Samsung Note 2 keeps shutting down

[Mobi]

I've had this device for several years now, and it has been fine, but a couple of weeks ago, suddenly for no apparent reason, my Samsung Note 2 has started shutting down of its own accord.

 

At first, I thought it was due to overheating, as it was quite warm, but on other occasions, it has been cool and now does it pretty much on a daily basis, sometimes twice a day.

I googled.

 

One of the main reasons discussed is when it is bumped in your pocket, but this doesn't apply to me as it stays flat on my desk all day, and just suddenly shuts down.

 

Another reason was due to a loose battery or tarnished terminals. I have used a small piece of cardboard to make sure the battery fits tight against the terminals and I have cleaned the terminals thoroughly with a scraper, emery paper, and electrical contact spray.

Still shuts down – maybe not quite so often.

 

Any ideas anyone?

 

Thanks

 

It's happened just now, but I don't think it totally shuts down. Someone sent me a message on 'Line' and the notification noise activated. Looking at it closely the blue light on the top left is flashing, so it hasn't shut down, just gone into some kind of standby mode with a blank screen. Has anyone had this? What it the reason and how do I bring it back to life without shutting it down and re-booting?

 

Edited January 24, 2017 by Mobi

[Chicog]

I suspect it has reached it's MTBF, but if you are that keen on keeping a phone that old in service, it's almost certainly a hardware problem, so I would take it to Samsung and ask them to service it.

They'll probably laugh mind you, or perhaps offer to buy it off you for their museum.

 

[Mobi]

You may be correct, but there are tens of thousands of people, maybe  hundreds of thousands, all over the world who still use a Note 2. 

 

It seems crazy that a phone that cost in excess of US$ 700 should be obsolete after 3 years. I know that technology is moving along at lightning speed, but there is very little that I can't do on my Note 2 that you can do on more recent models - all be it a little slower. Not that I want to do, anyway.

 

Certainly, Samsung are aware of us as they still put out quite a lot of info on how to fix any Note 2 bugs, and my OS is still being automatically updated.

 

Why should I trade it in when it still does everything I need it to do?  I have no need to parade the latest iPhone to show how clever I am. That's why I want to fix this latest bug.

 

Incidentally, it is a black screen issue, not a shutdown issue - and much later models than mine also suffer from the same problem. I can solve mine with a re-boot, but other people with much more recent models seem to have a lot more problem in solving it.

 

What say you?

Edited January 24, 2017 by Mobi

[Chicog]

Well if it's a hardware problem you really have no option but to get it fixed. 

Personally if I wanted to keep something that old, I'd at least upgrade it with a Custom ROM.

Or maybe you can find someone with a similar problem (and solution) here.

And by the way, like all technologies, you don't have to buy top of the range to beat the specs on a 2012 phone.

 

There are plenty of good alternatives out there that people are using with great success; Oneplus; Xiaomi, Huawei to name but three.

 

Admittedly I don't pay, but I just got the Huawei Mate 9 for work, and having seen it operate,  both my  iPhone 7 and Galaxy S7 colleagues look decidedly pissed off that they didn't take my advice when selecting this years handset.

And it's cheaper than both of them too, as far as I know.

 

Just something to consider if they tell you they can fix your phone for the price of a brand new one.

 

 

 

 

Edited January 24, 2017 by Chicog

[RichCor]

It could be a soft firmware glitch affecting the wake process, only just now surfacing after having been running for a few years. 

 

The 'recommended' strategy is to Factory Data Reset, then do a simple setup on the phone just enough to get it running ...and see if it still exhibits the same lockout behavior.  If it doesn't, then load up some apps and keep testing.

 

I've also known some people who have broken their power/wake button so loaded a software app to wake the phone when shaken until they could find a good deal on a replacement.

[Digitalbanana]

I had a similar problem with my Note 2 about 3 months ago. I bought it the week it was released in Thailand Nov-2012 so got 4 years use out of it.

 

Now it turns off the screen for no reason but is still running in background with just alert lights on, doesn't take calls and cannot be reactivated by the buttons or touch screen. It can only be restarted by hard reboot (power on key and volume switch combination) or taking battery out and putting it back in. It also sometimes gets hotter than normal when it goes in this blank screen state if left on charge. The battery still lasts a day as since new. I did a hard factory reset and cleared everything but symptoms remained.

 

The kids still use it to play games on, but I cannot use it anymore with it turning off as I miss calls. I assume it is just too old, never been mishandled and been well looked after but just too old and too old to both servicing. I bought a new phone. With all the bad press over exploding Samsung batteries (which they've only come out with a report on this week!) I bought a Huawei Mate 9 back in December. It will be hard for me to ever go back to Samsung again after using this new phone, which cost about the same in baht as the Samsung Note 2 when it first came out.

