Now that Samsung’s biggest fiasco with its Galaxy Note 7 device appears to be behind us (but not for Samsung apparently as losses can amount to billions of dollars), Android community, specifically Samsung users can again go on with their digital life. In this episode of #GalaxyS7 troubleshooting series, we bring you another article that covers 6 more issues.

Below are the specific topics that we present to you in this one:

Galaxy S7 Edge keeps restarting itself after installing a game
Galaxy S7 SD card reformatting question
Galaxy S7 keeps saying SD card has been removed | What does SD card unmounting mean?
Galaxy S7 Edge stuck in boot loop when Wi-Fi is on
SideSync via USB not working on Galaxy S7
Galaxy S7 Edge broken screen issue covered by carrier or Samsung warranty?

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 S7 Edge keeps restarting itself after installing a game

I have an issue with my S7 Edge restarting itself. The issue started happening shortly after I downloaded a game. I have gone through a few trouble shooting steps such as soft reboot, clearing the games cache, and placing it in safe mode. Now, before I downloaded the game Plants Vs Zombies Hero’s my phone had never crashed. Afterwards it crashed a few times while I was playing. I had also noticed that somehow the game was eating up more battery life. Since apparently there is no close button and I had to close it via recent apps button. Now I closed the game with the help of the recent button and had noticed that even when I am not playing the game it can crash. Currently I have it in safe mode, since I am pretty sure it is the app and not the firmware. When it rebooted it only did it 2-3 times a day when I constantly used it. (most of the time I just use it for games and music since that literally is about 90% of my phones use). It hasn’t restarted in the past hour while being in safe mode, though with 2-3 resets on a heavy use day it’s unlikely I will be able to see if it’s the 3rd party software. I do relatively enjoy the game so I would prefer not to uninstall it. That being said I was wondering if there was any way to safeguard it from rebooting with the app installed while being out of safe mode. Otherwise I may have to consider uninstalling the game and seeing if it really is the game itself and not something else. (though 85% sure it’s the game at this point). — Shawn

Solution: Hi Shawn. Since you seemed to have isolated the cause of the issue to the new app, why don’t you uninstall it? In fact, the purpose of booting a phone in safe mode is to determine if a third party party is problematic. If the phone works normally and doesn’t boot as often after installing the game, then that app is most likely not compatible or buggy. And no, there’s no other way to prevent the phone from rebooting if the reason for the problem is the game app being installed in the first place. You must remove it and observe the phone for some time (at least 24 hours), in order to see the difference.

If you want to see the game improved in the future, contact its developer so you can let them know of the issue in this phone model.

Problem #2: Galaxy S7 SD card reformatting question

Hello. I am glad I found you and I hope you can answer my question. Anyway, back when, when I got my Galaxy S4, I bought an SD card that was not Samsung, and the tech installed it right away when I purchased the phone. But I never formatted it, saying it wasn’t necessary. Anyway, 6 months later, the phone started randomly and quickly deleted files on it. When I realized it, I ejected the SD card and saved what files were left in my computer. Many were never recovered. I then bought a Samsung card and formatted it to replace it, and never had any problems after that for the remaining 3 years that I used the phone.

Anyway, I upgraded to a Note 7 and formatted the Samsung phone that came as a bonus with the phone. Now I replaced the recalled phone with a Galaxy S7 Edge, and I am concerned if I must re-format the card now that I am switching it into another phone. The S7 is reading the card, and all my files on it fine, but I am worried that I may have problems with it down the road. I would have just moved all the files to the device, re-format, then move them back again, except that the S7 has less device storage than the Note 7, which is not enough to fit all my SD card files. Any advice would be greatly appreciated. Thank you. — Michelle

Solution: Hi Michelle. Hi there are a number of other factors that can cause file corruption on an SD card and not just a failure to reformat it before using it in a device. Making sure that you reformat it before using it greatly decreases the chance of bugs from developing later on though. That said, we still recommend that you reformat the SD card using your Galaxy S7 now. Save your files in a computer first before inserting the SD card to your S7 so you can reformat it. Once it’s been reformatted, load your files back to it.

