Galaxy Note 5 keeps saying memory is full, stuck in Android logo screen, other issues
Hello guys! Welcome to another #GalaxyNote5 article. This post covers 9 more Note 5 problems we’ve received over the span of a few days so we hope that some of you will find it helpful.
Below are the topics that are included in this post:
- Galaxy Note 5 becomes unresponsive after clearing cache
- Galaxy Note 5 messaging app keeps crashing
- Galaxy Note 5 can’t send/receive group messages
- Galaxy Note 5 keeps saying memory is full
- Photos taken by Galaxy Note 5 camera disappeared
- Galaxy Note 5 lock screen not working all the time
- Galaxy Note 5 camera not working, won’t take pictures
- Galaxy Note 5 stuck in Android logo screen after an update
- Galaxy Note 5 bluetooth issues after repair
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, or you can install our free app from Google Play Store.
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 Note 5 becomes unresponsive after clearing cache
I was attempting to clear the cache and cookies on my Samsung Note 5 and the screen turned to a yellow triangle with a black exclamation mark inside 2 vertical white dots in decreasing size below the middle of the bottom of the triangle and a white android symbol tipped to the right with “x’s” for eyes. The phone is locked. Cannot turn off…just waiting for the battery to wear down. Could not figure out how to remove the back cover to attempt a soft reset but reading some online discussions on this problem that did not fix the problem for others. Thank you for any assistance you can provide! — Kim
Solution: Hi Kim. In older phones, removing the back cover and the battery would have easily did a restart. This is not obviously possible with the Galaxy Note 5 so to simulate a “battery pull,” also known as soft reset, you must do the following:
- Press and hold the Power and Volume down buttons for 12 seconds.
- Use the Volume down button to scroll to the Power Down option.
- Press the Home key to select.
- Note The device powers down completely. It is recommended that the device be powered up in Safe Mode.
Problem #2: Galaxy Note 5 messaging app keeps crashing
My text messaging lags a lot, sometimes even closing completely out and I get an on screen error notification saying (sorry messaging isn’t responding right now). When I’m typing and the phone is receiving a message it will close out giving me the same notification. I will open up the messaging to go back to my conversation and everything I had typed out is gone, not saved as a draft.
It will also sometimes include words I didn’t type when it’s freezing up then will continue allowing me to type without force closing. I’ve done everything I know to do besides a hard reset and clearing data in my app manager. Yes I have cleared the cache and kept all running apps closed. No I have not recently downloaded anything that could cause my phone to be bugged or have a virus. — Ashley
Solution: Hi Ashley. Try to boot the phone to safe mode to see if a third party app is causing this trouble. Safe Mode is the first fail-safe procedure you can use to diagnose a problem. Once the device has booted up in this mode, all third-party or downloaded apps would be temporarily disabled leaving pre-installed and core services running.
- Turn off the phone completely.
- Press and hold the Power key.
- Once ‘Samsung Galaxy Note5’ shows, release the Power key and immediately press and hold the Volume Down button.
- The phone will restart but keep the Volume Down button pressed.
- Once the phone has finished restarting, ‘Safe mode’ will be display in the lower-left corner of the screen.
- You may now release the Volume Down button.
Observe the phone by creating a message in the messaging app. Try to do this for a few hours to notice any difference. You can also try to see if this is an app-level bug by using a different messaging app.
If the problem returns, do a factory reset. Here’s how:
- Create a backup of your important files.
- Turn off your Samsung Galaxy Note 5 completely.
- Press and hold the Volume Up and the Home buttons first, and then press and hold the Power key.
- Keep the three buttons pressed and when ‘Samsung Galaxy Note5’ shows, release the Power key but continue holding the other two.
- Once the Android logo shows, release both the Volume Up and Home buttons.
- The notice ‘Installing system update’ will show on the screen for 30 to 60 seconds before the Android system recovery screen is shown with its options.
- Use the Volume Down key to highlight the option ‘Yes — delete all user data’ and press the Power key to select it.
- When the process is complete, use the Volume Down key to highlight the option ‘Reboot system now’ and hit the Power key to restart the phone.
- The reboot may take a little longer to complete but don’t worry and wait for the device to become active.