[Mobi]

46 minutes ago, Digitalbanana said:

I had a similar problem with my Note 2 about 3 months ago. I bought it the week it was released in Thailand Nov-2012 so got 4 years use out of it.

 

Now it turns off the screen for no reason but is still running in background with just alert lights on, doesn't take calls and cannot be reactivated by the buttons or touch screen. It can only be restarted by hard reboot (power on key and volume switch combination) or taking battery out and putting it back in. It also sometimes gets hotter than normal when it goes in this blank screen state if left on charge. The battery still lasts a day as since new. I did a hard factory reset and cleared everything but symptoms remained.

 

The kids still use it to play games on, but I cannot use it anymore with it turning off as I miss calls. I assume it is just too old, never been mishandled and been well looked after but just too old and too old to both servicing. I bought a new phone. With all the bad press over exploding Samsung batteries (which they've only come out with a report on this week!) I bought a Huawei Mate 9 back in December. It will be hard for me to ever go back to Samsung again after using this new phone, which cost about the same in baht as the Samsung Note 2 when it first came out.

 

Thanks.

 

Your symptoms are almost identical to mine - including sometimes getting warm. Glad you told me the factory reset doesn't work as it would have been a pain to backup and restore all my stuff and find it didn't work. 

 

It only seems to go blank once or very occasionally twice a day, and as I rarely receive any phone calls (everyone calls or messages me on Line, WhatsApp, FB etc), I'll stick with it till it gets much worse. Even the calls I do get are noted as an sms if the phone is off when someone calls.

 

Unfortunately, I am not quite as flush as when I bought this phone, which is one of the reasons I've been hanging on to it.

 

Does anyone know a really cheap alternative? Maybe a Lenovo or something like that? I need a biggish screen as my eyesight is not great and my fingers tend to miss the right keys on the keyboard, if it is very small. The tribulations of advancing old age....

 

 

[Chicog]

Take a look at the price/specs that suit you. 

http://www.lazada.co.th/shop-mobiles/

 

I'd say the J7 Prime is reasonably spec'd phone for the price.

If you go to Ali Express there are innumerable devices but hard to say which ones will fall to bits five minutes after you unbox them.

 

 

 

 

 

 

Edited January 24, 2017 by Chicog

[howto]

Have a s3, s4, s4note,

saw same issues...

below corrected the issue for all...

- get a new battery

- pull the old battery, wait perhaps overnight

- insert new battery

 

- remove unnecessary apps

- clean cache

 

- install a battery 'config' app

which will reset the phone's current profile

to the new battery.

Do follow that procedure!

 

If you still have issues,

perhaps a new phone,

recently got a Samsung J3 (for my son).

Was $170 usd.

Very decent.

 

Of course there are other phones to be had.

 

Best of luck

Edited January 24, 2017 by howto
info

[Digitalbanana]

7 hours ago, howto said:

- get a new battery

I haven't tried this as the old battery was lasting the usual 24 hours and showed normal correct levels after the Note 2 had blank screened and needed rebooted - about twice a day. Worth a try?

[mtls2005]

Seems like a common complaint, with several potential causes/solutions.

 

Maybe stroll through XDA and AndroidCentral to get a feel for potential causes and workarounds.

[Mobi]

1 hour ago, mtls2005 said:

Seems like a common complaint, with several potential causes/solutions.

 

Maybe stroll through XDA and AndroidCentral to get a feel for potential causes and workarounds.

 

Yes, it is quite common - even on much more recent models and I have strolled around Mr Google quite a bit and tried a number of cures as mentioned in my OP.

 

Don't really want to fork out for a new battery if I can't be sure it's the cause. The old one is still working pretty well. If it doesn't get any worse I'll live with it for now.

 

Yesterday I cleared the cache at reboot and since then it hasn't black screened at all...so far... so who knows?

[Chicog]

3 hours ago, Mobi said:

Yes, it is quite common - even on much more recent models and I have strolled around Mr Google quite a bit and tried a number of cures as mentioned in my OP.

 

Don't really want to fork out for a new battery if I can't be sure it's the cause. The old one is still working pretty well. If it doesn't get any worse I'll live with it for now.

 

Yesterday I cleared the cache at reboot and since then it hasn't black screened at all...so far... so who knows?

 

Is it up to date?

[Mobi]

1 hour ago, Chicog said:

 

Is it up to date?

 

Sorry, I must be dim. Is what up to date?

 

 If you mean the operating system, it's Android 4.4.2 and according to the settings, it was last checked for updates today, 25th Jan. It is enabled to check automatically.

