How to fix a Galaxy S9 that randomly freezes or crashes [troubleshooting guide]

Is your #GalaxyS9 freezing or crashing for no apparent reason? Today’s troubleshooting article will give an idea how you can go about fixing the problem. Just remember, it’s normal for your phone to sometimes freeze momentarily when opening apps or doing some tasks. If this what you’re concerned about, then you don’t really have a problem at all. Your S9 will eventually overcome it as it builds a better system cache. However, if the freezing episode also comes with crashing, that is, your phone turns off on its own, or an app quits without you prompting it, you can assume your S9 is indeed freezing or crashing randomly. To fix the issue, continue with out solutions below.

Why your S9 may be freezing or crashing

There are a number of reasons why your S9 may be freezing or crashing without clear pattern. Any Android device can suffer the same fate because they generally have the same basic operational principles. In our years of troubleshooting Android devices, we’ve come across 5 common causes and they are:

RAM running low
not enough storage space
corrupted system cache
dad third party apps
unknown software glitch
hardware malfunction

In this short troubleshooting article, we bring you the possible solutions. These are mainly ways to deal with software problems because majority of the time, random crashes are caused by bad software more than anything else. So, to get us started, here are the solutions that you can do to fix your problem.

Solution #1: Restart or perform soft reset

Many Android issues including random restarts or crashes can be fixed by doing a simple and easy solution — restart. This is true whether you’re using a Samsung device or a non-Samsung one. Electronic gadgets like your phone runs on an operating system that can develop bugs from time to time. Android is such a complex software environment that there are millions of possible points of failure at any given time. Software publishers like Google try to anticipate problems but there’s just so many things that can go wrong it’s impossible to account for them when releasing an operating system version. Some bugs are user fixable and one of the basic ways to address them is by restarting your phone. To do that in your S9, simply press and hold the Power button, then tap the restart option.

If you are unable to restart your S9 normally because it froze, you can do the virtual equivalent of pulling the battery out by doing these steps:

Press and hold the Volume Down button first and don’t release it.
While holding it down, press and hold the Power key.
Keep both keys held down for 10 seconds or more.
Wait for the phone to restart.

Solution #2: Clear cache partition

If nothing positive comes out of restarting the device, the next good thing to do is to ensure that you clear the cache partition. The cache partition is where your device stores a set of temporary files and folders to help Android load apps quickly. Called system cache, this collection of temporary files can sometimes become corrupted, which, in turn, result to random problems including freezes and crashes. Ideally, you’re supposed to clear the cache partition once every few months to minimize bugs. Not a lot of Android users know that though. We know it’s too early in any Galaxy S9’s life to clear the cache partition at this time but since you’re having an issue, you might as well just do that to cover this possible source of issue. To clear an S9’s cache partition, follow the steps below:

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 three keys.
An ‘Installing system update’ message will show for 30 – 60 seconds before the Android system recovery menu options appear.
Press the Volume down key several times to highlight wipe cache partition.
Press Power key to select.
Press the Volume down key to highlight yes, them 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.

Solution #3: Free up storage space

We know that the S9 was only released a few weeks ago but if you’ve already managed to use up almost all its storage, you might want to consider freeing up some space. Freezes and crashes are sometimes caused by insufficient storage. Android needs some space in order to build caches as well as to execute tasks. Ideally, you should always have at least 1GB of free storage space in order not to suffer any performance issues. To check the remaining storage space on your device, follow these steps:

Open Settings app.
Tap Device Maintenance.
Tap Storage.
View the available space. If an SD card is inserted, you should also see its free space in this section.

If you have hundreds of installed apps on your S9, they can really take up the bulk of your storage space. The same is true if you have tons of photos or videos. We suggest that you move non-system critical files like photos and videos to another device in order to make room.

Solution #4: Check for bad third party apps

As mentioned above, one of the reasons why your S9 may not be working properly is due to an app. Apps can interfere with Android and sometimes, that interference can lead to annoying bugs or problems. To see if one of your apps is behind the trouble, try to restart your S9 to safe mode. In this mode, only pre-installed apps will run. What you need to do then is to let your S9 run for some time, and see if there’s a difference. If the device works normally and won’t freeze or crash, then you can bet one of your apps is to blame.

To restart your S9 to safe mode, follow these steps:

Turn the device off.
Press and hold the Power key past the model name screen appearing on the 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.
When Safe mode appears in the bottom left corner of the screen, release the Volume down key.
While in Safe mode, you can now uninstall apps that are causing a problem.

Solution #5: Reset all settings

Some freezing issues on Galaxy devices were fixed by simply resetting all settings. This procedure is easy to do and is not as drastic as the next solution. Resetting all your device’s settings won’t delete personal data so you don’t have to worry about losing anything. This will only clear settings and customizations. Here’s how to do it:

From a Home screen, swipe up or down from the center of the display to access the apps screen.
Navigate: Settings Settings icon > Backup and reset.
From the Reset section, tap Reset settings.
Review the info then tap RESET SETTINGS.
If presented, enter the current PIN, password, or pattern.
To confirm, review the info then tap RESET SETTINGS.

Solution #6: Factory reset

Should your S9 continue to freeze or crash on its own up to this point, you have no other alternative but to wipe it thru factory reset. This will return software settings back to their defaults and get rid of possible operating system bug that makes your S9 to crash randomly.

Don’t forget, factory reset will delete all personal data so be sure to back your photos, videos, documents, etc. up.

To factory reset your S9:

Back up data on the internal memory. If you have signed into a Google account on the device, you have activated Anti-theft and will need your Google credentials to finish the Master 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 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.