How to fix Galaxy A5 battery drain issues [troubleshooting guide]

One of the common problems of Android users is battery drain. In today’s troubleshooting article, we deal with this issue. We also include two #GalaxyA5 scenarios submitted to us by some members of our community. We hope you’ll find this post helpful.

Problem #1: How to fix Galaxy A5 battery drain issues [troubleshooting guide]

I have Galaxy A5 2017 version. Recently my phone went off while i was texting and refused to power back on. So the next day i took it to a samsung shop and it was powered on. But it now has another problem. When i put on data it goes of and takes like 30minutes to power back on. When you switch it on it shows this blues page with two circles and at the bottom it says app starting and takes long to power back on.Then when its on and i use it immediately it goes off.And when i wait and use it after some minutes or try putting off data it again goes off also when i use data for a some time it overheats and the charge depletes very fast n when it gets to 30% it goes off.Now am forced to use the phone without data if i want it on .Its really stressing please help.

Hello. After the last update (on August 3rd) of Android on my Samsung A5, battery is drained extremely fast. Before the update, battery would last about 24 -36 hours (depending on use). I always had set notifications off, location tracking off, sync disabled, screen to 10% brightness and power saving mode on…Anything  advised for saving energy, since I don’t use functions much other than calls and sms. But after update, battery drain skyrocketed. It only lasted for 6-7 hours (at best, without even using it). I checked all settings and it improved slightly after disabling sync again, but it still lasts only around 10-12 hours at most. Tried to clear cache  (turn off, power/home/vol.up) and NOTHING hapened (black screen). Could turn it on normally afterwars though. But why had problems started only AFTER the update? How can I fix this? (current version is Android 7.0, or so it says) Sincerely.

Solution: There may be an issue with the operating system and how it detects battery power levels. Try to recalibrate the battery and OS and see what happens. Follow these steps if you haven’t tried it yet:

1. 1. Drain the battery completely. This means using your device until it powers down by its own and the battery level reads 0%.
   2. Charge the phone until it reaches 100%. Be sure to use original charging equipment for your device and let it charge up completely. Do not unplug your device for at least two more hours and also don’t use it while charging.
   3. After the elapsed time, unplug your device.
   4. Restart the device.
   5. Use your phone until it completely runs out of power again.
   6. Repeat steps 1-5.

Clear the cache partition

Slow performance and battery drain issues usually follows an update because the system cache gets corrupted. To ensure that your phone’s cache is in order, follow the steps below:

1. Turn off the device.
2. Press and hold the Volume Up key and the Home key, then press and hold the Power key.
3. When the Android logo displays, release all keys (‘Installing system update’ will show for about 30 – 60 seconds, then ‘No command’ before showing the Android system recovery menu options).
4. Press the Volume down key several times to highlight “wipe cache partition”.
5. Press Power button to select.
6. Press the Volume down key to highlight “yes” and press the Power key to select.
7. When the wipe cache partition is complete, “Reboot system now” is highlighted.
8. Press the Power key to restart the device.

Observe on Safe Mode

Another possible reason for your problem might be a bad third party app. To check if you’ve installed a bad app previously, you want to boot the phone to safe mode. In this mode, all third party apps will be suspended so it’s a good way to check if our suspicion is true.

To boot your device to safe mode:

1. Turn the device off.
2. Press and hold the Power key past the model name screen.
3. When “SAMSUNG” appears on the screen, release the Power key.
4. Immediately after releasing the Power key, press and hold the Volume down key.
5. Continue to hold the Volume down key until the device finishes restarting.
6. Safe mode will display in the bottom left corner of the screen.
7. Release the Volume down key when you see Safe Mode.
8. Observe the phone while it’s on safe mode for at least 48 hours.

Should the problem won’t exist while your device is on safe mode, that is an indication that you have added a bad third party app.  To identify which of your apps is to blame, you need to use the method of elimination in narrowing down the possibilities. Keep in mind that Safe mode won’t pinpoint the app for you. You have to exert efforts to identify it. Here’s how to do that:

1. Boot to safe mode.
2. Check for the problem.
3. Once you’ve confirmed that a third party app is to blame, you can start uninstalling apps individually. We suggest that you begin with the most recent ones you added.
4. After you uninstall an app, restart the phone to normal mode and check for the problem.
5. If your A5 is still problematic, repeat steps 1-4.

Factory reset

This is an important troubleshooting step and possibly a solution. Wiping the phone and returning all its software information to defaults is necessary in this situation to know if bad software is to blame.

