Solutions to Galaxy S7 common issues: won’t power down, slow charging, stuck in bootloop

Hello everyone! Welcome to our new #GalaxyS7 troubleshooting page. As the title suggests, we’re dealing with some of the usual troubles S7 users around are experiencing. We hope that we shed some light on these problems.

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.

Below are specific topics we’re bringing for you today:

Problem 1: Galaxy S7 very slow charging issue, erratic charging issue

For the last 3 days, once each day in late afternoon I’ve noticed my battery was at about 25%, the phone felt warm, and shortly after I felt my phone buzz and it shut off. Twice it was in my pocket at the time out turned off. Today I was holding it and had just noticed it said 22% when it went black. Each time it would not turn back on. I plugged it in and it showed the battery symbol completely empty, and took quite some time, maybe 20 minutes, before it showed enough power to turn on. I have not had any recent updates that I’m aware of, and no recent new apps. I cleared the cache this evening after reading your troubleshooting guide, as well as disabling gear VR, and will see if that fixes the problem. However I’m going on a trip on Friday and need my phone to work so I thought I’d see if you have any other ideas! Thank you! — Monica

Solution: Hi Monica. Your phone may be experiencing a bad battery problem so the first troubleshooting step that you want to take is to recalibrate the battery. Sometimes, Android may lose track of the actual remaining battery power so it’s good if you can recalibrate the battery from time to time. Here’s how it works:

1. Use the phone by playing games or doing tasks to hasten power discharge, until the phone turns itself off.
2. Charge the phone without turning it back on.
3. Wait until the battery says it is fully charged to 100%.
4. Wait for an hour before unplugging the phone from the charger.
5. Use the phone until battery reaches 0% percent. The phone should turn off by itself.
6. Recharge the phone to 100%, wait for an hour before unplugging it again.
7. The battery should now be recalibrated. Observe how phone works.

If recalibrating the battery won’t help at all, that’s the time that you should consider returning all settings to their defaults, also known as factory reset.

To factory reset your S7, follow these steps:

1. Turn off your Samsung Galaxy S7.
2. Press and then hold the Home and Volume UP keys, then press and hold the Power key.
3. When the Samsung Galaxy S7 shows on the screen, release the Power key but continue holding the Home and Volume Up keys.
4. When the Android logo shows, you may release both keys and leave the phone be for about 30 to 60 seconds.
5. Using the Volume Down key, navigate through the options and highlight ‘wipe data / factory reset.’
6. Once highlighted, you may press the Power key to select it.
7. Now highlight the option ‘Yes — delete all user data’ using the Volume Down key and press the Power button to select it.
8. Wait until your phone is finished doing the Master Reset. Once completed, highlight ‘Reboot system now’ and press the Power key.
9. The phone will now reboot longer than usual.

Remember, factory reset will address software-related problems. If the phone continue to behave erratically while charging, or if it won’t charge at all, you can assume bad hardware is to blame. You’ll need to contact Samsung so the phone can be repaired or replaced. If it’s provided by your carrier as part of your subscription plan, try calling them to see if they can replace the device.

Sometimes, a charging port issue can also manifest symptoms you’re experiencing so you might want to try using a wireless charger. If charging will be back to normal (not slow or erratic), that can be a sign of a malfunctioning charging port. You still need to have the phone replaced but at least you can delay sending it in by charging wirelessly.

Problem 2: Galaxy S7 won’t power down, won’t unlock the screen

Hello. Let me start off by informing you that this is originally a T-MOBILE but i transferred it to my current metroPCS phone plan. And after i turned my phone off for a quick restart it is prompting me to enter my password and that i can use my fingerprints after i enter my password that must contain 4 characters and one must be a letter. And because of this i can not get into my phone to do anything and it wont let me power down the device either. Please help me. I must have my phone for work. Thank you.

