Welcome to another #GalaxyS6 post! We bring you more issues reported for this device during the past few days. If you don’t find your issue published yet, keep watching for more S6 posts in the coming days.

These are the specific topics we cover today:

Galaxy S6 Edge randomly rebooting on its own | Galaxy S6 Edge no longer boots up normally
Galaxy S6 won’t turn on
Unlocked Galaxy S6 won’t work Virgin UK network
Galaxy S6 keeps getting “Unfortunately, Settings has stopped” error after updating Google app
Galaxy S6 mobile data won’t work until Airplane mode is toggled on/off
Galaxy S6 Edge Plus won’t charge

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 S6 Edge randomly rebooting on its own | Galaxy S6 Edge no longer boots up normally

Hey Droidguy. I’m having some issues with my Galaxy S6 Edge and was wondering If you could help me rule out some issues I’m having with the phone. I charged my battery yesterday and about 2 hours later it died on me saying it was at 0%. I found that weird since I didn’t really use my phone during that time. I plugged it in and it showed that it was plugged in by showing the lightning bolt on the battery sign, but it wasn’t charging my phone. with the little bit of life it had left I rebooted it, erased the data, thinking maybe it would get out of its trance. Even after all that it continued acting up and not charging. I left it alone all night to see if maybe it would need time to cool down. Now it won’t show any sign of life being that the battery is completely drained. It’s really strange because it randomly just turned off and never turned back on. This phone is still under the year guarantee but I don’t want to return the phone to Verizon until I truly know what’s going on. Verizon has a tendency to knitpick at physical damages and if they feel like all of this is my fault, they will charge me full price for the replacement. Thanks for taking the time to read my email and I hope to hear from you soon. Thanks! — Juan

Solution: Hi Juan. The best (and only) thing that you can do right now is to check if you can turn the phone on to other modes — safe mode, recover mode, and download mode. This means that the phone must be able to turn back on but not in normal mode. If your phone can do that, there may be a chance that you can make it work normally again depending on which mode it turns on to. Below are the steps that you can try:

Boot in Recovery mode:

Charge the phone for at least 30 minutes.
Press and then hold the Home and Volume UP keys, then press and hold the Power key.
When the Samsung Galaxy S7 shows on the screen, release the Power key but continue holding the Home and Volume Up keys.
When the Android logo shows, you may release both keys and leave the phone be for about 30 to 60 seconds.
Using the Volume Down key, navigate through the options and highlight ‘wipe cache partition.’
You can either wipe the cache partition or do a factory reset when in this mode.

Boot in Download Mode:

Charge the phone for at least 30 minutes.
Press and then hold the Home and Volume DOWN keys, then press and hold the Power key.
When the Samsung Galaxy S7 shows on the screen, release the Power key but continue holding the Home and Volume DOWN keys.
Wait until the Download screen appears.
If you can boot the phone in download mode but not in other modes, that means that your only way out may be to flash a stock or custom firmware.
Use Google to look for a guide on how to do it.

Boot in safe mode:

Charge the phone for at least 30 minutes.
Press and hold the Power button.
Once the ‘Samsung Galaxy S7’ logo appears, release the Power key and immediately press and hold the Volume Down button.
Continue holding the button until the phone finishes rebooting.
Once you see the text “Safe mode” at the bottom left corner of the screen, release the Volume Down button.
The only difference of safe mode from normal mode is that the former prevents third party apps from running. If you can boot the phone in safe mode but not in normal mode, uninstall all apps until the issue (that prevents you from booting normally) is eliminated.

If your phone remains unresponsive and won’t even allow you to do the different hardware button combinations, the only option for you is to either have the hardware checked or the unit replaced.

Problem #2: Galaxy S6 won’t turn on

Hello guys, how are you? I read in your blog that I could send my issue for you, then here I’m. I’m Denis by the way.

So, this morning I was using my phone as usual and suddenly everything just stopped to work and I thought that it was just a error or something.

Then I pressed and hold the power button and volume down trying restart it and it worked. however when ‘Samsung Galaxy S6 Edge’ appears on my screen my phone started to get really hot and just turned off again.

After that it isn’t turning on again. I tried follow all these steps: https://thedroidguy.com/how-to, but without success.

When it’s plugged in the power or USB port I’m not receiving any signal that it’s charging or something.

