Hello and welcome to our new #GalaxyNote5 troubleshooting episode. Here’s another list of common questions for the Note5. We know we are yet to address many other Note5 problems you sent us so keep watching for other posts in the near future.
If you are looking for solutions to your own #Android issue, you can contact us by using the link provided at the bottom of this page. When describing your issue, please be as detailed as possible so we can easily pinpoint a relevant solution. If you can, kindly include the exact error messages you are getting to give us an idea where to start. If you have already tried some troubleshooting steps before emailing us, make sure to mention them so we can skip them in our answers.
Problem #1: Galaxy Note5 keeps restarting even with new battery
The Note 5 Was Given To Me Without A Battery Or The Pen To Go With It. I Purchased A Battery (New) Off Amazon And That Doesn’t Seem To Be Working. The Issue Is The Phone Will Power On But Never Make It Past The Samsung Screen When It Is Not On The Charger. So It Cuts On And Off Repeatedly Until I Remove Battery.
When It Is Plugged Up It Will Come On And I Can Use The Phone While Its On The Charger But Only For A Short Period And It Will Go Back To Powering On And Off.
I Asked Verizon And They Couldn’t Tell Me Anything Except It May Be The Fact I Purchased An Online Battery.
Please Tell Me It Is A Solution To My Problem. I Really Don’t Want To Lose This Phone.
Solution: This kind of problem cannot only be blamed on bad battery. If you are positive that you did purchase an official Samsung Galaxy Note5 battery and not an imitation or fake, then the problem might lie in other parts of the hardware. The phone may have a malfunctioning Power Management IC, which is an important chip in providing stable energy to the rest of the components. Even if the battery is working normally, a bad PMIC will still cause the problem you have right now. Aside from the battery and PMIC, other hardware components can also manifest in the current situation you’re in. If possible, ask the previous owner for the full background of the device. It’s possible that it may had been dropped or exposed to water. Any of them can cause permanent problems. If money is not an issue, you can also let a professional check the hardware so that it can examined thoroughly.
Problem #2: How to install update to an AT&T Galaxy Note5
I have Samsung Note 5. the phone is from AT&T and I’m using it with cricket j for over 2 years. It has been working fine but I can’t do any software update. Still have the old 5.0. Version, and sometimes I can’t receive calls. How can I update it? I take it to att store and they said they can’t do anything, and I can’t update through the Internet either.
Solution: Carrier-branded devices like the one you have can only be updated if they are on their home network. Your Note5 runs the AT&T firmware so you can’t update it when you’re on Cricket network. In order to avoid bricking a device, Android has built-in feature that blocks any update that’s not compatible with the firmware it is running. Since Cricket firmware is different from AT&T firmware, the phone won’t receive any notification for updates at all. If you still have an active AT&T SIM card, try inserting that to your Note5 and see if there’s an available update under Settings > Software update.
Alternatively, you can manually install an update via Odin. The process is called flashing and has risks in it. Flashing is only recommended for advanced Android users — those who know how to find for solutions should the phone encounter problems during the process. Flashing can potentially brick a device if not done correctly. If you can take the risks, use Google to find a good guide on how to manually install a more recent AT&T firmware on your Note5.
Problem #3: How to recover data if Galaxy Note5 won’t stay on
I got the Note 5 when it released from Verizon. It was never rooted. It was running Android Version 6.0.1 and had the April 1, 2017 security patch. Several weeks ago the phone started acting wonky. It would take a long time to open apps and would sometimes freeze up. Knowing I planned to update around Nov/Dec, I just hoped I could get it to hobble along for a few more months.
Then a couple weeks ago, it started randomly rebooting itself. Maybe once every 2-3 days. Well, on Tuesday it was rebooting itself constantly. Every hour or so. Didn’t seem to matter if I was doing anything on it or not. That’s when I started researching and found your site.
I discovered the most likely cause was the battery overheating (the phone does get stupid hot even with little use) so I changed out the battery. I also went into recovery and did a “Wipe Cache Partition” as advised by some guides. Neither seemed to help much, the phone didn’t reboot but it was still lagging and freezing.
Then I went ahead with the 3rd thing I read to try… update the phone. I checked and sure enough, there was an update available. I tried to install it and the phone froze. Next, I booted the phone into safe mode and tried to install the update again. That is when all hell broke loose. It froze and now it just won’t turn on all at. If I try to start it up normally, it will slowly load up to an Initialization Page with an error block saying “Unfortunately, the process com.android.phone process has stopped.”
When I look up how to fix this error, all the fixes require me being able to get into my phone and clear some settings out. Well, I can’t get past this error. If I hit okay (or just wait about 10 seconds) it starts rebooting and just keeps on rebooting. If I try to get to the page with safe mode options (vol up and power, I believe) I get the little android guy with his ears wiggling and a message “Installing System Update”. After about 4-5 minutes, little android guy falls over and it says “No Command” and then sends me to the recovery screen. I can get into the recovery mode screen but nothing there seems to help.
Desperate to at least try to get it running again (hoping maybe to recover my data somehow), I tried a factory reset and that didn’t help, either. It said it was completed, but when I turn it on it acts just the same…. error then rebooting. Please help!
What else can I try? I have a lot of pictures on here (including some family and pets that have passed away) and I thought for sure they were all on the SD card but they are not. I also have some app data I’d love to have back, but the pics are my main concern. Christina Hunt
Solution: If your main concern is to recover your personal data, we don’t think you’re in luck right now. The most likely reason why the system update you tried was not successful is due to the fact that the phone keeps rebooting on its own. In case you don’t know, interrupting your device while it’s updating can lead to serious problems. Doing so multiple times can permanently mess up with the partitions in the storage device making it totally useless. We don’t know if that’s what has happened to your device already but there’s wisdom why it’s highly recommended to ensure that a device must have enough power before an update. Once the storage device has been corrupted during an update because the system rebooted, or a user restarted the system, only unpleasant things can come out of it. At this time, it’s safe to assume your personal data (photos, videos, etc) are good as gone. There’s no way to recover files if your phone can’t remain stable. And even if it does become stable, you’ll most probably need to return its software information to defaults thru factory reset at the least. Because factory reset will erase your files, your data can never be recovered.
At this time, we recommend that you either let Samsung or an independent service center check the phone so its hardware can be examined.