Problem #3: Galaxy Note 5 can’t send/receive group messages
I am having difficulty sending/receiving text messages to multiple recipients with my Samsung Galaxy Note 5. My carrier is PureTalk on the ATT network. I am using the default Samsung messaging app. I text with my two brothers frequently and receive MMS messages from one of them. They could include a photo or a video and the letters MMS show up just above the received text time stamp. MMS also appears in this location with text only. I interpret this to be a message from my brother that is also being sent to the other brother, hence the MMS indication. There is no way that I can find how to tell whether the received message is delivered to multiple recipients. I have assumed that a reply to a message sent to multiple recipients is a reply to all. However, my brother continues to ask me why I did not reply to all. He says he is able to tell I do not reply to all when he checks responses to his group messages and sees my responses are never listed and that my texts are always to him only. He said try creating a group comprised of my two brothers and sending the reply to the group. I did this and am told I am still replying only to him.
Also, when I reply to one of these MMS texts and choose to specify the recipients (without using the group I created), the sender shows up as the only recipient (by default I guess). When I add the 2nd brother from my contacts list the screen changes to a text chain from the added brother, rather than the sending brother, and I then have no idea if the reply went to both or just the newly added brother. This is all so non-intuitive when coming from a flip phone (with SMS only) to this 2-month old Note 5. Do you have any suggestions? Thanks. — Scott
Solution: Hi Scott. Group messaging is a hit-and-miss feature that has multiple moving parts. A lot of times, group messaging is affected by incompatible devices, apps, or network. If your two brothers are using different phones like iPhones or different, non-Android phones, there’s a big chance that group messaging may not work between the three of you at all. Even if you send a message as a group message from your end, one brother may only receive it as an individual message due to incompatibility issue. The same is true in reverse, with your phone receiving only individual texts even though your brothers replied to the message as a group message.
As a workaround, you can try to use inter-platform apps instead such as Google Hangouts or Facebook’s Messenger to ensure that each one of you receives messages in a group setting.
As reference, below are the steps on how to send a group message in a Galaxy Note 5:
- From any Home screen, tap Messages.
- Tap the Compose icon.
- Tap the Contacts icon.
- Drop down and tap Groups.
- Tap the group you want to send the message to.
- Tap Select all or manually select recipients.
- Tap Done.
- Enter message text in the Group conversation box.
- When done, tap the Send icon
If you’ve been doing this already but the problem continues, you’re out of luck and must use alternate means to group messaging.
Problem #4: Galaxy Note 5 keeps saying memory is full
My husband purchased a Galaxy Note 5 on 2-25-17 and it keeps saying memory full. His phone is only half full. He shuts it off and turns it back on and his correct memory usage comes back. The Note 5 has no removable battery and no SD card. Any suggestions? — Carrie
Solution: Hi Carrie. If the phone is brand new, consider doing some software troubleshooting first to see if there’s an app or software bug that causes the trouble. If, on the other hand, the phone is pre-owned, this may be an on-going problem that the previous owner failed to notify you of so you must try to have it returned.
To troubleshoot the problem, the first step that you want to do is wipe the cache partition to refresh the system cache. Here’s how:
- Turn off your Samsung Galaxy Note 5 completely.
- Press and hold the Volume Up and the Home buttons first, and then press and hold the Power key.
- Keep the three buttons pressed and when ‘Samsung Galaxy Note5’ shows, release the Power key but continue holding the other two.
- Once the Android logo shows, release both the Volume Up and Home buttons.
- The notice ‘Installing system update’ will show on the screen for 30 to 60 seconds before the Android system recovery screen is shown with its options.
- Use the Volume Down key to highlight the option ‘wipe cache partition’ and press the Power key to select it.
- When the process is complete, use the Volume Down key to highlight the option ‘Reboot system now’ and hit the Power key to restart the phone.
- The reboot may take a little longer to complete but don’t worry and wait for the device to become active.
Other troubleshooting steps that you can try include:
- Booting to safe mode (refer to the steps above)
- Installing app and system updates
- Factory reset (refer to the steps above)
Problem #5: Photos taken by Galaxy Note 5 camera disappeared
I noticed that some pictures are missing from my Gallery. I searched in the phone folders but they are gone. I am sure i did not delete and also sure that i took those pictures with my phone camera. — Azizashal
Solution: Hi Azizashal. If you’ve already scoured all phone folders for your photos, try to back your phone up using Samsung Smart Switch and search all folders again in the computer. If this won’t help find them either, that’s sad but there’s nothing more that we can do to help.
Problem #6: Galaxy Note 5 lock screen not working all the time
Phone will not lock immediately on occasions. I have checked all settings and taken it to the Verizon store for them to work in it. They reset everything back to factory settings and checked my settings. After several days the swipe screen lock did the same thing. — Lynndavis0428
Solution: Hi Lynndavis0428. If the problem returns after a factory reset, you may have simply re-introduced the cause of it by installing a problematic app. Try to start the phone in safe mode and observe how the lock screen works for a few days. Safe mode blocks third party apps and services so you will be unable to use third party apps throughout the observation period. To boot to safe mode, do these steps:
- Turn off the phone completely.
