What To Do When Samsung Galaxy S4 Won’t Boot Up & Stuck On Samsung Logo

One of our readers asked us about the fix to the problem involving the Samsung Galaxy S4 that won’t start up and stuck on the company’s logo. We’ve also received related questions before but it was for last year’s flagship, the Galaxy S3.

Based on reports from other users, the problem like this happen when the phone’s operating system, Android (regardless of the version), is messed up, or if there were some apps that are interfering with the system’s core processes.

The problem is not that serious, actually. But in some severe cases, a factory reset may be needed to bring the device back to its working condition. Here are some steps you can take to troubleshoot this problem:

Boot Galaxy S4 To Safe Mode

When the device failed to boot up normally, booting it to safe mode should be the first step to take. By doing this, you would know if the phone could boot up even without third-party apps and whether or not third-party apps were causing the problem. To boot up to safe mode on Galaxy S4, do the following:

1. Turn off your phone.
2. Switch it on again.
3. Right after pressing the power switch, continuously tap the Menu key (the button on the left of the Home key).
4. Once the phone is up, you will see “Safe Mode” on the lower left corner of the screen.

If the phone boots up in Safe Mode, it means the hardware and the operating system together with factory-installed apps are working fine.

Uninstall Recently-Installed Apps

You’ve booted your phone up in Safe Mode, that’s the first step to fix stuck up Galaxy S4. Now recall apps you recently installed, or the ones you installed prior to this problem. While Safe Mode doesn’t run third-party applications, you can still get rid of them.

1. From the Home screen, tap the Menu key.
2. Tap Settings.
3. Tap More tab and choose Application Manager.
4. Swipe left to choose All tab.
5. Now find apps you want to uninstall. Note that you can uninstall one app at a time.

After you’ve uninstalled apps you think were causing the problem, try to reboot normally to see if the phone boots up this time.

What if my phone won’t boot up in Safe Mode? 

If the Galaxy S4 refuses to boot up in safe mode, that’s the sign it’s pretty messed up in either its software or hardware. The best thing you could do is to do a factory reset through the Recovery Mode.

NOTE: You would lose all your important data by doing the following.

1. Turn off the phone.
2. Press and hold the Power, Home and Volume Up buttons together until the screen flickers.
3. Once in Recovery Mode, use the Volume Up and Down buttons to navigate.
4. Choose ‘wipe data / factory reset’.
5. Confirm the action.
6. Wait until the phone finished erasing all data.
7. Choose ‘reboot system now’.
8. Now see if the phone boots up fine after this.

If all of the procedures presented here failed to fix the problem, have an authorized technician (preferably your provider) check the phone. You could request  for replacement if the problem couldn’t be fixed no matter what.

Having problems with your phone?

Tell us about them by emailing us at [email protected]. Make sure to include as much details as possible so that we could understand the problem well and find the best solutions for you. If you can share a screenshot or two, that would be better.

We may not be able to respond to every email we receive but rest assured we do read them… yes, all of them even if some do look like spams.