Warning: Older Galaxy phones getting bricked by new Samsung update (Updated: Statement)

Update, October 4, 2024 (10:00 PM ET): Samsung has acknowledged the issue in its statement:

We are aware that a limited number of Galaxy smartphones running on Android 12 are rebooting continuously during an update to the latest version of the SmartThings app.

 

Upon discovery, we immediately suspended the update and are working to resolve the issue. Affected customers can contact the Samsung Contact Center to receive support for their devices.

As suggested, affected users should reach out to Samsung Support to fix their device back to a working state. Users in Korea report that Samsung service centers in the region have been able to fix the issue without a data wipe. If Samsung’s Customer Support is not an option for you, then you can revive your bootlooping device with a data wipe.

Original article, October 2, 2024 (17:25 PM ET): Updates are supposed to make our devices better: give them more features, fix bugs, and address security concerns. But there’s always the risk anytime you’re changing the software that a device relies upon that you’re going to changing something that stops it from working — and nobody wants to have to start fresh with a factory reset. Sadly, it looks like Samsung users are facing a problem just like this, as they discover their phones unusable after installing a recent update.

Over the course of the past day, a growing number of reports about Galaxy phones stuck in bootloops have been surfacing online. Two of the busiest threads we’ve seen are those on Reddit started by users rbthompsonv and mikethespike056, and based on user complaints that have come in so far, it’s looking like this problem affects basically all Galaxy S10 and Galaxy Note 10 series devices. That’s not necessarily an exhaustive list, though, and we also hear about the Galaxy M51 being impacted.

We haven’t seen any specific evidence that would point to a cause here, but one theory being discussed points to installation of a SmartThings Framework update preceding these problems. That at least seems plausible, considering that a new update just arrived, coinciding with the start of all these bootloops.

Unfortunately, the only advice we’ve seen for users experiencing all this is exactly what we wanted to avoid: a full factory reset. Since we can’t complete a proper boot, that means going into recovery mode. Hopefully you’ve got a recent backup of your apps and data.

We’ve reached out to Samsung hoping to learn more about what might be causing this problem, how widespread the issue is, and if there’s anything less drastic than a full reset that users can do to get their aging Galaxy handsets back to full working order. We’ll update this post to share what we learn.