Samsung Galaxy S5 Problems, Glitches, Questions, Errors and Solutions [Part 17]

Welcome guys to the continuation of our Samsung Galaxy S5 troubleshooter series.

If you have concerns regarding your Samsung Galaxy S5, don’t hesitate to shoot us an email at [email protected] and we will do our best to get back to you as soon as we can.

You can also engage us at our social networking sites by visiting our Facebook and Google+ pages.

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Samsung Galaxy S5 keeps on rebooting

Problem: Hello. Hope you are well. I recently got the Samsung Galaxy S5 as a gift (about 3-4 months back). The phone worked 100% perfect.

I realized one day that my phone is very quite and I thought the phone died so I pressed the power button to switch it on but it did not work. I took out the battery and put it back after a few minutes and then it worked 100% again. It started to happen more often and now it’s at least happening 1-2 times a day. Can you please give me advise? Kind regards. — Reinhard

Troubleshooting: Hello Reinhard. Does the battery empty itself out faster? If it does, most probably the main reason for this trouble is the faulty battery of the phone. Try using a different battery and see if it makes any difference.

However, if the battery is not the issue it is very likely that something is causing the phone to fail. This scenario can be the result of a few items we outline below. Try to check each one to narrow down the cause.

Non-working ROM. ROM, also known in Android environment as the operating system of your device, can vary by service provider. In a quest to make their ROM appear unique, a carrier may slightly modify an Android operating system version in a phone. While the intentions are good, such practice however can cause problems if the said ROM is not tested enough for compatibility issues with all functionalities of the phone. Sometimes, a ROM from a particular carrier can cause a unique issue only among its users so it’s no wonder that some users sporting, say, Verizon phone are experiencing issues with their S5 while those using T-Mobile or AT&T are not affected at all.

In your case here, there’s a chance that the issue may be the fruit of a faulty ROM from your service provider so it’s best if you can let them know about it. They will normally give you options whether it’s a known issue on their end or not.

Also, if you tried rooting your phone or may already have rooted it now, try to revert to the original ROM as the ROM the phone is running right now may have become corrupted.

ROM glitch. Try to update your phone and make sure that it’s running the most recent software available. Although rare, an operating system can suffer from few unexplained glitch that may defy diagnostic tests. At times, simply downloading the latest update can eliminate bugs in the system. If you suspect that the operating system may be the root cause, restoring the phone to its factory defaults can wipe out the issue in one step. Just make sure to create a copy of your personal data first before doing the reset.

Hardware failure. Just like any other electronic device, your Samsung Galaxy S5 can also suffer from hardware failure. With hundreds of minute components inside, there’s always that chance of something to fail inexplicably. If your phone has been dropped before you started to encounter the issue, a component or set of components may have become loosely connected to the motherboard. Overheating can also cause components on your phone to fail. If you think this is the case, getting a replacement phone may be the most effective solution that you can do right now.

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Samsung Galaxy S5 restarts itself and play music unexpectedly

Problem: Hello DroidGuy. I have the Samsung Galaxy S5. I just received it one month ago and it was working fine up until now. My phone is randomly shutting down and my music starts to play out of nowhere. Could you please help me with this problem as I don’t want my music to start playing while I’m in the middle of class. Please and thank you! — Rachel

Troubleshooting: Hi Rachel. We have provided possible solutions why a Samsung Galaxy S5 reboots on its own on the problem above this. Kindly check the steps and see if anything applies to your case here.

As regards your second issue about your phone randomly turning the music on, we think that this is being caused by the default S Voice app. If you use S Voice, make sure to disable option to allow the phone to play music via voice commands. We cannot think of any other reason why the phone will initiate playing music by itself unless it’s triggered by a command or by some rogue app installed on your phone.

If ever you did not set-up S Voice, try to reset the phone to its factory defaults to clear some bugs that may be causing this error.

