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How to fix Samsung Galaxy J3 unable to turn on but still showing the charging icon when plugged in [Troubleshooting Guide]

ByHarjie Hisona

Power-related issues on android devices is not uncommon regardless whether it runs on a stock or modified firmware. We’ve been receiving complaints from our readers who own the Samsung Galaxy J3 regarding a problem wherein the phone turned off on its own without apparent reason and no longer boots up. We may have already addressed this issue before but we have to tackle it again for the benefits of our readers who reached out to us.

In this article, I’ll be discussing the reasons why J3 refused to turn on and why this is happening in the first place. There are several factors we need to consider to know why the device is unable to turn on. It could be due to some incompatible apps in the system that prevents it from booting up successfully or the phone may have some hardware issues. But since we are not sure what’s really causing the issue, all we need to do is to isolate the problem by digging all possibilities until we can formulate a conclusion and resolve it.

For owners who have other issues with their device, visit our Galaxy J3 troubleshooting page for we have already answered most of the problems and questions sent by our readers. Browse through the page to find problems that are similar with yours and feel free to use our recommended solutions. However, if you need more assistance from us, then fill up our Android issues questionnaire and hit submit to contact us.

Troubleshooting Galaxy J3 that’s unable to turn on

Problem: My Samsung J3 was dead I’ve been charging for around an hour and it’s not turning on. It shows that it’s charging but when I go to turn it on it won’t.

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Troubleshooting: The fact that you can see the charging icon on your phone, it is evident that this might be a minor power-related issue because if the device has hardware problem the icon won’t show up when you have to connect it to the charger. In this case, the best thing that you should do is to isolate the problem by performing the basic troubleshooting procedures on your phone. Here’s what we want you to do:

Perform a battery-pull procedure or forced reboot

In this situation, we have to perform the so-called battery pull method to your device. The purpose of doing it is to close all applications running in the background and to refresh the phone’s memory. To do so, just follow these steps:

  1. Remove the back cover.
  2. Pull the battery out.
  3. Press and hold the Power key for a minute.
  4. Place the battery back in and the back cover.
  5. Turn the phone on.

However, if you have the most recent variant of Galaxy J3, then it doesn’t have a removable battery. Instead of the battery pull procedure, do the forced reboot; press and hold the Volume Down and the Power keys together for 10 seconds and your device may boot up successfully.

If the problem is caused by a glitch in the system, then, your phone will turn on after doing this method. However, if it persists you can do the next procedure.

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Attempt to boot it in Safe mode

The purpose of booting your phone in this mode is to verify if one of the third-party apps is preventing your device from booting up successfully. While in safe mode, all downloaded applications won’t be running in the system, which means if the device doesn’t have a problem booting in this environment, then, it is clear indication that a culprit is causing the issue. Uninstall all those apps starting from the one you recently installed until the issue is resolved.

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

Follow these steps to uninstall apps that you suspect are causing the problem…

  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.

Remember, if the phone successfully boots up in safe mode, then you should consider the problem as fixed as we’ve already make the phone power up. However, if the phone continues to be unresponsive even if you’re trying to boot it up in safe mode, then move on to the next step.

Check for signs of physical and liquid damage

After doing the first two procedures and your phone is still not booting up successfully, you should check if there are signs that the phone is suffering from a physical damage. Any force that would render the phone useless should leave a mark on the outside. Try to look for dents, scratches and even cracks as these are obvious signs of physical damage. Of course, as the owner, you should know if your phone fell on a hard surface or not but assuming there are no signs of physical damage, check for any signs of liquid damage.

The first thing you have to look into is the USB port since it’s the most common entry-point of liquid. If the device got wet, then there’s always a chance that the cause of the problem is liquid damage considering the fact that it’s not water-resistant. Regardless whether there are traces of liquid in the port or not, clean it out using a cotton swab or by inserting a piece of tissue paper into it to absorb the moisture. After which, check the Liquid Damage Indicator located in the SIM card slot; remove the SIM card tray first so that you can look into it. If the LDI remains white, there’s no liquid damage but if it turned red or pinkish, it’s time to bring the device to the service center to have the tech check it for you.

If there’s no sign of either liquid or physical damage, move on to the next procedure.

Attempt to run the phone in Recovery mode

Should this issue been caused by a serious firmware problem, you may still be able to run it in Recovery mode provided that the hardware is fine. After doing all the previous procedures and your phone is still unable to power on and boot up, you need to try to make it run into Android system recovery as you can do a couple of things that might just bring it back to life and make it work normally again. Try to go through a couple of procedures below…

Run J3 in Recovery mode and wipe cache partition

If you can make your phone to run in recovery mode successfully, the first thing you need to try is wipe the cache partition so that all possible corrupt caches will be replaced with new ones. Even if the problem is with the firmware, you may still be able to boot your phone up in this mode and here’s how you do it…

  1. Press and hold the Volume Up key and the Home key, then press and hold the Power key.
  2. When the device logo screen displays, release only the Power key
  3. 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).
  4. Press the Volume down key several times key to highlight ‘wipe cache partition.’
  5. Press the Power key to select.
  6. Press the Volume down key to highlight ‘yes’ and press the Power key to select.
  7. When the wipe cache partition is complete, ‘Reboot system now’ is highlighted.
  8. Press the Power key to restart the device.

Run your phone in Recovery mode and do the master reset

You can only do this if your phone can successfully boot up in recovery mode. So if wiping the cache partition didn’t make your phone boot up into the home screen, this is the next thing you should but you should know that all your personal files and data will be deleted; that’s the compromise you have to do in this situation…

  1. Press and hold the Volume Up key and the Home key, then press and hold the Power key.
  2. When the device logo screen displays, release only the Power key
  3. 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).
  4. Press the Volume down key several times key to highlight ‘wipe data / factory reset.’
  5. Press Power button to select.
  6. Press the Volume down key until ‘Yes — delete all user data’ is highlighted.
  7. Press Power button to select and start the master reset.
  8. When the master reset is complete, ‘Reboot system now’ is highlighted.
  9. Press the Power key to restart the device.

I hope that this troubleshooting guide can help you one way or another.

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