How To Fix S10 Bluetooth Problems After Android 10 Update

There appears to be a growing number of Galaxy S10 and S10 Plus owners with Bluetooth problems after an Android 10 update. If you’re one of these unlucky S10 users who experiences Bluetooth issue right after installing Android 10, learn what you can do to fix this problem by following this guide.

What can cause S10 Bluetooth problems after Android 10 update

There can be a number of many different reasons why your Galaxy S10 may have Bluetooth problems after Android 10 update. Some of the common causes for Bluetooth situations that we encounter are due to the following:

Minor system glitch
Temporary boot bug within Bluetooth app
Unknown software bug in any of the connected devices
Corrupted system cache
Broken third party app
Incompatibility
Hardware malfunction (rare)

Can this problem be fixed?

Definitely. Bluetooth devices have become more advanced nowadays and most issues that plague earlier generations have been totally eliminated. Unless the issue is incompatibility, you can almost always hope that one of our suggestions in this guide will help.

Solutions to fix Bluetooth problems after Android 10 update

There are many possible causes for a Bluetooth problem so you must also do a number of troubleshooting steps to narrow down the solution. Below are the things that you must do:

Toggle Bluetooth functionality on devices

Many cases of Bluetooth problems on Samsung Galaxy devices are fixed simply by turning the functionality on and off. By doing this, you are refreshing the connection between the two devices. If you’re having a problem connecting two devices, make sure that you do this suggestion as a first troubleshooting step.

On your S10 just select the Bluetooth icon by pulling down the notification bar, then tapping the icon to turn Bluetooth on and off. Once you’ve done that, you also need to turn off Bluetooth service on the other device. After a few moments, try to reestablish the connection and see how it goes.

Refresh the devices you’re trying to connect by restarting them

If toggling Bluetooth function won’t help at all, your next move is to ensure that you refresh the system of the devices having the problem.

All Samsung devices with power issues can benefit from a restart. Some minor bugs develop if a device is left running for a long time. This is it’s recommended that you restart your phone once at least every few days.

Restarting your Galaxy S10 is easy. Here’s what you need to do: Press and hold the Volume Down button and the Power key at the same time for 10 seconds or until the device’s screen turns on.

Should that won’t change anything, you can then try 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.

Rebooting your device regularly at least once every week can be beneficial. If you tend to forget things, we suggest that you configure your phone to reboot on its own. You can schedule it to do this task by doing these steps:

Open Settings app.
Tap Device Care.
Tap the 3-dot at the top.
Select Auto restart.

Keep the devices you’re trying to connect via Bluetooth powered

Some Bluetooth devices may fail to maintain a connection or may misbehave if low on power. Be sure that the device you’re trying to connect to your Galaxy S10 is charged. To be on the safe mode, try charging it fully before reconnecting it to your Galaxy S10. This way you’ll know if the problem is due to poor power management or weak battery.

Make sure that system cache is in top shape

If your S10 started showing Bluetooth issues after installing Android 10 update, it’s likely that the software overhaul may have corrupted the system cache. This cache is important for Android as it’s used to speed up app loading time. Without a good working system cache, your Android may act sluggishly every time you open an app.

Having a corrupted system cache can also lead to all sorts of issues including connection problems. To check if your Bluetooth issue is caused by a bad cache, you’ll want to clear the cache partition.

To refresh your Galaxy S10 system cache:

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 cache partition’.
Press Power button to select.
Press the Volume down key until ‘yes’ is highlighted and press the Power button.
When the wipe cache partition is complete, “Reboot system now” is highlighted.
Press the Power key to restart the device.

Make it a habit to check if apps are updated

It definitely won’t hurt if you try to regularly check for app updates. In most carrier-branded phones, this task is usually automated as the Play Store is set to automatically download app updates. If you modified this Play Store behavior, you can check for app updates manually as well. Here’s what you must do:

Open Play Store app.
Tap More settings icon at the upper left (three-horizontal lines).
Tap My apps & games.
Tap Update or Update All.

If you want to keep your apps updated all the time, you want to enable auto-update in the Play Store. Here’s how that’s done:

Tap Auto-update apps.
Tap Over wifi only (select Over any network if you don’t have wifi).
Tap Done.

While you’re at it, it might also help if you ensure that there’s no pending software updates that you’ve missed at this time. In some rare cases, major software updates are followed up by smaller update to fix known bugs.

If you have a global, unlocked version of Galaxy S10, you can manually check for Android updates with these steps:

Open Settings app.
Scroll down to the bottom and tap Software update.
Tap Download and install.

Troubleshoot Bluetooth app

If you continue to experience Bluetooth problems on your Galaxy S10 at this time, it’s time that you start troubleshooting the Bluetooth app itself. There are three things that you can do:

Force quit
Delete Whatsapp cache
Reset Whatsapp

Force close Bluetooth app

The first thing that you want to do is easy: force quit Bluetooth app. This is an effective way to fix certain types of app bugs. If you haven’t tried this before, learn how it’s done below.

Method 1: Close an app using Recent Apps key

On your screen, tap the Recent Apps soft key (the one with three vertical lines on the left of the Home button).
Once the Recent Apps screen is shown, swipe left or right to look for the app. It should be here if you managed to run it previously.
Then, swipe up on the app to close it. This should force close it. If it’s not there, simply tap the Close All app to also restart all apps.

Method 2: Close an app using App Info menu

Another way to force close an app is by going within the app’s settings itself. It’s a longer way compared to the first method above but it’s equally effective. You want to use this method if you plan on doing other troubleshooting for the said app like clearing its cache or data. Here’s how it’s done:

Open Settings app.
Tap Apps.
Tap the More settings icon (three-dot icon, upper right).
Tap Show system apps.
Find and tap Bluetooth app.
Tap Force Stop at the bottom.