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Samsung Galaxy S5 touchscreen not working

Problem: Hi. I recently got my Samsung S5 (1 month back).I dropped it yesterday and find few scratches in the top left corner of the screen. All of sudden the mobile gone to black screen. I thought its due to the drain of battery so I charged it for more than a hour and tried to power it on. I am able to hear the touch screen sounds but the screen is still blank. I also tried removing the battery and put it back again and switch on the same but still getting the same black screen. I went to the provider shop, but they told due to the scratches on the screen it’s not booting up and this won’t be taken care by the manufacturer warranty. Would appreciate if you guide me with any solutions which helps me to get rid of this issue. Thanks and regards — K.Satheesh

Troubleshooting: Hi K.Satheesh. We are sorry to hear about this touchscreen issue of yours. There are only a few solutions that you can try when it comes to a bad touch screen. Your Samsung Galaxy S5’s touch screen is a delicate piece that a single fall can potentially damage it beyond repair. We hope that this is not the case here so please try some of our suggestions below:

• Powercycle. In some rare instances, a few users were able to make their touchscreen work by holding down the Power button for 5 seconds until the phone vibrates.
• Remove the microSD card. A user from one of the forums we came across recalled removing the SD card from the phone to make it to work. We don’t see any logic in this step but at this point, we have to try anything.
• Remove the touchscreen cover. If you are using a screen protector, removing it may help the phone regain it touch sensitivity.
• Get a new phone. There’s really nothing much that we can do if the touchscreen has indeed failed at this point. If you want to continue enjoying your S5 experience, getting a replacement may be your only salvation here.

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Samsung Galaxy S5 battery drains faster

Problem: Hi. I have had the best experience with this battery until today. I have had my phone plugged in with original cord etc., and almost 3 hours and I am at 41%. Before today, the battery would be fully charged within an hour. I have went thru my apps, disabled some of them, and tried using an uninstaller app without luck. How can I tell if a virus has attacked my phone? If I do a factory reboot will that rid it of any application that may be draining my battery? Thanks. — Patricia

Troubleshooting: Hi Patricia. If you think that you may have installed malware on your phone, simply perform the Safe Mode procedure and run your phone for a whole to observe. Just follow this link on how to do a Safe Mode on your Samsung Galaxy S5.

Doing a factory reset can also help ensure that your phone is free from any rogue app that you may have installed before. Just be careful though in re-installing your apps as you may unknowingly put yourself at the point you are at right now. If you suspect that a single app may be the culprit, don’t install it and try using an alternate app that may offer more or less the same type of service. Most of the time, apps are the main reasons why a battery empties itself faster than normal. Some apps have sync settings that allow them to consistently try to establish a connection to a remote server. This process is taxing for your processor, which can result to the problem that you have right now.

You mentioned that even after charging the phone for three hours, the battery level counter stayed at 41%. This may be indicative that the phone is discharging even when connected to a charger. Try to turn the phone off when charging and see the rate of the charge.

We have written a special page dedicated to taking care of your S5’s battery. Simply click this link to go that tutorial.

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Samsung Galaxy S5 won’t power on

Problem: I have had the phone for less than a month and love it. Battery was low so I replaced with a fully charged battery and now it will not boot up with either battery, plugged in or not. Have tried pressing power on for a long time, pressing up volume and power on simultaneously, etc. Not sure what else to try. Four pins in battery compartment that connect to the battery seem fine (springy) so I know they are making contact. Problem seems to be in the phone, not the battery. Seems like it should be trivial, but I need my phone now. I bought from T-Mobile, so do I return it to them? Thanks. — Jim

Troubleshooting: Hi Jim. It looks like you are right in your observation that the phone may be the reason why it does not power on at all. If you think that the metal connectors of the battery and the phone are working as they should, then something must have happened to the phone. Unfortunately, there is no test that we can conduct to point us what particular part of the phone may have failed.

A good solution that you can try though before calling T-Mobile is by removing the SIM card on your phone. Sometimes, if a SIM card is blocked by a service provider, the phone may not boot up at all. Also, make sure that you are entering the right PIN for your SIM card when prompted to do so. After 3 attempts, your phone may shut itself off unless you can enter the correct PUK.

Try to see if T-Mobile can replace your phone and expedite the process of sending it to you. As far as we know, a successful replacement order can still reach a few weeks at most.

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Samsung Galaxy S5 slow to upload photos, apps fail to load

Problem: I have the Samsung Galaxy S5. This may sound like a weird issue but it bugs the crap out of me. Maybe you can help. The problem is the first app. It doesn’t load, stops working after 30 seconds, and or just not start at all when I open it. It’s not just on the app because it’s also happening if I go into the regular Internet in my phone as well. Basically, I can’t see comments and unable to upload photos. Well, I can sometimes,  but it does allow me to, it takes 10 minutes. I’ve tried the Uninstaller app, took the battery out, restarted the phone, cleared  the cache but still nothing works. This is just annoying. Please help! — Patti

Troubleshooting: Hi Patti. The problems you mentioned here may be related and may only have one common cause. We believe that either your phone is affected by a malware or that the device is unable to establish good internet connection most of the time, resulting to slow app performance. We will tackle each issue individually so that we can easily isolate what the real cause of the problem is.

