Ten easy ways to fix Galaxy S9 “Unfortunately, Android Keyboard Has Stopped” bug

“Unfortunately, Android Keyboard Has Stopped” bug is one of the most common errors in Android. This bug can happen on all Android devices so the solutions we provide here may also work across Android phones and tablets. For troubleshooting purposes though, we want to address this post to #GalaxyS9 users. We hope that you’ll find this article helpful.

Solution #1: Force restart

Many minor bugs are fixed by simply restarting a device. This is true for almost all electronics so make sure not to skip it. It’s also highly recommended that you regularly restart your device to avoid it from developing bugs. As a possible solution, restarting your S9 may cause a bad code that’s been running for some time to quit. In restarting your phone for this troubleshooting, we suggest that you simulate a “battery pull” by doing these steps:

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.
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.

Solution #2: Force quit these apps: keyboard app and messaging app

Sometimes, restarting a device is simply not enough. If you’ve already restarted your S9 before, or if nothing happens after doing a simulated “battery pull,” then the next troubleshooting step for you is to deal with the problematic apps directly. Keyboard app and messaging app are linked the moment you use them the first time so a bug in another may cause the other to stop working properly or at all. To see if force quitting any or both of these apps may help fix the issue, follow these steps:

Tap Settings app.
Tap Apps.
Tap More settings at the upper right hand side (three-dot icon).
Tap Show system apps.
Find the keyboard or messaging app and tap it.
Tap FORCE STOP button.

Make sure that you force stop both apps before checking for the problem again.

Solution #3: Clear cache and data of these apps: keyboard app and messaging app

Another way to directly deal with the two possibly problematic apps is by clearing their cache and data. Usually, you want to clear an app’s cache first, check for the problem, then clear app’s data if nothing changes.

Every app keeps its own cache in order to load tasks it’s supposed to do the next time around. Sometimes, this cache may get corrupted or outdated resulting to problems so you want to clear it. The same is true for app data. App data of a messaging app contains all SMS and MMS though so if you don’t want to lose your messages, we suggest that you back them up before you proceed. Backing up your texts in Samsung Messages app can be done by using Samsung Cloud service or thru Smart Switch.

Once you’ve backed your messages up, you can clear the cache and data of your keyboard and messaging app by following these steps:

Open Settings app.
Tap Apps.
Tap More settings (three-dot icon) at the upper-right.
Tap Show system apps.
Find the keyboard app you’re using. This may be Samsung Keyboard or the name of the third party keyboard app you’re using.
Once you found the keyboard app, open it.
Tap Storage.
Tap Clear Cache button.
Restart your S8.
Check if the problem still exists.

Should the issue remain after clearing the cache of keyboard and messaging apps, repeat steps 1-7 and hit Clear Data button.

Solution #4: Make sure that apps and Android are up-to-date

Your S9’s software environment is consist of two things: apps and operating system (Android). Sometimes, incompatibility problems as well as other bugs or annoyances may occur if one of them is not up-to-date. Needless to say, you want to have updates for both.

Updating apps is normally not an issue if you don’t change the default setting of Google Play Store app to automatically download and install updates. However, if you changed it, you should make sure that you regularly check for app updates. The same is true for Android updates. Carrier-branded phones are usually set to download Android updates but if you also changed it to inform you first before installing anything, then make sure that you go under Settings > Software Update.

Solution #5: Reset app preferences

Some S9 users were able to fix “Unfortunately, Android Keyboard Has Stopped” error by simply resetting all app preferences. This solution option will have the following effects:

re-enables previously disabled apps and services
resets default apps for actions
turns off background data restrictions for apps
return app permissions to their defaults
unblock app notifications

If you previously disabled an app or service by mistake and that action affected the keyboard or messaging app, this option may help.

To reset app preferences on your S9:

Open Settings app.
Tap Apps.
Tap More settings (three-dot) icon at the upper right.
Tap Reset app preferences.

Solution #6: Reset all settings

The good thing about Android devices is the fact that users usually have more troubleshooting options compared to say, iOS device owners. One such troubleshooting options for this case is resetting your device’s settings without actually going through a full factory reset. Resetting all settings works like a factory reset but it won’t delete your personal data, security, language, and account settings.

To reset all settings on your S9:

Open Settings app.
Tap General management.
Tap Reset.
Tap Reset all settings.
Tap RESET SETTINGS button.

Solution #7: Clear cache partition

Although we rarely hear of a bad system cache causing “Unfortunately, Android Keyboard Has Stopped” bug, there’s no telling where the issue lies so you want to do as many troubleshooting steps as possible. Clearing your S9’s cache partition is definitely one of the things that you possible solution options that you can do in this case because a corrupted system cache can sometimes lead to some apps to stop working properly. If you haven’t tried doing this step before, here are the steps:

Turn off the device.
Press and hold the Volume Up key and the Bixby key, then press and hold the Power key.
When the Android logo displays, release all three keys.
An ‘Installing system update’ message will show for 30 – 60 seconds before the Android system recovery menu options appear.
Press the Volume down key several times to highlight wipe cache partition.
Press Power key to select.
Press the Volume down key to highlight yes, them and press the Power key to select.
When the wipe cache partition is complete, Reboot system now is highlighted.
Press the Power key to restart the device.
Check for the problem.

Solution #8: Run in safe mode and observe

If clearing the cache partition won’t help, the next good thing to do is to check if one of your downloaded apps is to blame. Poorly coded apps may interfere with Android so ideally, you only want to add good apps. Since it’s borderline impossible for an average user to know in advance whether an app can be trusted or generally okay, all you can do is to install it first and deal with issues later on. If you’re not sure whether one of your apps is problematic or not, you can run your S9 to safe mode.

In this mode, all third party apps will be blocked so if one of them is the reason for the “Unfortunately, Android Keyboard Has Stopped” bug, the problem won’t occur. If you think that an app is problematic, you can try to uninstall apps individually until the you’ve identified the culprit. Basically, what you want to do is to uninstall apps one by one. After every uninstall, make sure to check for the problem by restarting the phone back to normal mode. If the “Unfortunately, Android Keyboard Has Stopped” bug remains, you then proceed to uninstalling the next app.

To boot your S9 to safe mode:

Turn the device off.
Press and hold the Power key past the model name screen.
When “SAMSUNG” appears on the screen, release the Power key.
Immediately after releasing the Power key, press and hold the Volume down key.
Continue to hold the Volume down key until the device finishes restarting.
Safe mode will display in the bottom left corner of the screen.
Release the Volume down key when you see Safe Mode.
Let your S9 run in this mode for several hours and check for the problem.

Solution #9: Use another keyboard app

Should the issue remain at this stage, there probably is a problem with the keyboard app itself. It may have received an update which causes it to malfunction. We recommend that you try to use another keyboard app. If you’ve been using the stock Samsung keyboard, try to installing other apps from reputable sources and see if that will work.

Solution #10: Factory reset

As your last resort, you can always wipe the system to bring them back to their defaults. We know for a fact that Samsung keyboard app is not buggy in its factory state so hopefully, a factory reset will bring it back to its normal working state.

To factory reset your S9:

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.
Turn off the device.
Press and hold the Volume Up key and the Bixby key, then press and hold the Power key.
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).
Press the Volume down key several times to highlight “wipe data / factory reset.
Press Power button to select.
Press the Volume down key until ‘Yes — delete all user data’ is highlighted.
Press Power button to select and start the master reset.
When the master reset is complete, “Reboot system now” is highlighted.
Press the Power key to restart the device.