How to fix Galaxy S9 “Unfortunately the Process com.android.phone Has Stopped” bug [troubleshooting guide]

Welcome to another #GalaxyS9 troubleshooting guide. This guide will address another common Android error: “Unfortunately the process com.android.phone has stopped.” There’s an increasing number of S9 users who encounter this problem lately so we thought it’s about time that we make an article for it. Let us know if this helps or not.

Restart your S9 regularly

When troubleshooting any Android issue, the first and foremost thing that you must do is restart the device. Restarting will not only potentially fix the “Unfortunately the process com.android.phone has stopped” bug but may also improve the general performance of the operating system. In a lot of cases, restart is enough to fix a minor issue with an app or the operating system. In your case though, you want to perform a virtual “battery pull” so the software is totally refreshed. Here’s how to do that:

1. Press and hold the Power + Volume Down buttons for approximately 10 seconds or until the device power cycles. Note: Allow several seconds for the Maintenance Boot Mode screen to appear.
2. From the Maintenance Boot Mode screen, select Normal Boot. Note: Utilize the volume buttons to cycle through the available options and the lower left button (below the volume buttons) to select. Also, allow up to 90 seconds for the reset to complete.

Take care of the system cache all the time

Clearing the cache partition is usually one of the last things that you can do in this case but some S9 owners have reported that “Unfortunately the process com.android.phone has stopped” bug was actually fixed by it so we want you to do this as early as possible. Clearing the cache partition is also a maintenance procedure so ideally, an Android device owner must do it regularly. A corrupted system cache can cause all sorts of trouble so you want to keep in good shape all the time. In many instances, system cache problems happen after an update, or after installing apps. If your issue occured after doing any of these tasks, then you may have a bad system cache. To make it clean again, you want to delete the current one. Your device will rebuild the system cache over time so you don’t have to worry about losing anything. Here’s how it’s done:

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.

Remove the SIM card, reinsert

“Unfortunately the process com.android.phone has stopped” bug may also occur if the device is intermittently detecting the SIM card, or if there’s a problem with the app or services that manages the SIM. To minimize this kind of problem, you can reseat the SIM. Here’s how to do that:

1. Turn off the phone.
2. Carefully remove the SIM card tray. Refer to the documentation of your device if you don’t know how to do this.
3. Remove the SIM card and turn on the phone without the card.
4. Check for the issue.
5. Turn the phone back off.
6. Reinsert the SIM card.
7. Check for the problem again.

Reseating the SIM card forces the phone to reconfigure the SIM-related network settings. Hopefully, this troubleshooting step will refresh the system and fix the issue for you.

Maintain enough storage space all the time

A lot of issues can also happen if a device is running out of storage space. Ideally, you should allow a minimum of 1GB of free storage space on your S9 at all times to allow the operating system work properly. If  “Unfortunately the process com.android.phone has stopped” error keeps popping up all of a sudden and your device has very minimal storage space, consider moving non-system critical files to another device to free up space. For example, if you have lots of photos and videos stored in your phone’s internal storage device, you can transfer them to  an SD card or to your computer. If your S9 has more than 1GB of storage space and the “Unfortunately the process com.android.phone has stopped” bug still shows up, proceed to the next solution.

Restart Phone app

“Unfortunately the process com.android.phone has stopped” error almost always has something to do with the Phone app so the next logical step to do is to deal with the app directly. You can do that by force stopping the Phone app. Here’s how:

1. Open Settings app.
2. Tap Apps.
3. Tap More settings (three-dot icon) at the upper-right.
4. Select Show system apps.
5. Find Phone app and tap it.
6. Tap FORCE STOP button..
7. Restart the phone.

Clear Phone app cache and data

Another way to directly deal with the Phone app is by clearing its cache and data. Like any other app, the Phone app keeps temporary files that help it load tasks faster. Sometimes, this set of temporary files called cache gets corrupted resulting to problems. To fix any possible cache issue, you want to clear the Phone app’s cache first. If that won’t work, then you want to go ahead with wiping its data. Wiping the Phone app’s data will delete all your call logs so if you want to keep them, make sure to back them up ahead of time.

To clear your Phone app’s cache and data:

1. Open Settings app.
2. Tap Apps.
3. Tap More settings (three-dot icon) at the upper-right.
4. Tap Show system apps.
5. Find the Phone app and tap it.
6. Tap Storage.
7. Tap Clear Cache button.
8. Restart your S8.
9. Check if the problem still exists.

If the “Unfortunately the process com.android.phone has stopped” bug won’t go away still, repeat steps 1-6, then tap on Clear Data button.

Force stop SIM toolkit app

Another app you want to deal with directly in this case is the SIM toolkit app. This is the app responsible for managing all SIM-related activities of your device. If it doesn’t work properly, it may lead to network issues or to the error we’re trying to address in this post. Make sure that you follow the steps below to restart it:

1. Open Settings app.
2. Tap Apps.
3. Tap More settings (three-dot icon) at the upper-right.
4. Select Show system apps.
5. Find Phone app and tap it.
6. Tap FORCE STOP button..
7. Restart the phone.

Refresh network settings

Resetting your S9’s network settings is a good way of fixing network troubles. Since the error apparently involves the Phone app, this troubleshooting has a good chance of addressing it.

To reset your S9’s network settings:

1. Open Settings app.
2. Tap General management.
3. Tap Reset.
4. Tap Reset network settings.
5. Tap RESET SETTINGS button.

Run your S9 on Safe Mode

Like most Android issues, this one has fair chance of being caused by a third party app so a good next step is to restart the device to safe mode. In this mode, third party apps will be blocked from running. If the problem won’t occur while the device runs in safe mode, that’s a confirmation of our hunch.

To restart your S9 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 S9 run in this mode for several hours and check for the problem.

Perform a mild factory reset

Before you eventually wipe the phone and return all software settings to defaults with factory reset, there’s less drastic step that you can do: reset all settings.

Unlike a full factory reset, this one won’t delete personal data, among other things. The general software environment will still be returned to their defaults though.

To reset all settings on your S9:

1. Open Settings app.
2. Tap General management.
3. Tap Reset.
4. Tap Reset all settings.
5. Tap RESET SETTINGS button.

WIpe your device and return it to defaults (Factory Reset)

If the error still persists up to this point, you have no other choice but to revert the device’s software to its factory defaults. Many users with this issue don’t usually reach this part but if you’re one of the few unlucky ones, here’s how to factory reset your S9:

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.

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