How to fix your Samsung Galaxy A5 (2017) that keeps restarting on its own [Troubleshooting Guide]

More often if your phone is suffering from a firmware problem, its performance will be the first to be affected and among the most common symptoms are sluggishness, frequent freezes and lags, random reboots and shutdowns. These problems need to be addressed immediately as they affect the normal operation of your device. Needless to say, you may not be able to use your phone normally if one of them keeps happening.

In this post, I will tackle the reboot issue with the Samsung Galaxy A5 being the subject of our troubleshooting. We will consider every possibility and rule them out one by one until we arrive at a point wherein we can easily determine what the problem with the device really is. Once we know more about the problem, we can try to formulate a solution that might fix it and prevent it from happening again in the future. If you have a phone like this and are currently bugged by a similar problem, continue reading this post as it may help you.

But before we go to our proper troubleshooting, if you happen to find this page because you were looking for solutions to a different problem, then I suggest you visit our Galaxy A5 troubleshooting page as we’ve already addressed the most commonly reported issues with this phone and you may find what you’re looking for in there. Feel free to use the solutions and workarounds we provided. If they don’t work for you or if you need further assistance, fill up our Android issues questionnaire and then hit submit and we’ll do our best to help you.

How to troubleshoot your Galaxy A5 that keeps rebooting on its own

Random reboot problems are often a sign that your phone is experiencing a firmware issue and whether it’s serious or not, we are yet to know. There were cases wherein third-party apps are the ones causing the problem because they keep on crashing, eventually, the phone would reboot as there are services running in the background that use up too much resources and creating conflicts in the system.

There is of course a possibility that this problem has something to do with some of the hardware components of the phone. For instance, if the battery is not functioning well, it might trigger the phone to restart especially if the power supply is disrupted.

We will use a deductive troubleshooting method to be thorough. We don’t want to miss anything important here but we also want to make it easier for you to fix this problem without compromising the safety of your files and data. With all that being said, here’s what I suggest you do about this problem:

Step 1: Charge your phone and continue using it

Do this procedure even if your phone has enough battery left because we are not simply charging your phone but we’re trying to find out if the random reboots still occur even if your device has a stable power source, in this case the charger. Assuming your phone works fine and doesn’t reboot on its own while plugged in, then it means the problem is with the battery and since your A5 does not have a removable battery, you can’t just buy a new battery and replace it by yourself; you need a technician to replace the battery so as early as now, you bring the phone to the shop and let the tech handle the problem for you.

Step 2: Run your phone in Safe mode and observe

By starting your phone in this mode, you’re actually temporarily disabling all third-party apps. We need to find out if one or some of those apps is causing the problem because if they do, then the problem can easily be fixed; just get rid of those apps and the problem will be gone. You only have to do this if your phone is still rebooting on its own even if it’s charging or plugged in.

Here’s how you start your phone in safe mode:

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’.

Continue using your phone while in this mode just to see if it would still reboot even with all third-party apps disabled. Assuming the reboots don’t occur, then one or some of the apps you installed must be causing the problem. If you don’t have a clue as to which app is the culprit, then try updating apps that need to be updated first. It’s a necessary procedure considering the fact that compatibility issues are the most common reason why apps crash. Here’s how you do it:

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, however, you already have some apps that you suspect are causing the problem, then proceed to clearing their caches and data or even uninstalling them to see if the problem gets fixed. You may have to reset and uninstall more than one apps so make sure to sync them with your account to backup your progress and data before you reset or uninstall them.

How clear apps caches and data on Galaxy A5

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

How to uninstall applications from your Galaxy A5

1. From any Home screen, tap the Apps icon.
2. Tap Settings.
3. Tap Applications.
4. Tap Application manager.
5. Tap the desired application
6. Tap Uninstall.
7. Tap Uninstall again to confirm.

If the reboots continue even your phone is in safe mode or even after you did all these procedures, then move on to the next step.

Step 3: Delete all system caches so that they will be replaced

We will now look into a possibility wherein this problem is caused by some corrupt caches. These temporary files are created and used by the system to make your phone run smoothly. When deleted, the system automatically creates new ones to replace them but when they get corrupted, that’s when the phone encounters performance-related issues like random reboots and the like. Let’s rule out this possibility that perhaps this problem is caused by some corrupt caches. So, take time booting your phone in recovery mode and wiping the cache partition so Android will create new files. Here’s how you do it:

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.

If the problem still occurs after this procedure, then you have to resort to a more general troubleshooting procedure that has a higher probability of fixing this problem–master reset.

Step 4: Backup important files and data, then reset your phone

Your phone can still boot up successfully and you may still be able to use it normally until the problem occurs. You may still be able to make a backup of your files and data because they will be deleted when you reset your phone and you may not be able to restore them after. After the backup, make sure to take note of your Google ID and password or better yet, disable the Factory Reset Protection (FRP) of your phone so that you won’t be locked out.

How to disable FRP on Galaxy A5

1. From the Home screen, tap the Apps icon.
2. Tap Settings.
3. Tap Accounts.
4. Tap Google.
5. Tap your Google ID email address. If you have multiple accounts setup, you will need to repeat these steps for each account.
6. Tap More.
7. Tap Remove account.
8. Tap REMOVE ACCOUNT.

How to do the Master Reset on Galaxy A5

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.

Alternatively, you can reset your phone from the Settings menu…

1. From the Home screen, tap the Apps icon.
2. Tap Settings.
3. Tap Backup and reset.
4. If desired, tap Back up my data to move the slider to ON or OFF.
5. If desired, tap Restore to move the slider to ON or OFF.
6. Tap Factory data reset.
7. Tap Reset device.
8. If you have screen lock turned on, enter your PIN or password.
9. Tap Continue.
10. Tap Delete all.

I hope this troubleshooting guide can help you regain your phone’s performance.

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