Even though it was launched back in 2017, the Samsung Galaxy S8 is still one of the most powerful smartphones on the market, packing a lot of processing power and able to deliver a flawless Android experience.
Still, nothing is perfect and, sometimes, you will notice that your Samsung Galaxy S8 is frozen, not responding to any command. And this can be very frustrating, especially when it happens all of a sudden.
Fortunately enough, this doesn’t mean that your phone is done and you need to take it to a service, as the issue is relatively common, no matter what phone you have.
Below you can find a couple of tips you can use when you encounter this issue. Therefore, let’s see what to do with that broken phone of yours.
How can I fix a frozen Samsung Galaxy S8?
In most cases, this happens because there’s a small glitch in the software and the problem can be fixed with a quick soft reset. The glitch occurs mostly when you haven’t restarted your device for a while and you have a lot of apps running in the background.
Give the phone a few moments after you notice that it’s stuck. It might resume working normally shortly. If this doesn’t happen though, you can proceed with a soft reset, following these steps:
- Press and hold the Power Button and the Volume Down Button, at the same time, for around 10 seconds.
- Wait until the device vibrates and you see the Samsung logo on the screen
- Release the buttons
- Wait for a few moments, until the phone reboots
Once the phone finishes rebooting, it will start working manually. If the phone functions normally, you shouldn’t deal with this problem anymore. On the other side, if your Samsung Galaxy S8 is frozen constantly, you’re probably dealing with something a bit more complicated.
How to fix a Samsung Galaxy that keeps freezing
There are two main things which can cause this problem with your phone: a faulty third-party app or something wrong with the firmware. Let’s take both of them separately and see what fixes are available.
Boot the phone in Safe Mode
In order to figure out if an app is causing all the trouble, the first thing you need to do is see if the freezing persists in Safe Mode. This mode disables all third-party apps, so it’s very easy to find an answer.
Booting a Samsung Galaxy S8 in Safe Mode is done by following these steps:
- Turn off the device
- Press and hold the Power Button until the phone gets past the model name screen
- When the Samsung logo appears on the screen, release the Power Button
- Immediately after doing this, press and hold the Volume Down key
- Continue holding the Volume Down key until the phone finishes restarting
- You should now see “Safe mode” written in the bottom left corner of the display. Right after seeing this, release the Volume Down key
Now, it’s time to find the which causes your Samsung Galaxy to freeze. First of all, start with the ones you suspect, since you must have a list of them. If you don’t have a list like this, uninstall apps starting with the last one you got on your phone. After this, your phone should be ok, as long as you find the faulty app and get rid of it.
Wipe cache partition
If the previous method doesn’t work and your Samsung Galaxy S8 is frozen even after trying it, there’s no need to panic, since you can try something else. Apparently, it’s something wrong with your firmware, so you need to delete all the system caches because some of them could be corrupted.
These are the steps you need to follow in order to do this:
- Turn off the device
- Press and hold the Volume Up key and the Bixby key, then press and hold the Power Button
- You should see the Android logo after this. When it appears, release all keys
- You should now see that ‘Installing system update’ message. Wait for about 1 minute
- After the message disappears, you will see the Android system recovery menu options
- Using the Volume Key, select “Wipe cache partition”
- Confirm with the Power Button
- Press the Volume Key down, in order to select “yes”
- Confirm with the Power button again
- Wait for a few moments, until wiping the cache partition is ready. After this, “Reboot system now” will be highlighted
- Press the Power Button in order to restart your phone
Start using it normally and see if it acts weird again. If you notice that your Samsung Galaxy S8 is frozen even after this, there’s one more thing you can try.
Back up all the data and reset your phone
The final solution remains to reset your device to factory settings, which will reveal if the phone came with a software/hardware issue out of the box or it was you who did something. Before doing this though, it’s recommended to perform a backup, if you want to keep the data you have now on your phone, as the reset will get rid of everything.
Also, a very important step is to disable Factory Reset Protection, so that you won’t be locked out of your device, by following these steps:
- Go to Settings > Cloud and accounts > Accounts > Google
- Tap on your Google email address, the one that you’re using with the phone. If you have multiple accounts, you need to repeat the steps for each account
- Tap the three-dot icon
- Tap on Remove Account and confirm it
After this, it’s time to reset your Samsung Galaxy S8, following these steps:
- Go to Settings > Cloud and accounts > Backup and restore
- Tap Back up my data in order to enable this feature
- Go back to the Settings menu and tap General Management > Reset > Factory data reset
- Tap Reset
- Enter your login credentials
- Tap Continue, then Delete all
Wait until the resetting process is over and see if the issue is still present. If you’re unlucky and your Samsung Galaxy S8 is frozen again, the only solution remains taking it back to the store and, if it’s still covered by warranty, get a replacement unit.
Let us know which of these methods worked in your case, by dropping a few lines in the comments section below!