Also, it’s worth emphasizing that creating a copy of irreplaceable files in other devices is a must in our digital world. SD cards, regardless of brands, are still relatively easy to mess up with; they can get corrupted anytime. Always keep it a habit of creating a backup.

Problem #3: Galaxy S7 keeps saying SD card has been removed | What does SD card unmounting mean?

Hi. I’m having several problems with my SD card but I think I need to solve the biggest problem first. I’ve had my S7 for about 2 months. I had an 8 GB SD card in my old S3 phone and transferred to the S7. I had purchased the SD card from the T-Mobile store. A couple weeks ago I started receiving notices on my lock screen that said the SD card had been removed and it hadn’t been. When I checked the Storage setting, it didn’t show the SD card. I tried re-inserting the SD card yesterday and, after several tries, it worked and I could see the card in Storage and the pictures that are stored on the card. But, lo and behold, today I have the notice again that the SD card has been removed, and it has not been. I noticed that it is rather difficult to put the SD card in the tray and slide it back into the phone without jarring the card out of place. So I’m wondering if it is sliding out of place at some point or if the contacts on the phone for the card are not working properly.

Also, I’m not sure what mounting the SD card means. I would think if it slides out of place I would get a notice that the SD card has been unmounted and not that it has been removed. Thanks. I’ll wait for your reply. — Mary

Solution: Hi Mary. The cause of the screen message that tells you SD card is not detected can be a sign of three things:

that the SD may be experiencing some problems,
that there’s something wrong with the phone’s SD card slot or,
that the phone itself has a defect caused by either software glitch or hardware malfunction.

To check if it’s an SD card issue, make sure that you reformat it using your S7. Refer to our suggestion for Michelle above. Once you’ve reformat the SD card, observe how everything works for a week. If you’ll randomly get the same error message again, you can start looking into the other two factors. In this case you then try to do the basic software troubleshooting for Android issues such as wiping the cache partition, booting in safe mode, and factory/master reset. If nothing will change after you do all these three procedures, you can assume that your phone may be defective. Contact Samsung or any relevant party so you can have the phone replaced.

For reference, below are the steps on how to do the basic software solutions.

How to wipe the cache partition of Galaxy S7

Turn off the device.
Press and hold the Volume Up key and the Home key, then press and hold the Power key.
When the device logo screen displays, release only 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 key to highlight ‘wipe cache partition.’
Press the Power key to select.
Press the Volume down key to highlight ‘yes’ an 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.

How to boot Galaxy S7 to safe mode

Turn your Galaxy S7 off.
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.
Now, all third party apps and their associated services will be prevented from running. Make sure that you observe the phone for 24 hours. If the issue won’t occur, then one of your apps is causing the problem. You must uninstall apps until the cause of the problem is removed.

How to master reset a Galaxy S7

Turn off your Samsung Galaxy S7.
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 data / factory reset.’
Once highlighted, you may press the Power key to select it.
Now highlight the option ‘Yes — delete all user data’ using the Volume Down key and press the Power button to select it.
Wait until your phone is finished doing the Master Reset. Once completed, highlight ‘Reboot system now’ and press the Power key.
The phone will now reboot longer than usual.

Now let’s answer your second question. Mounting the SD card means a user-initiated command that tells the operating system that the SD card is now in place and ready to be accessed. Unmounting is basically the opposite and is also a command for the operating system telling it that the SD card must no longer be accessed. Keep in mind that interrupting the system while it’s trying to write to or read from the SD card can lead to file or SD card corruption. Unmounting the SD card will prepare the OS to stop accessing the SD card so you can physically remove it from the device. If you don’t unmount the SD card before pulling out the tray, there’s a chance that it may get corrupted to become permanently damaged.

Problem #4: Galaxy S7 Edge stuck in boot loop when Wi-Fi is on

Hey Droid Guy. My S7 Edge has recently been getting stuck in a boot loop in a couple of different instances. It restarts and gets stuck if I’m (1) on wifi and trying to look up pages in Chrome or running multiple apps, (2) when I’m on wifi and plug in the phone to charge (3) at any random point during the day if wifi is on.

I haven’t noticed it happening when I’m not using wifi, but wifi is on most of the time because I use it at work and home.