[Mobi]

A new wrinkle.

 

For the past two days whenever I press for a couple fo seconds  on the home key to bring up the screen showing all the currently active apps, I get a message as follows:

 

"Unfortunately, the process com.android systemui has stopped."

 

When I press "OK" the screen background goes black for a second or so (the apps are still visible)  and then reverts to its normal colour and the phone locks.

 

Very weird. Is this related to my black screen problems?

 

Has anyone had this? Is the poor thing living on borrowed time?

[Chicog]

1 hour ago, Mobi said:

A new wrinkle.

 

For the past two days whenever I press for a couple fo seconds  on the home key to bring up the screen showing all the currently active apps, I get a message as follows:

 

"Unfortunately, the process com.android systemui has stopped."

 

When I press "OK" the screen background goes black for a second or so (the apps are still visible)  and then reverts to its normal colour and the phone locks.

 

Very weird. Is this related to my black screen problems?

 

Has anyone had this? Is the poor thing living on borrowed time?

It sounds like it.

(And yes, I mean up to date with, er, updates).

[Mobi]

On 26/01/2017 at 10:24 AM, Mobi said:

A new wrinkle.

 

For the past two days whenever I press for a couple fo seconds  on the home key to bring up the screen showing all the currently active apps, I get a message as follows:

 

"Unfortunately, the process com.android systemui has stopped."

 

When I press "OK" the screen background goes black for a second or so (the apps are still visible)  and then reverts to its normal colour and the phone locks.

 

Very weird. Is this related to my black screen problems?

 

Has anyone had this? Is the poor thing living on borrowed time?

 

 

I know I'm straying from the original subject, but I have found a fix for the problem detailed above. It seems that thousands were having the same problem, including my wife, with much newer models. I googled, and it was all down to an update by Google in their Google quick search app. The problem is cured by uninstalling the Google app updates. I got my home button back again and so has my wife.

 

http://forums.androidcentral.com/ask-question/763338-how-can-i-fix-com-android-systemui-has-stopped-error.html

 

Why on earth doesn't Google fix such a widespread bug???

[WorriedNoodle]

On 1/24/2017 at 5:08 PM, Chicog said:

I just got the Huawei Mate 9 for work, and having seen it operate,  both my  iPhone 7 and Galaxy S7 colleagues look decidedly pissed off that they didn't take my advice

 

Have you checked the GPS on it? I have a Mate 9 and find that compared to my old Samsung the GPS track plotting on fitness apps is rubbish on the Mate 9? I now find using the same Android apps I am cycling anywhere between 2 and 8 km further when using the Mate-9 versus the Note 2 on exactly the same route. I wrote to Huawei about it but they just blamed the third party apps.

[Chicog]

8 hours ago, WorriedNoodle said:

 

Have you checked the GPS on it? I have a Mate 9 and find that compared to my old Samsung the GPS track plotting on fitness apps is rubbish on the Mate 9? I now find using the same Android apps I am cycling anywhere between 2 and 8 km further when using the Mate-9 versus the Note 2 on exactly the same route. I wrote to Huawei about it but they just blamed the third party apps.

Have you tried it with Google Maps navigation?

If that's out of whack I hardly think they can blame it on "third party apps".

 

There's an app called GPSFIX (I think) which you could try to see if your GPS isn't properly calibrated.

[WorriedNoodle]

8 hours ago, Chicog said:

There's an app called GPSFIX

Thanks I'll give that a try next week. On Google Play it says "GPS Fix" is supposed to " helps to work with any map, navigation, fitness soft." so maybe it will help?

 

The problem I have found so far is the Mate-9 tracks all GNSS satellites (US, Russian, Chinese, European, Japanese) and uses them right down to the horizon so I expect there are any number of multipath errors from low orbit satellites coming into play? So track plots come out with many spikes in position even on Google Maps causing accumulated distances. This does not apply to navigation software that generally gets a best fit to an existing road that it can find on the map but more to apps such as fitness apps that plot exact position recorded by GPS, so on Google maps corners are cut off, I get fixes a few hundred meters back up the road I just came from or in the next block as crow flies. With my old Samsung the route and track plots were much smoother and closer to true so they must have better handling of this data even on a device four years older.

[ravip]

For whatever its worth, I would do a factory reset on a device giving such problems.

 

Edit

Reply to the OP

Edited February 11, 2017 by ravip

[Mobi]

As I have written on another thread, I took everyone's advice and bought shiny new J7 Primes for me and the missus.

 

Very happy with them.

 

When I'm satisfied that there is nothing left on my Note 2 that I need, I will do a factory reset and see what happens.