a completely separate issue? 3) Is there anyway to get to the files on my phone when it is in this state? Thank you so much for you time and helping. — Olivia

Solution: Hi Alex. Messing up hardware repair and hoping that a software solution will fix it is not going to work. We don’t know what the true state of the screen assembly right now is but based on your descriptions, it’s possible that you may have inadvertently damaged it. The pulsating lights you’re asking about may or may not be the direct result of you damaging the digitizer. If the only thing that you did not do properly was to accidentally damage the digitizer, then consider replacing it with a known, good working part and see if it fixes the problem up. This is actually one of the reasons why it’s better to just simply replace the entire screen assembly rather than do it piecemeal. In a lot of do-it-repair scenarios done amateurs, more problems are created than solutions. The digitizer is an especially sensitive component and mishandling it can render the entire screen assembly problematic. Remember, every layer in the digitizer serves a purpose. Removing or replacing one incorrectly can change the specifications which can lead to errors. When that happens, there’s a chance that the firmware may not work properly or send erratic signals to the operating system, causing all sorts of problems.

The best thing that you can do right now is to replace the entire screen assembly and hope that it works because that’s the only way you can get to your files. Access to the operating system is only possible if you can get to the user interface, which obviously is only possible when you have a working screen. As it is, there’s no way another device like a computer can gain entry into the system and retrieve the files from the storage device.

To prevent losing precious digital memories or documents in the future, always create a backup whenever you perform any drastic changes to your phone like when installing system updates or when performing repairs. Unless you are 100% positive that a repair will go as planned, preventing data loss should be the first thing that you need to do.

Problem 3: How to fix a Galaxy S6 black screen issue

My mobile S6 was 10% and i was watching a video, then it turned off. I charged it without opening it until it was fully charged (the light indicator was green and the screen showed a full 100% green battery). Then i took it out from the charger, and tried to power it on , there was no response. I tried the hard reset and the reboot and pressed all the buttons, however there was no response. I even tried to charge it again, however, the light indicator didn’t light up to red nor green, there is no sign of life at all…. except that when i keep it in the charger for a while, the phone’s becomes a little hot. What can i do please? Thanks in advance. — Nada

Solution: Hi Nada. There’s virtually nothing much that you can do when it comes to troubleshooting in this case. There may be a problem with the battery or the hardware in general preventing the device from booting up. Below are the few troubleshooting steps that you can try.

Charge the phone again using a different set of cable and adapter

To eliminate a possible issue with the charging accessories you’re using, make sure that you let your phone charge using a different set of cable and adapter. Some electrical idiosyncrasies cna sometimes damage cables unexpectedly. Although there’s a tiny amount of chance that this happened in your case, this troubleshooting is still worth checking.

If you can’t find another set of USB cable and adapter that’s compatible with your S6, try to use the current cable and adapter instead to charge another device. This way you’ll know if they work or not.

Check the charging port for dirt or lint

Sometimes, pocket lint or dirt can prevent the charging cable from making good contact with the metal pins inside the charging port. Do a quick ocular inspection of the charging port to see if something’s amiss. If possible, try to use a magnifying lens or similar to see the inside of port more clearly.

Also, watch out for bent or out-of-place pins in the port. That can be the reason why the phone no longer charges properly at this time.

Use another power outlet to charge

Power outlets can, at times, stop working for no reason at all. Make sure that you’re using a good working one when charging your S6. Try plugging in another device to it to see if it works.

Perform a soft reset

Ideally, in a situation like this, you are supposed to remove the battery and re-seat it. You can’t do that obviously since it’s borderline impossible to remove the battery from an intact Galaxy S6. However, you can perform a virtual equivalent of a “battery pull” by doing the following:

  1. Press and hold the Power and Volume Down buttons until the Maintenance Boot Mode screen appears (approx. 12 seconds).
  2. From the Maintenance Boot Mode screen, select Power down. You can use the volume buttons to cycle through the available options and the Home button (located below the display) to select.

Try to boot to alternate modes

Lastly, you want to see if your phone is having an issue booting up its operating system.

It’s possible that Android does not work as expected leading you to believe that the phone is not turning on at all. If the device still shows signs of life — LED light, vibrations, or sound notifications — it’s very likely that you have a No Boot problem instead of a No Power issue. The former means that the phone is not completely dead but is having trouble loading up Android. The latter means total power failure so it doesn’t make any sound, vibration, or sound notifications.

It’s also possible that the phone’s screen is the problem. It may stay black even if the phone actually still boots up or powers on. In this case, you must send the phone is so the screen can be repaired.

Your Galaxy device has two alternate boot modes that can run independently of the operating system (Android). This means that as long as there’s no hardware failure preventing the phone from turning on, you should still be able to turn the phone on to either Recovery Mode or Download mode.

Below are the steps on how to access them as well as the possible follow-up solutions that you can try:

How to boot your Galaxy S6 to Recovery mode

  1. Charge the phone for at least 30 minutes.
  2. Press and then hold the Home and Volume UP keys, then press and hold the Power key.
  3. When the Samsung Galaxy logo shows on the screen, release the Power key but continue holding the Home and Volume Up keys.
  4. When the Android logo shows, you may release both keys and leave the phone be for about 30 to 60 seconds.
  5. You can either wipe the cache partition or do a factory reset when in this mode.

How to boot your Galaxy S6 to Download Mode

  1. Charge the phone for at least 30 minutes.
  2. Press and then hold the Home and Volume DOWN keys, then press and hold the Power key.
  3. When the Samsung Galaxy logo shows on the screen, release the Power key but continue holding the Home and Volume DOWN keys.
  4. Wait until the Download screen appears.
  5. If you can boot the phone in download mode but not in other modes, that means that your only way out may be to flash a stock or custom firmware.
  6. Use Google to look for a guide on how to do it.

Contact Samsung or send the phone to an independent service center

If all the steps above won’t help in fixing the problem, you must let a professional check the hardware. The cause can vary from a bad battery, a malfunctioning charging port, a damaged power management integrated circuit (IC), to an unknown hardware problem. To know where the problem lies, a technician needs to do a thorough hardware troubleshooting and diagnostics. Once the problematic component has been identified, that’s the time that you’ll know if repair or phone replacement is needed.

 


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2 thoughts on “How to fix a Galaxy S6 black screen issue [troubleshooting guide], other issues”

  1. Can’t do a factory reset with black screen can’t turn phone off what do I do ???? Just guessing I would have to let phone die then plug in for couple HR. Then do the factory reset unless u know of a way tourn off phone with black screen

  2. Have a samsung s6 active. Last night it was showing 73% battery when turned off. This morning it will not turn on at all. Had it on charge all night. Tried holding down power and volume down button but did not work. Tried power button, home button and volume down button still did not work. While charging there isn’t any light showing. Please help.

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