Note 4 rebooting, restarting, freezing, not restarting properly, Wake Lock

[Eli-Sprint]

Hi Samsung!  Please, if a Samsung representative is reading this - please do something to help. Please speak to a higher up technical programmer, software engineer and hardware engineer. Please get to work on this to find out how to correct this problem.  This problem is going on for years with several of your phones.  The problem?  The phone lags, freezes and reboots. Or does not reboot. The phone turns off as if the battery has died when the battery has 20-30% left.  Several times mine turned off when my battery had 49% left!

It may pop up with a message with the green Android man saying do not turn device off while we download...  I will lay out the general problem. But if you do a search on this forum AND on Google - for the words Samsung Rebooting or Note 4 rebooting - you will find hundreds or thousands of people complaining about this exact same problem. Yet Samsung has not done anything to correct it. Many people are saying that this problem is engineered into the phone by Samsung in order to get the users to upgrade. 

I'm on my second Note 4.  7 months ago my Note 4 just started freezing and rebooting. Rebooting in a loop. Sometimes the phone acts dead and does not restart.  We have to do all kinds of tricks to get it to start up.

Most people blame this on the software updates.  I had the phone replaced by Sprint.  It worked great. This time I refused to do any software updates. 7 months went by and again last week one morning out of the blue, it started freezing and rebooting. Same exact problem. This time I did not do any software updating so the updates was not the problem. When the problem started this time I had not done anything to the phone. I had not loaded any new apps. I called Samsung and the representative doesn't know anything about it.  I told her to search the Community forums.  She asked me to do the standard checks again.

No - removing the SD card does not fix it.

No - clearing the Cache does not fix it.

No - factory resetting does not fix it.

No - going to Best Buy to have them reflash the software does not fix it.

No - new batteries do not fix it.

No - keeping the phone plugged in does not fix it.

No - the problem happens while running in Safe Mode also.

I tried many other ideas as well. No help.

This is the last chance. I am hoping to replace the phone again. If this happens again then I will be out and I will no longer buy Samsung. I feel this is a serious problem that Samsung is not interested in correcting. Please read all the forums. I am not the only person saying that.  Most people with this complaint are saying they will not buy Samsung again.  When my Note 4 works I very much like the phone. I'M VERY HAPPY WITH IT. But I need a reliable phone that does not reboot when I'm on a  call or doing something. Often I pick up the phone to make a call to find out that it is trying to reboot itself again and is stuck in a reboot loop.  I will have to consider LG, or Pixel or Nexus or even Iphone (ugh). I just started getting information about a new phone competing with the S8 - Essentials PH-1. I'm not looking to switch. I want to remain with Samsung with my Note 4.  Does Samsung want me to stay with them?  I'm not convinced.

This phone is a $700+ phone.  I've only had the first one for 7 months and the replacement for 7 months.  I'm not willing to pay this kind of money for an another phone.  Totally unreliable for a very expensive price.

This problem is not limited to the Note 4. I've spent a few hours reading these forums looking for help. Note 5 users, Note 7 users have the same complaints. Though the Note 4 seems to have the bulk. I just saw a post on Samsung's Community Forum with someone having the exact same complaint on the brand new Galaxy S8!

I personally think that this is not a software problem because when the problem started again last week, I had not made any software changes to my phone including - I had not downloaded any apps. I had not done any software updates since I got the phone. The refurb phone replacement that I received was already on Android 6.0.1. I left it where it was and did not update it.  When I woke up one morning and turned on my phone, the phone froze and rebooted. It then rebooted itself countless times that day. I went to the Sprint store and the man says he knows the problem. But he is obligated to go through a series of testing even though he knows it will not fix it.  I believe that there is a hardware component or circuitry in the phone that failed. Maybe it was overheated or burned something out. There's an app called WAKE LOCK. I found out about this app from a forum on a Google search for Note 4 rebooting. Look for it in the APP Store and look at the comments to see how many Samsung users are using this.  I loaded this app on to the phone and set it for level 4 - Partial Wake Lock.  As long as that is running, it does about an 80% good job of keeping the phone from rebooting. It does it by not allowing the CPU to rest and fall in to sleep mode.  But when I change batteries and try to reboot - either it will just not restart. Or it will get into a rebooting loop. Or it will sit on the opening SAMSUNG GALAXY NOTE 4 startup screen for a VERY long time. Once I get it to start up and the WAKE LOCK app starts it stays on for a longer time before rebooting. But it may turn off (without rebooting) even when the battery has plenty of power left.

