How to fix Samsung Galaxy A3 (2017) that’s stuck in bootloop [Troubleshooting Guide]

When your phone cannot complete the boot process and reboots just before it reaches the home screen only to do the same thing over and over, that’s what you call a boot loop. Your device will continue doing it until the battery is all drained up. We have readers who own the new Samsung Galaxy A3 who are complaining about this problem.

So, in this post, I will tackle it and make this phone the subject of our troubleshooting. We may have already tackled similar issues in the past but they’re for different devices. For this, we will try to rule out one possibility after another until we can easily determine the reason why your phone is doing this and formulate a solution that might fix it for good. So, read on.

Now, before we jump to our troubleshooting guide, if even you found this post because you were trying to find a solution to different issue, then I suggest you visit our Galaxy A3 troubleshooting page for we have already addressed some of the most commonly reported issues with this device. Try to find a problem that’s similar with yours and use the solutions or workarounds we suggested. If they don’t work for you and if you need further assistance, then fill up our Android issues questionnaire and we will include your concern in our next posts.

How to troubleshoot Galaxy A3 that got stuck in boot loop

Being stuck in bootloop, while it’s clearly a firmware issue, is a minor one. Meaning, we can easily fix it and make the phone boot up successfully. However, if you tried to modify the firmware of your phone and then this issue happened, we may not be able to help you with it as we all know mods are often unstable and have glitches.  But if this problem happened to you without apparent reason, then here’s what you need to do…

Step 1: Turn off your phone and do the forced restart

It might be just a glitch, at least that’s what we have to assume for now, so we need to do a procedure that will take care of it. Usually, a battery pull will fix this issue but since your A3 doesn’t have a removable battery, you can’t do that. We can only simulate the battery disconnect by pressing and holding the Volume Down and Power keys at the same time for 10 seconds. This may reboot your phone successfully and if successful, then you don’t have to do the other troubleshooting procedures below. However, it may occur again in the future but at least you know what to do to work around it.

On the other hand, if the phone is still stuck in boot loop after doing the forced restart, then move on to the next

Step 2: Try starting your phone up in Safe mode

It’s possible that the problem is triggered by one of the apps you installed from the Play Store but since we don’t have a clue as to which of the apps is the culprit, then we have to try to start your phone in safe mode. In this environment, all third-party apps will be temporarily disabled so logically, if one of them is causing the problem, your Galaxy A3 should boot up without any problem.

1. Turn the device off.
2. Press and hold the Power key past the screen with the device name.
3. When ‘SAMSUNG’ appears on the screen, release the Power key.
4. Immediately after releasing the Power key, press and hold the Volume down key.
5. Continue to hold the Volume down key until the device finishes restarting.
6. Safe mode will display in the bottom left corner of the screen.
7. Release the Volume down key when you see ‘Safe Mode’.

Assuming it’s successful, try updating app that need to be updated as it might be just an issue with compatibility.

1. From any Home screen, tap the Apps icon.
2. Tap Play Store.
3. Tap the Menu key and then tap My Apps. To keep your apps automatically updated, tap the Menu key, tap Settings, and then tap Auto-update apps to select the check box.
4. Choose one of the following options:
   • Tap Update [xx] to update all applications with updates available.
   • Tap an individual application and then tap Update to update a single application.

If you have some apps that you suspect are causing this issue, then try clearing their caches and data or even uninstall them to try to fix this problem. Every time you do so, try rebooting your phone in normal mode to know if the problem is fixed and boot back in safe mode if the phone fails.  

How to clear apps cache and data on Galaxy A3

1. From any Home screen, tap the Apps icon.
2. Tap Settings.
3. Tap Applications.
4. Tap the desired application in the default list or tap Menu icon > Show system apps to display pre-installed apps.
5. Tap Storage.
6. Tap Clear data and then tap OK.
7. Tap Clear cache.

How to uninstall applications from your Galaxy A3

1. From any Home screen, tap the Apps icon.
2. Tap Settings.
3. Tap Applications.
4. Tap the desired application in the default list or tap Menu icon > Show system apps to display pre-installed apps.
5. Tap Uninstall.
6. Tap Uninstall again to confirm.

Step 3: Attempt to boot your phone up in Recovery mode and wipe cache partition

Assuming your Galaxy A3 cannot successfully boot up in Safe mode or can still get stuck in bootloop when booted up in normal mode after doing the procedures in step 2, then you should try booting it up in recovery mode.

The Android system recovery is yet another environment that will allow you to do some troubleshooting procedures that have great impact on the firmware itself. Even if your phone is suffering from a serious firmware issue, it may still be able to start in this mode as it’s a fail-safe for Android. If successful, the next thing I want you to do is wipe the cache partition so that all system caches will be replaced with new ones.

1. Turn off the device.
2. Press and hold the Volume Up key and the Home key, then press and hold the Power key.
3. When the device logo screen displays, release only the Power key.
4. When the Android logo displays, release all keys (‘Installing system update’ will show for about 30 – 60 seconds before showing the Android system recovery menu options).
5. Press the Volume down key several times key to highlight ‘wipe cache partition’.
6. Press the Power key to select.
7. Press the Volume down key to highlight ‘yes’ and press the Power key to select.
8. When the wipe cache partition is complete, ‘Reboot system now’ is highlighted.
9. Press the Power key to restart the device.

Your phone may take a little more time booting up after this as it will rebuild the caches so give it a couple of minutes and if it still gets stuck in bootloop, then you have no other choice but to do the next one.

Step 4: Perform the Master reset on your Galaxy A3

You can only do this if you can boot your phone up in Recovery mode. Sadly though, you won’t be able to make a backup of your files and data and this method will delete them all. But when it comes to fixing this kind of problem, it’s the most effective. It only comes as the last resort because you will lose all your important files and data that’s why we’re trying to fix the problem with all the steps above. However, it seems you don’t have much of a choice now so here’s how you reset your A3:

1. Turn off the device.
2. Press and hold the Volume Up key and the Home key, then press and hold the Power key.
3. When the device logo screen displays, release only the Power key
4. When the Android logo displays, release all keys (‘Installing system update’ will show for about 30 – 60 seconds before showing the Android system recovery menu options).
5. Press the Volume down key several times key to highlight ‘wipe data / factory reset.’
6. Press Power button to select.
7. Press the Volume down key until ‘Yes — delete all user data’ is highlighted.
8. Press Power button to select and start the master reset.
9. When the master reset is complete, ‘Reboot system now’ is highlighted.
10. Press the Power key to restart the device.

I hope that we were able to help you fix the problem with your phone.

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