How to fix your Samsung Galaxy S8 that started to keep hanging after an update [Troubleshooting Guide]

We can seldom see high-end phones like the Samsung Galaxy S8 encounter performance related concerns because they often don’t run out or resources to cater the needs of all its apps and services. However, as you continue to use it for months, you will notice that little by little, it’s performance deteriorates especially if you’ve already installed a lot of apps and saved a lot of files in its. Then one day, you may encounter some lags, sluggishness that would turn into freezes or hangs. When these things happen to your phone, it means that you need to look into it immediately so as to prevent simple problems from becoming more complex.

In this article, I will tackle the frequent hanging issue with the Samsung Galaxy S8 and I will walk you through in troubleshooting your device until we can fix the problem and make your phone work as fast as before. We’ll try to consider every possibility and rule them out one after another until we can easily pinpoint what the issue is all about. We may have to do some procedures that can potentially fix the problem and then move to another if the issue remains. So, continue reading below as this post may help you.

But before anything else, if you’re currently experiencing different issues with your phone, then I suggest you visit our Samsung Galaxy S8 troubleshooting page for we’ve already started providing support to our readers who own this device. We understand your phone is still brand new and it should work perfectly without a hitch but not even Samsung can guarantee there won’t be any problems. What we do here is provide help to our readers the best we can so if we haven’t published posts about your concern, feel free to contact us by filling up our Android issues questionnaire.

How to troubleshoot your Galaxy S8 that keeps hanging / freezing

More often than not, a smartphone that keeps hanging is also running very slow and most of the time it becomes really sluggish before it freezes. The freeze may reach up to a few minutes before you can use your phone depending on how serious the problem is. It’s a very annoying problem as it prevents you from using your phone normally and I understand that you want to fix it, so here are the things you can do to try to fix this issue…

Step 1: Try the forced reboot for it might be a glitch

If it’s the first time that this problem happened to you, don’t try anything else yet but do the forced reboot procedure. Press and hold the Volume Down and Power keys together for 7 to 10 seconds to reboot your phone. If the hanging or freezing is due to a glitch, your phone should work properly after the reboot. If not, then try the next step.

Step 2: Reboot your phone in Safe mode

Running your phone in safe mode doesn’t fix the problem. However, doing so will give you an idea if the problem is caused by one or some of the third-party apps you installed.

This is how you start your Galaxy S8 in Safe mode…

Turn the device off.
Press and hold the Power key past the model name screen.
When “SAMSUNG” appears on the screen, release the Power key.
Immediately after releasing the Power key, press and hold the Volume down key.
Continue to hold the Volume down key until the device finishes restarting.
Safe mode will display in the bottom left corner of the screen.
Release the Volume down key when you see Safe Mode.

You don’t have to do anything while in this environment except observe your phone closely to know if the freezes still occur because if so, then we might be looking at a possible firmware problem. However, if the hanging disappears, then it’s clear enough that this problem is due to one or some of the apps you installed. In this case, you can try updating the apps that need to be updated:

From the Home screen, swipe up on an empty spot to open the Apps tray.
Tap Play Store.
Tap the Menu key and then tap My Apps. To keep your apps automatically updated, tap the Menu > Settings then tap Auto-update apps to select the check box.
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.

Assuming you have some apps that you suspect, you should try clearing their caches and data and if that won’t work, you should try uninstalling them one by one.

How to clear app cache and data on Galaxy S8

From the Home screen, swipe up on an empty spot to open the Apps tray.
Tap Settings > Apps.
Tap the desired application in the default list or tap 3 dots icon > Show system apps to display pre-installed apps.
Tap Storage.
Tap Clear data and then tap OK.
Tap Clear cache.

How to uninstall applications from Galaxy S8

From the Home screen, swipe up on an empty spot to open the Apps tray.
Tap Settings > Apps.
Tap the desired application in the default list or tap 3 dots icon > Show system apps to display pre-installed apps.
Tap the desired application.
Tap Uninstall.
Tap Uninstall again to confirm.

Step 3: Try wiping the cache partition

Assuming the S8 still hangs or freezes while it’s in safe mode, then you should try wiping the cache partition so that all system caches will be replaced with new ones. Don’t worry, this procedure is pretty safe for your phone and your data. None of your files will be deleted and it’s as effective as the reset.

Turn off the device.
Press and hold the Volume Up key and the Bixby key, then press and hold the Power key.
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).
Press the Volume down key several times to highlight “wipe cache partition.”
Press the Power key to select.
Press the Volume down key to highlight “yes” and press the Power key to select.
When the wipe cache partition is complete, “Reboot system now” is highlighted.
Press the Power key to restart the device.

If the problem still occurs after this procedure, then you should try the next step.

Step 4: Make a backup of your files and reset your phone

After doing everything the steps above and the phone is still hanging or freezing, then you have no other choice but to backup all your files and data and then reset your phone. Hanging issues are pretty minor and based on our experience, a reset will fix it. However, you will have to undergo the hassle of backing up your data before the reset and restoring them after and the length of this process depends on how much data and files you have in your phone.

Just before you reset your phone, make sure you know your Google ID and password. If not, you better follow the steps below to disable the factory reset protection so that you won’t be locked after the reset.

From the Home screen, swipe up on an empty spot to open the Apps tray.
Tap Settings > Cloud and accounts.
Tap Accounts.
Tap Google.
Tap on your Google ID email address if multiple accounts are setup. If you have multiple accounts setup, you will need to repeat these steps for each account.
Tap 3 dot icon.
Tap Remove account.
Tap REMOVE ACCOUNT.

And this is how you reset your Samsung Galaxy S8…

Turn off the device.
Press and hold the Volume Up key and the Bixby key, then press and hold the Power key.
When the green Android logo displays, release all keys (‘Installing system update’ will show for about 30 – 60 seconds before showing the Android system recovery menu options).
Press the Volume down key several times to highlight “wipe data / factory reset.
Press Power button to select.
Press the Volume down key until ‘Yes — delete all user data’ is highlighted.
Press Power button to select and start the master reset.
When the master reset is complete, “Reboot system now” is highlighted.
Press the Power key to restart the device.

I hope that this troubleshooting guide helps.

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