How to fix a Galaxy S7 edge that’s stuck in bootloader error screen and won’t boot up, keeps restarting on its own

Considered old by today’s crop of Samsung Galaxy models, the #GalaxyS7Edge is still one of the most popular handsets around the world, with tens of millions still actively running. Released in March of 2016, many Galaxy S7 devices are now over two years old so many of them are expected to succumb to perennial power-related issues. Today’s post is written to address some of the common boot problems in this device.

Problem #1: Galaxy S7 edge stuck in bootloader error screen, won’t boot up

Hello. My name is Ana. I’m from Venezuela. i hope you understand me because my english is not very good.

i have a Samsung S7 edge, because i made a great effort to buy it. i have only 4 months with it. today i had a notification for a new update. i did it ….and everything ran normal…. .after 2 minute .my phone got stuck in black screen with red letters only  ( no green ) bootloader exception ast-stat =0x10000 exception = do handler serror :serror (esr: 0xbf000000000) i have been trying for 5 hours now . with the : hold the button of power+home+volume – and only home and only power and again the combination of keys i had tried everythin combination possible and i have repeat all the step tahn i have read in your post …..  and nothing didnt work in some post just said keep repeating the process, but how many times ? it s been now 5 hours!!! i waited until the battery run out ….waited for 10 min and connected again and nothing changed . the same error :it even didnt go trought de samsung logo , it went directly to the black screen with the red letters error . i’m scared , right now in my country everything  is reallyyyyy expensive , and you can not find good Service, samsung is not working here , i dont know what to do . im dowloading the firmware for samMobile odin an even the controlatores, but i know that if i cant not enter in the recovery mode it will be not possible to do the reboot. pleaseeeee help me im counting with your help thank you very much. i will put in the country another one different to venezuela. because you dont have my country in there the carrier in my country is movistar i dont even remember my system operative…sorry. — Anarod01

Solution: Hi Anarod01. There are only two possible solutions that you can try here. One is by booting to Recovery Mode so you can master reset the phone and the other is by booting to Odin Mode and try a bootloader reflash. In order to restart the phone to any of these two modes, you need to turn it off first. You can’t boot to Recovery or Download/Odin Mode if the phone is still on.

Here are the steps to boot to Recovery Mode and factory reset your S7:

  1. Turn off your Samsung Galaxy S7. if you can’t turn it off normally, wait until the battery becomes empty. Then, charge the phone for 10 minutes before proceeding to the steps below.
  2. Press and then hold the Home and Volume UP keys, then press and hold the Power key.
  3. When the Samsung Galaxy S7 shows on the screen, release the Power key but continue holding the Home and Volume Up keys.
  4. When the Android logo shows, you may release both keys and leave the phone be for about 30 to 60 seconds.
  5. Using the Volume Down key, navigate through the options and highlight ‘wipe data / factory reset.’
  6. Once highlighted, you may press the Power key to select it.
  7. Now highlight the option ‘Yes — delete all user data’ using the Volume Down key and press the Power button to select it.
  8. Wait until your phone is finished doing the Master Reset. Once completed, highlight ‘Reboot system now’ and press the Power key.
  9. The phone will now reboot longer than usual.

If your S7 won’t boot to Recovery Mode at all, you can try to boot it to Download or Odin Mode to see if you can reflash the bootloader. This procedure is not as straightforward as Factory reset though as you’ll need a special tool called Odin to install the stock bootloader version. And if your won’t boot to Recovery at all, it’s also very unlikely that you can boot it to Download Mode so you’re basically left without much option at this time. If you want to give bootloader reflash a shot, below are the general steps to do it. The exact steps for your particular phone model may be slightly different from our short guide below so make sure to do some research before you try it.

  1. Look for the correct firmware for your phone model and download it. Make sure that you 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.
  2. 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.
  3. 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.
  4. Proceed with the rest of the flashing procedure using the Odin program.
  5. In Odin, click on the BL tab and make sure to use the bootloader file you’ve identified earlier.
  6. 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.
  7. Restart the phone once the procedure is finished.