PHONE DETAILS

Brand: SAMSUNG

Type:GALAXY S7

Model:SM-G930T

Carrier:T-MOBILE TRANSFER TO METRO PCS

Version 7 NOUGAT. — Jonathan Pazderski

Solution: Hi Jonathan. First, you want to ensure that your phone can turn on and off normally. If you’ll not be able to do that, something is definitely not right. To see if you can turn the phone down, kindly do the following:

1. Press and hold the Power button (located on the right edge of the device).
2. Tap Restart.
3. Tap Restart again to confirm.

If you still can’t turn the phone off after trying soft reset, let the phone drain its battery and turn it back on.

Second, you’ll want to do a factory reset (only if the problem returns after charging). Be sure to boot to Recovery Mode first so you can also try to clear the cache partition before eventually doing a factory reset. Here are the steps on how to boot your S7 to Recovery Mode:

1. Press and then hold the Home and Volume UP keys, then press and hold the Power key.
2. When the Samsung Galaxy logo shows on the screen, release the Power key but continue holding the Home and Volume Up keys.
3. When the Android logo shows, you may release both keys and leave the phone be for about 30 to 60 seconds.
4. You can either wipe the cache partition or do a factory reset when in this mode.

In case you’ll encounter problems unlocking the screen, there are three possible solutions that you can try:

• unlock your device using  Android Device Manager
• unlock your Note 5 using Samsung Find My Mobile
• unlock the device by performing a factory reset

To unlock the screen using Android Device Manager, follow the steps:

1. Go to the Android Device Manager from a computer.
2. Find your Galaxy Note 5 on the screen.
3. Enable “Lock & Erase” feature.
4. Follow the given steps on the page to lock your phone.
5. Set a temporary password.
6. Enter the temporary password on your Note 5.
7. Create a new password.

To unlock the screen using Samsung Find My Mobile, follow the steps:

1. In your computer, go to Samsung Find My Mobile website and sign in.
2. If you have multiple devices registered, make sure to select the correct one in the upper left hand side of the screen.
3. Click on the arrow icon to begin searching for your device.
4. Once the service has located the device, scroll down the options on the right until you see Unlock My Device option.
5. Click Unlock My Device.
6. Enter your Samsung password.
7. Click Unlock.

Problem 3: Galaxy S7 stuck in bootloop

My Samsung S7 is stuck on a reboot loop. It shows the “Samsung Galaxy S7 powered by Android” screen, then turns black and keeps on doing this until the battery dies.

I’ve tried the factory reset and everything. When I hold the volume up, home and power buttons, it goes to the recovery screen. The bottom of the screen says supported API: 3 and under that, in red it says “dm-verity verification failed” If I hold the volume down, home, and lock buttons it goes to a blueish screen to download a custom os. If I press continue, it says it’s downloading but never finishes. If I do the factory reset thing, it just starts turning on and off again. — Kacie.dawn15xo

Solution: Hi Kacie. Hopefully there’s no hardware issue behind the trouble. If that’s the case, reflashing the bootloader may help you fix the problem. Below are the general steps on how to reflash a bootloader. The exact steps may vary depending on your particular model so be sure to do some research in order to find a good guide. The steps below are for demonstration purposes only:

1. Look for the correct firmware for your phone model and download it. Make sure that you select the right one. It should be the same exact firmware that ran previously on your device. We assume that you list down the firmware version somewhere. If you did not take note of it before, there’s a chance that you may pick the wrong one. As you may know now, using an incorrect firmware can cause complications so good luck with that.
2. Let’s now say that you have identified the correct firmware. You then want to download it to your computer. The firmware file should have a bunch of files in it like AP_, BL_, CSC_, etc.
3. Look for the file that starts with a label BL; this should be the corresponding bootloader file for this firmware. Once you’ve identified the bootloader file, copy it to your computer’s desktop or to any other folder that you can easily access.
4. Proceed with the rest of the flashing procedure using the Odin program.
5. In Odin, click on the BL tab and make sure to use the bootloader file you’ve identified earlier.
6. Now, make sure that the “Device Added” status and its “ID:COM box” has turned blue before hitting the START button. This will initiate the flashing of your phone’s bootloader.
7. Restart the phone once the procedure is finished.

 

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