Refresh Bluetooth app cache

If force closing Bluetooth won’t help and it still continues crashing on your Galaxy S10, it’s a good idea to continue troubleshooting the app by wiping its cache. Apps keep a certain set of temporary files in order to do tasks more efficiently. Sometimes, an app cache may become corrupted causing the app to misbehave.

To clear Bluetooth cache:

Go to the Home screen.
Tap Apps icon.
Open Settings app.
Tap Apps.
If you’re looking for a system or default app, tap on More settings at the upper right (three-dot icon).
Select Show system apps.
Find and tap the appropriate app.
Tap Storage.
Tap Clear Cache button at the bottom.

Return Bluetooth app to its defaults

This is a more drastic troubleshooting step than the previous two and will revert Bluetooth app to its original factory state. This means that all Bluetooth configuration in this app will be erased. Since the original factory default state of apps are usually free from new bugs, this might help in fixing your problem.

To clear an app’s data:

Go to the Home screen.
Tap Apps icon.
Open Settings app.
Tap Apps.
If you’re looking for a system or default app, tap on More settings at the upper right (three-dot icon).
Select Show system apps.
Find and tap the appropriate app.
Tap Storage.
Tap Clear Data button.

Reset network configuration of your device

Another important troubleshooting step that you want to do in this case is to reset all network settings. This troubleshooting step will clear all non-default network settings and hopefully clear potential bugs. If you haven’t tried this yet at this stage, here’s how:

Open Settings app.
Tap General management.
Tap Reset.
Tap Reset network settings.
Tap Reset settings to confirm.

Keep default apps enabled (Reset app preferences)

Some apps, including system apps like Bluetooth, requires default system apps in order to work. Sometimes, these default apps may be turned off by other apps or after some system changes like after an update. To ensure that all default apps are enabled again, you can do these steps:

Open Settings app.
Tap Apps.
Tap on More settings at the upper right (three-dot icon).
Select Reset app preferences.
Restart your S10 and check for the problem.

Check for possible bad third party app with Safe Mode

Having even just one bad third party app can cause a problem. As maintaining an app is costly and time-consuming, not all apps may receive timely updates from developers. It’s possible that one of your apps may have become incompatible with your new Android 10 update, causing the current Bluetooth problem.

To check if you have a bad third party app is the reason why you have S10 Bluetooth problems after installation of Android 10 update, you can reboot your S10 to safe mode. By restarting your Galaxy S10 to safe mode, all third party apps will be blocked (greyed out). If your Bluetooth works normally only when your S10 is on Safe Mode, you can bet a bad third party app is to blame.

To boot your device to safe mode:

Press and hold the Power button until the Power off window appears then release.
Touch and hold Power off until the Safe mode prompt appears then release.
To confirm, tap Safe mode.
The process may take up to 30 seconds to complete.
Upon reboot, “Safe mode” appears in the lower-left of the home screen.

Remember that third-party applications are disabled in this mode so what you can use are pre-installed apps. If Galaxy S10 Bluetooth works normally on safe mode only, that means that the problem is due to a bad app. Uninstall the app you recently installed and see if that will fix it. If the problem remains, use the process of elimination to identify the rogue app. Here’s how:

Boot to safe mode.
Check for the problem.
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.
After you uninstall an app, restart the phone to normal mode and check for the problem.
If your S10 is still problematic, repeat steps 1-4.

Restore software defaults by wiping device with factory reset

If Bluetooth problems on your Galaxy S10 persists after Android 10 update, you should consider wiping the device if none of the suggestions above has worked so far. Factory reset is a drastic solution but can be an effective tool if the cause of the problem is software-related.

Below are the two ways to factory reset your S10:

Method 1: How to hard reset on Samsung Galaxy S10 via Settings Menu

This is the easiest way to wipe your Galaxy S10. all you have to do is to go under Settings menu and follow the steps below. We recommend this method if you have no trouble going under Settings.

Create a backup of your personal data and remove your Google account.
Open Settings app.
Scroll to and tap General management.
Tap Reset.
Select Factory data reset from the given options.
Read the information then tap Reset to continue.
Tap Delete All to confirm action.

Method 2: How to hard reset on Samsung Galaxy S10 using hardware buttons

If your case is that the phone is not booting up, or it boots but Settings menu is inaccessible, this method can be helpful. First, you need to boot the device to Recovery Mode. Once you successfully access Recovery, that’s the time that you begin proper master reset procedure. It may take some tries for you before you can access Recovery so be patient and simply try again.

If possible, create a backup of your personal data ahead of time. If your problem prevents you from doing that, then simply skip this step.
Also, you want to make sure that you remove your Google account. If your problem prevents you from doing that, then simply skip this step.
Turn off the device. This is important. If you can’t turn it off, you’ll never be able to boot to Recovery Mode. If you are not able to shut the device off regularly via the Power button, wait until the phone’s battery is drained. Then, charge the phone for 30 minutes before booting to Recovery Mode.
Press and hold the Volume Up button and the Bixby button at the same time.
While still holding the Volume Up and Bixby keys, press and hold the Power button.
The Recovery screen menu will now appear. When you see this, release the buttons.
Use the Volume Down button until you are highlighting ‘Wipe data/factory reset.’
Press the Power button to select ‘Wipe data/factory reset.’
Use Volume Down to highlight Yes.
Press the Power button to confirm factory reset.

Get help from us

Having Issues with your phone? Feel free to contact us using this form. We’ll try to help. We also create videos for those wanting to follow visual instructions. Visit our Youtube page for troubleshooting.