Do you know what could I do for it? Is this a case to leave in some support? Thank you very much. — Denis

Solution: Hi Denis. This issue is similar to Juan’s above. Kindly refer to our suggestions for him.

Problem #3: Unlocked Galaxy S6 won’t work Virgin UK network

Hi. I’m in the UK. I bought a Samsung S6 on eBay. it’s meant to be unlocked. It works with my friend’s SIM card (on the Vodaphone network) but not on mine (I’m on Virgin/EE).

I have a feeling it isn’t actually locked but not 100% sure. I never get a message saying its locked. In fact it accepts the SIM, shows the reception bars, and even shows “Virgin” on the top right of the screen. I just can’t make calls, send texts or use mobile data! When I use the Virgin SIM in another phone it works. I called Virgin and they can’t help me.

Can you think of anything i can do to get it to work? The people i bought it from say it’s unlocked and wont refund me! I can’t even pay to get it unlocked because I don’t know what network it’s locked to if any. Thanks. — Brian

Solution: Hi Brian. If Virgin’s basic services such calls, SMS, and mobile data don’t work on this phone, the following are the possible reasons for the issue:

SIM card may not be activated
SIM card may be installed incorrectly
the phone is still locked
the phone may have a different operating frequency

The first two causes can be ruled out as we assume you install the SIM card correctly on the device and SIM card must be activated since it works on another phone. That leaves you with two possible causes.

That the phone may really be still locked to its original network is possible and that network may be Vodaphone. As far as we know, there are no CDMA networks in the UK so assuming that the phone is not from other countries like the US or Canada, it must only be a GSM device. The original owner may have misinformed you by saying that the device has been unlocked. Unfortunately, there’s no way to check that for sure on your end unless you call Vodafone and they can confirm whether that device has been cleared from their system. Unless it’s been unlocked, there’s no way that you can insert a non-Vodafone SIM card to it and expect it to work. In other countries, third party shops can find a way to unlock a GSM phone to make it usable to other GSM networks so you may want to try that route if you badly need this phone to work. Unlocking via third party and not via the parent network of the device can cost some money so you must be ready to invest something.

The other potential problem is that the phone’s hardware may be configured to work with certain frequency bands only, and not with Virgin’s frequency. To check, go under the Settings app and look for the device’s IMEI number. Once you have that information, go to IMEI checker site and enter the IMEI number. There should be a line in the Basic Information section that should show your phone’s GSM operating frequencies. Compare the information of the GSM bands to that of Virgin frequencies in your area to see if this phone is compatible. You may have to call Virgin to get accurate information regarding this. Keep in mind that the operating frequency in a phone cannot be changed. If Virgin does not support your phone’s GSM bands, use a different SIM preferably Vodaphone to use the device.

Problem #4: Galaxy S6 keeps getting “Unfortunately, Settings has stopped” error after updating Google app

Hi. I know you’ve covered this issue before but I had a slightly different and specific experience. I just bought a second-hand Galaxy S6 from a store. After installing my previous apps on the ‘new’ phone, it gave the error message “Unfortunately, Settings has stopped” when I clicked on my Google account in Settings (SETTINGS>ACCOUNTS>GOOGLE).

I thought it might be a compatibility issue with one of my apps so I did a factory reset on the phone and only installed the Google and Samsung apps. Everything was fine for a while but after the Google app updated itself a few hours later (the little ‘g’ in the blue square changed to the big multi-coloured ‘G’), it did the same again. This was without any oher apps on the phone. So I presumed there was something wrong with the phone itself, took it back to the store and got a replacement (used) S6 phone.

The exact same thing happened again (and again I did a factory reset with only the Google app and Samsung apps). I turned off the auto-update on the Google app in Google Play. Everything worked fine. Then (out of curiosity) I updated the Google app and the error message came again when I clicked on my Google account in Settings. Is there something wrong with the Google app itself? Do you have any suggestions? I could just never update the Google app to see if this works but this seems a bit drastic. Regards. — Brendan

Solution: Hi Brendan. We cannot see the logic of a Google app itself having compatibility issue with any Android version but if it keeps on happening, then you want to leave the said app not updated. We’ve not heard of this issue happening so it must be a unique issue with the operating system version running on the device. We’re assuming of course that the device has an official Android firmware. It if doesn’t, consider flashing a stock Samsung firmware to see the difference.