Problem #2: Galaxy S7 edge stuck in boot loop, won’t go past Samsung screen

Hi. Can you help me with a problem on my brother’s S7 Edge? The phone started to become very hot and my brother forced the shutdown, then the phone gone in a bootloop and only one time it booted again but started to become hot again so it forced the shutdown and brought the phone to me. I seen that the phone won’t charge, so I changed the battery and it started to charge normally. I installed the latest software with odin and I tried to boot the device but I received the message “No command” with the dead android and the yellow exlamation triangle. I tried to flash again the firmware then I tried to flash the original firmware but I received everytime the “no command” error after a successful installation. I tried to wipe either the cache partition or the factory reset but I always received the “no command error” and I can only access the recovery. If I try to boot the device It stops with the blinking samsung logo and won’t go on. The only steps I can do are flashing firmware with odin, reach the no command error screen, reach the recovery or start the phone with the infinite blinking samsung’s logo (I leave it for 1 night and this morning I found it blinking yet). With odin I tried already to flash the PIT and to select the re-partition option but the result is the same. Thank you. — Alessandro

Solution: Hi Alessandro. Flashing a device while it’s working normally is risky but doing it when it’s having boot up problems is one of the surest way to brick it. By flashing the phone, you’ve probably corrupted the bootloader or created an incorrect set of partitions so Android can no longer load properly afterwards. Unfortunately, there’s no way for us to know exactly what’s going on, and even if we can, there’s still no guarantee that you’ll be able to fix the problem. Since you haven’t tried reflashing the bootloader yet, we suggest that you do it next to see if that will fix the trouble. In doing so, make sure that you are using the correct firmware build for your device because an incorrect one will cause more problems for you. If flashing the bootloader won’t help, we don’t know what else can. In that case, try to visit third party forums and websites that offer rooting and flashing guidance like XDA-Developers Forum.  

Problem #3: Galaxy S7 keeps restarting on its own, only boots to Recovery Mode

Here’s a stumper for you that I hope you can help me with. Short story – Phone won’t charge via USB cable. Phone is off but will turn on in in recovery mode. I’ve tried deleting the cache partition and doing a full factory reset, but haven’t had it come back to life after rebooting each time. Need some help here guys!

Long story: Verified the USB – Before the phone died (and when I realized that there was a problem) I tried using two different cables, two different adapters, and two different sockets. There was definitely electricity getting to the phone. The phone dies now when it gets booted (0% battery) but it does support Android Recovery Mode.  Acted Strange – earlier in the day the phone was charged but soon after it started turning its screen on while sleeping. VR Gear prompts started popping up (haven’t had those in YEARS) so I restarted the device. After I restarted it I could hear a click, click, click sound coming out of the speaker (similar to the go-to-sleep sound). I used it a bit to see if it would sort itself out and then put it back to sleep. The screen turned on again and a message was occasionally flashing very momentarily (couldn’t read it other than the “Ok” and “Cancel” option in blue). All other functionality was working fine. I noticed the battery started to die quickly despite little use since it fully charged a few hours earlier. Finally, after the phone said I had 15% battery left, I tried plugging it in. That’s when the phone wasn’t responsive to the charging cable and quickly lost the rest of its charge after. I don’t have a wireless charger to test. I’ve tried going through your self-serve options to no avail. Cache partition wipe didn’t work + reboot didn’t work, factory reset + reboot didn’t work. What are my options? So folks, can you help? I’d really, REALLY like to not have to buy a new device. What could be the issue and what are my options for next steps? Many thanks in advance. Please get back to me soon! Cheers  — Eduardo Eduardo

Solution: Hi Eduardo. Your S7’s battery may already be at its last legs right now that’s why it can’t stay on, and if it does, it won’t boot to normal mode at. As far as software troubleshooting is concerned, you’ve already tried almost all of the applicable ones in this case, except for reflashing the bootloader (general steps provided above). If that won’t work either, consider sending the phone in to Samsung so they can replace the battery for you. Alternatively, you can replace the battery yourself but then again, you’ll still have to buy your tools and the replacement battery itself. That will still amount to something. On top of that, you also have to make sure that you can actually do the battery replacement properly to avoid damaging the other components or the motherboard in the process.

 


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