Top 5 Most Common Samsung Issues
Here at Nine Lives Repairs we understand that sometimes you may have a problem with your Samsung device that is irritating or you need fixed, but simply don’t have the time to get someone to look at it for you.
In this Update we will provide some troubleshooting steps for some of the most common issues we face with our customers on a day-to-day basis.
Lets get into it!
Battery Draining Quickly: Sometimes you may experience your battery draining very quickly on your device, or its started recently and has become a daily occurrence. High levels of battery drainage can sometimes be a sign that your battery in your phone has degraded and will soon need replacing, but this is not always the case. Try the following suggestions.
Turn off connectivity settings such as Mobile Data, Bluetooth, NFC and GPS tracking when you are not using them. These can massively affect the longevity of your battery throughout the day.
Try shutting down apps after you use them. Ensure you are closing the app by accessing your “recents” button and closing them down, rather than leaving them open and sleeping in the background. Alternatively, be proactive and access your settings, go into your “battery and device care” section, go into memory, and click the “Optimize” or “Clean Now”. This will shut down any sleeping apps, or apps that haven’t been used in a long time to help the longevity of your battery. Alternatively, you can select the Auto-optimization feature, so the phone will look after this itself. DO NOT utilize any third party cleaning apps that offer to perform the same service on your device. These can compromise the security of your phone and lead to endless irritating pop-ups and scams.
Use the “Power Saving Mode” feature. This also extends your battery life, by ensuring background apps are closed and lowers background data usage limits, which reduces the amount of battery power used by certain apps on your phone.
If you use a Live wallpaper, change it to a static image wallpaper, as live image wallpapers use much more battery power in the background to run a constantly looping short video than productng a constant and static image on your screen.
Turn on auto-brightness or reduce your screen brightness to a lower level and disable the Always-On Display if it is available for your device. Lowering screen brightness saves a considerable amount of battery over the course of a day.
Avoid charging your phone in 12V car sockets. If you must do this, use a genuine or good quality cable. Car 12V sockets are originally intended for providing power to external interfaces and phone charging with an adapter and cable is not recommended. USB type car interfaces have been adapted for mobile connectivity such as android-auto and apple car play, so these pose no issue as long as a reputable cable is used.
Apps Frequently Crashing or Unable To Download/Update From The Play Store: This happens to all Android users, but we most frequently experience this issue with our Samsung customer base. This is usually a simple fix, and the most common resolution is ensuring your phone software is up to date. If your device software is up to date there are a few other simple suggestions to try.
Go into your settings, scroll down to the “apps” option, and the find the app that is frequently crashing, click into your app, and under the “storage” section, choose the Clear Cache button. This should kickstart the apps programming and allow it to function as nomal.
For Google Play store issues, perform the same steps as above, but to access the play store you will have to expand the app list to show system apps, and clear the cache on both the Google Play Store and Google Play Services. After you perform this you must restart your device.
Device Showing No Service/Not Registered On Network: This is a common issue in any device, and can happen after something as simple as a bump or drop that caused no other issues with the phone, or when you return home after holidays.
Pop the SIM tray out of the phone and ensure the SIM card hasn’t become dislodged and is sitting flush in the tray then replace it into the device and restart.
Perform a Network Reset, by going into your settings, “General Management”, then “Reset”, then “Reset Network Settings”. It will then ask you to enter your PIN and will automatically restart the phone. This will refresh all of your SIM connected settings, such as 4G, calls and texts service and WiFi connections.
Contact your Network Provider and ask for a replacement SIM. SIM cards can become old and outdated and scratched if changed from phone to phone over a period of years. If you request a replacement sim from your network provider, this could eliminate any further sim or network connectivity issues with your phone. Please be mindful that most, if not all mobile phone networks in the UK require a photographic ID such as a Driving Licence or Passport to provide a replacement SIM card, or require you to answer some in depth security questions to validate your identity before they will issue you with one.
Screen Frozen/ Phone Not Responding: This issue can be a very difficult one to overcome. If this has happened because the phone has obtained screen damage as the result of a drop or a fall, then unfortunately there is no other way around this other than a screen repair. If this has happened out of the blue and will not respond, the quickest fix is often a Hard Reset. The process for this is easily found via google search for your specific model of phone, as it would take too long to list all the various models and processes here.
Voicemail Icon Not Going Away: This can be a very irritating quirk on Samsung devices that we have seen many times over the years, and the process for fixing it is very similar to the process for fixing crashing apps as detailed below.
Go into your settings, scroll down to the “apps” option, and expand the app list to include System apps, click into the “Phone” app, and under the “storage” section, choose the Clear Cache button. Then click into the “Call Settings” app and Clear Cache, and the same with the “Call” app. This should clear any stuck voicemail settings and allow it to function as normal. Restart the phone and see if the issue persists. This process may need to be performed a few times for it to clear fully from the system memory.
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