- Press and hold the Power key.
- Once ‘Samsung Galaxy Note5’ shows, release the Power key and immediately press and hold the Volume Down button.
- The phone will restart but keep the Volume Down button pressed.
- Once the phone has finished restarting, ‘Safe mode’ will be display in the lower-left corner of the screen.
- You may now release the Volume Down button
Alternatively, you can do another round of factory reset and observe how lock screen works when there are no apps and updates installed.
If you think an app is causing the problem, you must uninstall them one by one in order to identify it.
Problem #7: Galaxy Note 5 camera not working, won’t take pictures
The camera stopped video recording a few days ago, then I woke up to find that the camera will not take pictures either. No error message, just nothing happens when I hit either button. I tried turning my phone off, but still the same outcome. I do not have access to the battery for a soft reset. — Bruce
Solution: Hi Bruce. Do a factory reset and see how it goes from there. If this is due to a software bug, factory reset should fix it. If the problem remains after a factory reset, that’s an indication that bad hardware is causing it. In this case, you want to send it in for repair or replacement.
- To factory reset your Note 5, follow these steps:
- Create a backup of your important files.
- From the Home screen, tap the Apps icon.
- Find and tap the Settings icon.
- Under the ‘Personal’ section, find and tap Backup and reset.
- Tap Factory data reset.
- Touch Reset device to proceed with the reset.
- Depending on the security lock you used, enter the PIN or password.
- Tap Continue.
- Touch Delete all to confirm your action.
Problem #8: Galaxy Note 5 stuck in Android logo screen after an update
Hi. I completed the new update on my Note 5. I cleared the caches like you instructed in the troubleshooting section, sadly that did not work. I even went as far as doing a factory reset and the Android icon keeps flashing as well as the black screen with the logo. What else can i do? It was perfectly fine until the update. Thanks in advance for any information. — Tdfajardo
Solution: Hi Tdfajardo. We don’t know the history of your device so there’s really nothing much that we can do to help. If factory reset did not fix the issue though, the update may have corrupted the bootloader so there may be a need to reflash it. Before you try manual flashing though, we strongly suggest that you talk to Samsung or your carrier for a replacement instead. We are assuming of course that OTA update was the only thing that you tried differently. If this problem occurred after a failed manual flashing, try to reflash the bootloader before attempting to reflash a stock firmware. Below are the general steps on how to flash a bootloader. Keep in mind that the exact steps may vary on your phone model so we are not responsible for any damage. Do your own research first to avoid causing further complications.
- Look for the correct firmware for your phone model and download it. Make sure that select the right one. It should be the same exact firmware that ran previously on your device. We assume that you list down the firmware version somewhere. If you did not take note of it before, there’s a chance that you may pick the wrong one. As you may know now, using an incorrect firmware can cause complications so good luck with that.
- Let’s now say that you have identified the correct firmware. You then want to download it to your computer. The firmware file should have a bunch of files in it like AP_, BL_, CSC_, etc.
- Look for the file that starts with a label BL; this should be the corresponding bootloader file for this firmware. Once you’ve identified the bootloader file, copy it to your computer’s desktop or to any other folder that you can easily access.
- Proceed with the rest of the flashing procedure using the Odin program.
- In Odin, click on the BL tab and make sure to use the bootloader file you’ve identified earlier.
- Now, make sure that the “Device Added” status and its “ID:COM box” has turned blue before hitting the START button. This will initiate the flashing of your phone’s bootloader.
- Restart the phone once the procedure is finished.
Problem #9: Galaxy Note 5 bluetooth issues after repair
I recently replaced the screen, LCD, digitizer and the charging port in my Note 5 and after I put it back together bluetooth is having major connectivity issues. Is there something in the phone that could cause this? My battery also gets hot. — Jeremy
Solution: Hi Jeremy. This is exactly one of the reasons why repairs should only be done by professionals. If you don’t know what to do next, we suggest that you let someone that knows how to do the job check the phone.
As far as knowing what may be causing the issues, there’s nothing that we can do for you. A full hardware check and diagnostics must be done to determine that. We can’t obviously check the device physically so we can’t even know where to start. There may be a short in the logic board or poorly done weld between parts. If you were not careful and used an incompatible replacement part, that can also result to issues that may manifest in something you’re experiencing right now.
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