I’ve cleared the Cache and I’ve master reset the phone, but it still does it. T-Mobile couldn’t help me and only offered to send me an insurance replacement (even though i’ve only had the phone for about 7 months). Any help would be nice. — Chris

Solution: Hi Chris. The only thing that we can suggest in this case, since you’ve already tried master reset, is to check if a third party app is responsible. This can be done by observing the phone while safe mode is on. As mentioned above, safe mode will not allow third party apps from running. If one of them is the reason, the issue should not occur. If that’s the case, start by uninstalling apps that also uses Wi-Fi to function like Wi-fi analyzers or similar ones. The only you can do here is trial-and-error so just continue uninstalling apps until you notice that the problem is no longer happening.

If nothing will change though, go ahead with phone replacement.

Problem #5: SideSync via USB not working on Galaxy S7

Hi. I’ve been going in circles in connecting my S7 via USB to my Windows 10 computer as well as OSX computer. With Explorer I only get an error when trying to copy files. I tried phone companion and nothing happened. I have been trying SideSync. And it worked one time ( I was able to copy a file on my pc) but after that all I get is a going back and forth that the USB is connected and then connection is lost.

I tried on my Mac SideSync combined with Android file transfer and all I get is to restart my device or plug it in again. When I switch the USB connection to the picture transfer setting I can see the pictures on the Mac.

I have restarted all devices many times and tried 3 different USB cables but at this point think it has to be something with the phone not keeping a connection. Thanks. — Jody

Solution: Hi Jody. You’re right, the problem may be phone-related so you may end up having to request for phone replacement if you really want to make SideSync on USB work. In the meantime, you can try these workarounds to see if they’ll help:

Update. Make sure that you install the latest Android system update. Sometimes, updating to the latest software version can fix ills so try this one first.
Use SideSync over Wi-Fi. Since you seem to be having unexplained issues when using SideSync over USB, why not try share data between devices via Wi-Fi? To do that, follow these steps:
- Install SideSync on both PC/Mac and mobile.
- Ensure that both PC/Mac and mobile are connected on the same Access Point or Wi-Fi/local area network.
- Pair the devices.
- Begin the transfer of files.
Use SD card. If you really need to move files over to your PC or MAC, consider moving the files to an SD card, then insert the SD later to your computer.
Replace the phone. For a permanent fix, find a way to have the phone replaced.

Problem #6: Galaxy S7 Edge broken screen issue covered by carrier or Samsung warranty?

Hello sir/ma’am. I own an S7 Edge which is not older than 3 months. But I dropped it a month ago but just crack appeared on its gorilla glass screen so I just used it. It was working fine but after a month, I mean today, it first started showing some weird green lines. and after nearly an hour screen started flickering and colors were disoriented. Now it’s just white and black flickering screen.

I searched for this problem and found that a lot of people are suffering from this problem and they haven’t dropped it or anything else. So I just wanted to know what could have made that problem to arise and can it be repaired by company under warranty?

I will appreciate your help and please try to answer as soon as possible.

Thanks. — Vinit

Solution: Hi Vinit. To say with certainty that that drop which occurred months ago is responsible for the issue may sound far fetched but it can happen. Hardware damage from a fall or exposure to water can manifest at a later date. That the screen was cracked is evidence enough that the fall may had generated significant damage to the internal components as well.

When it comes to repair, we don’t think Samsung can offer you a free one for this. If they crack is visible enough, they will automatically declare the warranty void due to user misuse. Samsung’s manufacturer warranty covers the Galaxy S7 but one of the exceptions for this coverage may apply in your case which states “Damage resulting from accidents, misuse, abuse, alteration, tampering or failure of the purchaser to follow normal operating procedures outlined in the user’s manual.” This means that you’re out of luck when it comes to receiving free repair. They may still repair your phone though, for a fee. If this phone is covered by Samsung Protection Plus though, you are in luck as accidental drops is covered in this type of warranty.

Your carrier may offer a different type of warranty and may cover broken screens so try going that route too. The same may be true for third party shops, if you bought your phone independently of your carrier.

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Galaxy S7 keeps saying SD card has been removed, other issues