To check if your phone is infected by a virus or malware, uninstall the most recent app that you’ve installed before you noticed the problem. Removing an offending app will usually eliminate the problem right away. This step only works though if you can recall and pinpoint the exact app you have installed. In case you can’t remember which was it, performing the Safe Mode procedure can definitely help. Safe Mode lets the phone run only the trusted built-in apps from Samsung, Google, and your service provider. If we are right, your phone should work fine when in Safe Mode. This means that you either have to remove all your third party apps, or do factory reset to wipe your phone clean. If you decide to just delete everything via factory reset, make sure that all your personal files like important images, videos, music, etc are saved somewhere else so you can just re-download them again to your phone afterwards.

As mentioned, one possible cause for the problem on your phone may be the erratic internet connection it is getting. If you’ve experienced intermittent internet connection on your phone, chances are that it’s the reason why you are also having trouble uploading photos or files using apps. For connectivity troubleshooting, it is wise to contact your service provider first to check with them for any on-going maintenance or connectivity-related problems in your area. The following are the usual indicators if your have an on-going data connectivity problems:

• Taking a long time to connect to the Internet
• Lag when opening an internet browser or opening a website
• Unable to send or receive emails
• Internet-dependent app takes a long time to load
• Cannot send and receive multimedia messages

If you experienced any of these things before, it’s highly possible that you have a connectivity problem. Your service provider should provide full support for you to try to resolve the issue. However, you can also try the steps below to try and see if you can resolve the problem yourself.

Perform a soft reset. This oft-overlooked step is easy to do. Simply turn the phone off, remove the battery, wait for 30 seconds, then turn the phone back on. This process ensures that your phone refreshes its connection to your service provider network.

Use Wi-Fi. This is a remedy and strictly not a solution. If you have access to a more reliable Wi-Fi network, temporarily connecting to it is a good workaround. However, you still need to work with your provider how to make sure that you have a stable data connection.

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Samsung Galaxy S5 keeps sending multiple text messages

Problem: Hi. I’m having problems with my texting. My phone sends out multiple texts sometimes. It sends them out at different times, to different contacts. The amount of texts vary from 2 up to 9 texts of the same message. My friends are getting pretty frustrated by it. Please help. Thank you. — Karina

Troubleshooting: Hi Karina. We have encountered this problem from some readers last year and it looked like the cause of the issue was the Message+ app that Verizon provided. The issue was eventually resolved by uninstalling Message+. If you are not on Verizon, the problem may be caused by incompatible third party messaging app you are using. Try using the stock Samsung messages app for a few daysand see if it works fine. If the problem continues, turn off the phone, remove the SIM card, and insert it again.

You can also power up the phone in Safe Mode to force your phone to run in diagnostic mode. This is useful to help you narrow down the reason for the problem. While in Safe Mode, test the phone by sending text messages for a day. If you will be unable to replicate the problem, then you have successfully narrowed down the root cause to a third party app you installed before. Try to uninstall as many third party app as you can that you think may have caused the problem.  If you can’t pinpoint the culprit app, try to power cycle the phone to turn off Safe Mode and reinstall each app to test them individually.

In case the issue persists after testing suspected apps individually, try to perform a factory reset.

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Samsung Galaxy S5 getting pop ups/ads

Problem: Hello. I recently got a Galaxy S5 and ads would keep popping up telling me to install so many things. After I got Apus app, the pop ups stopped. Or so it seemed. Now whenever I go on the Internet, pages would keep popping up saying that I have problems with my Android or that it is outdated and downloading apps and updating some of them will resolve the problem. At times, my Internet would become slow and my RAM reduced. I downloaded everything it told me and I checked to see if my phone needs to be updated but it is up to date. Help please! — Chrissa

Troubleshooting: Hi Chrissa. We’ve heard many good things about Apus app ourselves but are not aware of it being a source of malware. Did you download or install any other app aside from the Apus launcher? If you did, there’s a chance that your phone may be infected with a virus. To check this, just perform a Safe mode on your device and test how your phone behaves. That your phone runs out of RAM hastily can be a good indicator that your phone may be running some malware in the background. Unfortunately, the only test that we can do on our end as users is the Safe Mode to let the phone run only the stock apps.

We believe that your safest course of action here is by resetting the phone back to its factory defaults. This way, you can be sure that the phone is free from any third party apps that may host malware or allows malware to penetrate the phone’s defenses.

 

 

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