To factory reset your A5:

1. Turn off your A5.
2. Press and hold the Volume Up key and the Home key, then press and hold the Power key.
3. When the Android logo displays, release all keys (‘Installing system update’ will show for about 30 – 60 seconds, then ‘No command’ before showing the Android system recovery menu options).
4. Press the Volume down key several times to highlight “wipe data / factory reset.
5. Press Power button to select.
6. Press the Volume down key until ‘Yes — delete all user data’ is highlighted.
7. Press Power button to select and start the master reset.
8. When the master reset is complete, “Reboot system now” is highlighted.
9. Press the Power key to restart the device.

Problem #2: Galaxy A5 screen turns yellow and turns off after flashing

Hi folks, I recently inherited a Galaxy A5 from a relative, which looks to be in very good condition and they didn’t report any problems to me. I straightaway flashed the latest TWRP recovery, LineageOS and GApps and rooted the phone. The phone appeared to be working fine until a week or two later, when the phone developed the same problem as this: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2Z87xTHt7Sw.   In other words, upon attempting to wake the phone (via pressing the home or power buttons), the following occurs: 1. The entire phone screen lights up very briefly (maybe 50-100 milliseconds). The colour of the ‘flash’ tends to be yellow. Then… 2. The lock screen displays very briefly (again, maybe 50-100 milliseconds). Then… 3. The screen turns to black and remains that way. Note: While the screen is black the ‘back’/’option’ button bezels at the bottom of the (front of the) phone light up as normal and the touchscreen remains responsive (I can tell due to haptic feedback when running my finger over the screen). I can actually unlock the screen, power down or restart the phone even with the black screen.   This problem occurs intermittently and differently. For example: – Sometimes I hit ‘unlock’ and everything works as normal. – Sometimes I hit ‘unlock’ and I get a screen flash (see point 1 above) but then everything works as normal. – Sometimes the problem occurs only once or twice before everything works as normal again. – Sometimes the problem occurs 10-15 times before everything works as normal again. – Sometimes the problem occurs constantly and I need to remove the battery before everything works as normal again. – Sometimes when I remove the battery, reinsert it and power the phone on – it works as normal. – Sometimes when I remove the battery, reinsert it and power the phone on – nothing appears, not even the Samsung logo and the wake-up problem persists.   I have noticed that when the phone is charging the problem is significantly improved. And, strangely, I’ve noticed that the _first_ attempted wake-up when charging _always_ wakes up the phone but subsequent attempts may not. [B]Attempted solutions[/B] – Safe mode – Clear cache – Fiddling with various display settings – Enabling ‘force GPU rendering’ and ‘disable HW overlays’ under developer settings – New battery None of this worked. Any help folks could provide would be much appreciated.

Solution: If this issue only occurs after flashing a custom ROM, the problem is probably caused by a coding issue with the firmware installed. Try flashing the original Samsung ROM and see what happens. This may be a temporary bug that comes with the custom ROM you’re using. As long as there’s no hardware error or malfunction behind this phenomenon, flashing stock firmware should help.

Problem #3: How to save Samsung Memos on your Galaxy A5

Hello. My Samsung Galaxy A5 phone worked fine until this morning. When I woke up, the screen showed the time and everything looked fine. Then I tried to slide and unlock it a few times without luck and the whole screen became blurry. I have been able to back it up to my laptop, except memos which I must have access to. When I hit the home button, I can still see my lock screen with the usual photo background but it is locked and everything is blurry. I have tried to restart it and shut it down. While I can get the restart and shut down options to pop up (and they are NOT blurry), when I tap a choice, the whole screen goes black and nothing happens. I then click the home button again and I am back to the blurry lock screen. Please help!

Solution: We don’t know the full history of your device so we can’t really say what is going on. If you still can, try to back your memos up to the cloud using your Samsung account. Once you’ve done that, you can then try to factory reset the device to fix the screen problem.

To back up memos to your Samsung account, follow these steps:

1. First, make sure that you are logged in to your Samsung account.
2. Open Settings app.
3. Tap Cloud and accounts.
4. Tap Samsung cloud.
5. Find Other Phone Data and tap it.
6. Enable Sync for Memo. This should initiate a command to begin syncing memos to the cloud.

Once your memos have been synced to the cloud, you can wipe the phone. Afterwards, set your phone up again and sign in to your Samsung account. Then, you can restore your Samsung data under Settings > Cloud and accounts > Backup and restore.

---