How to fix Galaxy S8 “Unfortunately, Samsung Music has stopped” error [troubleshooting guide]

Hello and welcome to today’s #GalaxyS8 troubleshooting article. This post talks about how to address one common bug: “Unfortunately, Samsung Music has stopped” error. If you happen to experience this error, this post should be for you.

Today’s problem: Galaxy S8 “Unfortunately, Samsung Music has stopped” error

Hi, I have a Samsung S8. This morning, I received a text message that my cellular network provider now expanded their network to include LTE, so I changed the phone’s network mode to include LTE, which worked great, as expected. However, shortly after, my Samsung music app, which I use multiple times a day, crashed, which was very rare. I closed and cleared the app, and opened up the music app again. Now, instead of the 570 something tracks I have, my Recently Added playlist shows I have 900 tracks, which isn’t right. I scroll down through it and see that some (not all) are duplicate tracks. When I click on either one of the duplicate tracks, the track starts playing, and a dialog box saying “Unfortunately, Samsung Music has stopped” shows up. This happens on every duplicate track I click. I cleared the app cache and data, restarted my phone, but no change. Then I even uninstalled the updates of the Samsung Music app, so I got the basic factory version instead. This version works fine with the original tracks and no duplicated, but doesn’t have the feature to view my track my list without unlocking my phone. When I installed the updates again to the current version, the issue came back, and so here I am, hoping you have encountered someone with the same sort of issue. I don’t use an SD card, haven’t uploaded any new music to my phone in the past two days, and this error came up after my phone network was upgraded. If you have any ideas on how to fix this, I would appreciate it. Thank you for reading this freakishly long email. —   Zukhruf

Solution: Hi Zukhruf. The “Unfortunately, Samsung Music has stopped” bug is usually an indicator that the app version you’re using has become unstable. This usually occurs after installing an update, when the cache has become corrupted, or if the app or phone has ran for some time. Before you do some drastic solutions below, be sure to restart your S8 in order to see if the bug is being caused by a temporary coding error. Minor bugs are usually fixed by doing a simple restart so don’t skip it.

Solution #1: Check for Samsung Music updates

We understand you’ve already uninstalled Samsung Music app’s updates and you’re now running it in its factory version but did you also try to see if re-installing updates will work? Some bugs are fixed by initially removing the current update in order to force the device to get the latest available version. In Samsung Music, the way to check for updates is not by going under the Play Store app, just like how you do manually update third party apps. Instead, you want to do the following steps:

  1. Open Samsung Music.
  2. Tap More settings at the upper right (three-dot icon).
  3. Tap Settings.
  4. Scroll down and tap About Samsung Music.
  5. If there’s an available update, there should be an update button that you can press.

At the time of this writing, the most current Samsung Music version should be 16.2.11.2

Solution #2: Force Stop Samsung Music app

Force stopping an app sometimes has its merits. Like restarting a device, force stopping an app may interrupt a problematic code that causes the problem from running. In order to force stop Samsung Music, follow these steps:

  1. Open Settings app.
  2. Tap Apps.
  3. Find the messaging app you’re using (can be Samsung Messages app or third party).
  4. Tap FORCE STOP button.

Solution #3: Clear app cache and data (for reference to others who haven’t)

We know that you’ve already tried this before contacting us but for those who didn’t, make sure that you try this out. You should do this if your Force stopping the app won’t work at all. To clear your app’s cache and data, follow these steps:

  1. Open Settings app.
  2. Tap Apps.
  3. Find Samsung Music and tap it.
  4. Tap Storage app.
  5. Tap Clear Cache button.
  6. Restart your device and observe how the app works..

If the problem returns after clearing the cache, your next move would be to clear its data. To clear a messaging app’s data, repeat steps 1-4 and tap Clear Data button.

Solution #4: Reset app preferences

Another good troubleshooting step that you can do in this case is to reset all app preferences. Samsung Music works with other Android and music apps and services and if one of them was disabled by mistake, resetting app preferences should help. Here’s how:

  1. Tap Settings.
  2. Tap Apps.
  3. Tap More settings at the upper right (three-dot icon).
  4. Tap Reset app preferences.
  5. Tap RESET to confirm.

Solution #5: Clear cache partition

Clearing the device’s cache partition forces it to purge a possibly corrupted system cache which may be the reason for your problem. At times, bugs may occur if the system cache has become outdated and can’t be used properly by Android operating system. To see if the “Unfortunately, Samsung Music has stopped” error is due to a corrupted cache, make sure to clear the cache partition with these steps:

  1. Turn off the device.
  2. Press and hold the Volume Up key and the Bixby 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 before showing the Android system recovery menu options).
  4. Press the Volume down key to highlight “wipe cache partition.”
  5. Press the Power key 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.

Solution #6: Restart to Safe mode and observe

There are times when a third party app interferes with Android or another app, resulting to performance issues, app crashes, or display of errors like the “Unfortunately, Samsung Music has stopped” error. To see if one of your installed apps is causing this problem, let your S8 run on safe mode, and observe it for a day. If “Unfortunately, Samsung Music has stopped” error won’t show when your S8 is on safe mode, that means that our suspicion is correct.

To restart 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. Let your S8 run for at least 24 hours. Be sure to try to replicate the issue by sending as many texts as possible. If your messages will work properly, then that means an app is to blame. We don’t know how often this issue occurs but let your phone run on safe mode for as long as possible.

Remember, safe mode won’t pinpoint the exact app. If you think an app is problematic, you’ll have to invest more time narrowing down the possible causes by uninstalling and observing the phone after each uninstall. Do this cycle until the issue is resolved.

Solution #7: Factory reset

Factory reset is usually an effective solution for issues involving Google or Samsung apps. If all our suggestions above won’t help, don’t hesitate to return the software to their defaults. Here’s how:

  1. 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.
  2. Turn off the device.
  3. Press and hold the Volume Up key and the Bixby key, then press and hold the Power key.
  4. 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).
  5. Press the Volume down key several times to highlight “wipe data / factory reset.
  6. Press Power button to select.
  7. Press the Volume down key until ‘Yes — delete all user data’ is highlighted.
  8. Press Power button to select and start the master reset.
  9. When the master reset is complete, “Reboot system now” is highlighted.
  10. Press the Power key to restart the device.

Solution #8: Use another music app

Should the  “Unfortunately, Samsung Music has stopped” bug returns even after doing a factory reset, you should decide whether or not you want to continue using app, or to consider switching to another one. Maybe after some time, Samsung will be able to fix the issue and issue a fix for it.

Using another music app is clearly not a permanent solution but it can save you some stress from constantly being bombarded by the error.


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