For more assistance, we also suggest that you contact Google to see if there’s something that they can do to help.

Problem #5: Galaxy S6 mobile data won’t work until Airplane mode is toggled on/off

Hello. I have a Samsung Galaxy S6 and I’ve had it for about a year now, I bought the phone brand new and ever since day one I’ve been having network problems (Sasktel). It seems as if my data quits working altogether and if I reset it or turn it into air plane mode and back it works fine for about an hour sometimes not even then it’s back to the same thing. I sent it away to get fixed but they did nothing- I still have to put it into air plane mode to get my data to work. Just wondering if you have heard of this problem with the phone before and if you have what is the issue. I probably used this phone 3 months total that I’ve had it just because it’s such a hassle having to put it into airplane mode and back just to get my data to work

Any help would be appreciated thanks. — Sievert

Solution: Hi Sievert. If the issue has been going on for a long time already, the most likely cause may be one of your apps. Try to boot the phone in safe mode and observe how mobile data works for a full day to see a difference. If the issue won’t occur while safe mode is enabled, that’s a clear indicator that one of your third party apps is to blame. To boot in safe mode, follow these steps:

Press and hold the Volume Down and Power keys for 20 to 30 seconds.
Once you see the Samsung logo, release the Power key immediately but continue pressing the Volume Down key.
Your phone should continue booting up and you will be prompted to unlock your phone as usual.
You will know if the phone successfully booted in safe mode if the text “Safe mode” is displayed at the lower-left corner of the screen.

Remember, booting in safe mode will not tell you what the exact app is causing the trouble. It only tells you that a third party app is problematic so make sure that you uninstall third party apps until the issue is gone.

Alternatively, you can do the opposite and do a more drastic troubleshooting via factory reset. Start by restoring all software settings to default, then observe the phone for about 24 hours. Also, make sure that you don’t install anything during this time. If mobile data works consistently, that’s proof that an app is responsible. To identify which app it is, install each one at a time and observe how mobile data works again. Do it for every app until you identify the culprit. For reference, these are steps on how to factory reset your device:

Turn off your Samsung Galaxy S6 Edge.
Press and hold the Volume Up, Home and Power keys together.
When the device powers on and displays ‘Power on logo’, release all keys and the Android icon will appear on the screen.
Wait until the Android Recovery Screen appears after about 30 seconds.
Using the Volume Down key, highlight the option, ‘wipe data/factory reset’ and press the Power key to select it.
Press the Volume Down button again until the option ‘Yes — delete all user data’ is highlighted and then press the Power key to select it.
After the reset is complete, highlight ‘Reboot system now’ and hit the Power key to restart the phone.

Problem #6: Galaxy S6 Edge Plus won’t charge

Hi there. I own a Samsung Galaxy S6 Plus Edge and I’ve only had it for a few months. Lately when it’s charging it says that it’s charging slowly and I should use the original charger. I’ve only ever used the original charger with this phone but unplugging and plugging again usually solves that issue. Last night my phone was at 4% so I charged it and went to bed. When I woke up it was completely dead. The LED light wasn’t red or green and nothing was on the screen. So I tried to play around with it a little and plugged it back into the wall and the icon with the lightning bolt showed up but it still wasn’t charging. I went through a couple of your suggestions from what I could find off of Google but nothing has worked. I plugged it into my laptop and the lightning bolt showed up again but still no charging light. I don’t think it’s my charging cable as I’m charging my dead Galaxy S4 and the LED light on that is showing up and it’s charging fine. Lots of your suggestions included resetting the phone but I can’t really “turn it off” or “reset” as it won’t even turn on! Please let me know if there’s any other information I can give you. I hope you will be able to help me out with my problem. Thank you. — Natasha

Solution: Hi Natasha. As we briefly discuss above, there’s very little to nothing that a user can do if a phone does not boot up normally, or won’t even boot at all. If you can’t turn the phone back on to alternate modes as mentioned above, then the problem is definitely beyond an average user’s ability to identify and fix. The cause can be a bad charging port, a malfunctioning battery, or some damaged components. Whatever the reason is, you want to let a professional check the hardware for you. If the phone is still within the warranty period, contact Samsung (or any relevant party) to demand for a replacement.

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Galaxy S6 mobile data won’t work until Airplane mode is toggled on/off, other issues