SAMSUNG PLEASE - PLEASE FIND AND SPEAK TO THE RIGHT TECHINICANS IN THE COMPANY. PLEASE FIND OUT HOW TO CORRECT THIS PROBLEM. PLEASE SUPPORT YOUR CUSTOMERS AND KEEP THEM HAPPY. OTHERWISE IN THIS AUTOMATED SOCIAL MEDIA WORLD, WORD WILL GET OUT ABOUT THESE PROBLEMS AND CREATE ANOTHER PUBLIC IMAGE PROBLEM FOR SAMSUNG. MY FRIENDS KNOW HOW FRUSTRATED I AM AND HOW MUCH TROUBLE I HAVE GONE THROUGH TO GET THIS FIXED - UNSUCCESSFULLY.

PLEASE!  Let me know. Thank you.

[user7vxxqXtbzq]

I have the same issue. The outlined fixes didn't work for my phone either.

[userlgvutQh8OK]

I have note 5. Second phone, first one died no reason. Would not do anything. Received replacement note 5. After first week, it started shutting down, or restarting, just few minutes ago it locked up. Never did that before. I to have done factory restart last night etc. I like the note phone. But after this mess, I will be looking else where.

[userlgvutQh8OK]

Add to the above comment. I did another factory reset. This time I didn't log into Google. By pass it. When I finished phone setup, a update came on for nugget upgrade. The phone already had nugget. Allowed to install. Phone is operating now for 14hrs with now issues. Been slowly adding some of my missing apps. Longest the phone has gone is 33 hrs without issues. That was sometime ago. I will update this later.

Tom

[userIRCKIBbARX]

I had same symptoms with my phone as everyone described here. After all struggles I decided to do recovery through Kies Tools Firmware update and got the error  Flash write failure at about 72% when firmware supposed to be writen on my phone. Tried again... Same sh1t ...  My guess memory fails every time.

Now  my phone is useless piece of glass and plastic for which I paid $700  2 years ago. 

No way I will buy samsung phone again!

On screen it says 

[userlgvutQh8OK]

Hello,

 I have a Note 5, I used odin to change firmware. Much easier program to work with. I to had same restrarting issues or shutting down. I tried so many things to solve this issue, thinking it was a app issue to processor, power management, google etc.  I also tried to wakelock program, the programed helped but would not resolve the issue.

 I was starting to realize maybe this phone was just no good. I decided 1 last time to reflash back to marshmellow 6.0. Before doing so I deleted all cashe, reflashed. Soon afterward phone would shut down.  I would have to restart phone. Day later got a up date nugget 7.0

One thing I didn't try was note 5 has 3 screen resolution. It always defaulted to FHD, I have tried WQHD. But never tried just HD 1280*72. Never noticed any diffrence in screen quality. I set it to HD. Since than no shut downs etc.

Now I have been fooled before with this phone. Ita a wait in see thing now.

[userlgvutQh8OK]

Update to above. Since the change to resolution to HD, have not had a single issue. At this point I think the problem has been resolved. 

[userJP4BgZ8jdK]

my phone was doing the same thing..when it WOULD ACTUALLY turn on (which I'd have to wait DAYS between it actually powering on..and yes evry time I'd take the battery out and hold down pwr button) I don't have a laptop to run kies but I didn't even try messing with my phone for like 6 mts (figured it was toast) but just the other day decided to give it one more try..charged it up.took battery bk out and held pwr button, replaced battery and it actually turned back on!! the last time it'd actually powered on I had just installed the wake lock app but it'd powered off b4 I could even open the app but the other day when it actually came on the wake lock app was working and my phone has done quite a bit better!! yea it would die super fast but I've made sure to keep it on the charger so it doesn't get to the point of dying..it'll only charge to 79% no matter how long I keep it on charger but it's only randomly rebooted 2x in maybe 5 days..so what I'm saying is...it's worth pulling the phone back out of its grave and seeing if u get lucky!!! hopefully you will!!

[userlgvutQh8OK]

Update, since Friday night my phone worked perfectly. Not one issue, since last factory reset. May of been using Google security was the issue. Use Samsung security.  All is well.

[usereR7qLvfrs6]

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@userlgvutQh8OK wrote:

Update, since Friday night my phone worked perfectly. Not one issue, since last factory reset. May of been using Google security was the issue. Use Samsung security.  All is well.

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What do you mean by Samsung security instead of Google security?