NFC on S23 ultra not working after 1 week

[abdullah1526]

I have recently bought an S23 ultra and the NFC contactless payments just stopped working completely after 1 week. I use Google pay and have tried all the common troubleshooting solutions such as clearing cache and app data, uninstalling and reinstalling, re-adding my card but none of these work. Then, I assumed that this problem may be specific to Google pay so I tried switching to Samsung wallet but would be met with an error right when launching the app saying 'Couldn't open Samsung wallet. Try again later'. I have no idea what is causing this issue as the NFC function seems to be working fine when I ran the diagnostic in the settings. 

UPDATE: So the issue has now been fixed and the only thing I did was update the Google Play system which is buried in the Software information tab in the settings. I was just looking through the settings and found this and my Google Play system was stuck on a March 2023 build. After updating and restarting multiple times I got it to the September build and when I tried using Google Pay this morning it was working as normal. 

Samsung really should make it clear when updates like this are available or at least make the updates automatic. 

Anyone else who has a similar issue should try this as a possible solution. 

[-Robot-]

Where did you get this S23Ultra from? You can contact support and see if they can help you troubleshoot or return to where got it

[abdullah1526]

I got the phone on a 24 month contract with fonehouse. I am unsure if they will even accept replacements for a fault like this but I will contact them just in case they do. It does suck if I do have to replace the entire phone as I've just gotten all my settings the way I want them. Thanks for your help.

[PaulC59]

A soft reset usually resolves this, mine throws a wobbler sometimes. Just hold the power button and volume down, keep them pressed until the phone restarts and you see the Samsung logo. Once you see the Samsung logo you can release the buttons, this causes all the system apps to reload properly. Hope this helps

[abdullah1526]

I've tried this and still get the error on Samsung wallet. I did however find out that the NFC is working perfectly fine on my device as it was working with an NFC reader application I installed. So the problem must be to do with the Google wallet and Samsung wallet. Thanks for the help anyways.

[Josh50052]

what device security is in place? pin? pattern? password? do you have anything else? pay apps require these to be in place. also can you try with a different card? do you have more than one account? and just to confirm is everything upto date and non rooted?

[abdullah1526]

I have a 6 digit pin and fingerprints set up and everything is non rooted. Google pay was working completely fine before and just stopped working randomly a few days ago. I have been using a magsafe case since day 1 but read online that this shouldn't cause any issue and even tried paying contactless without the case on unsuccessfully. I might just have to do a full reset to see if that fixes it.

[Josh50052]

hmmm well you may have to however just to rule out you don't have a watch that could be trying to pay at the same time and you don't have both samsung and google trying to pay at the same time if both are open and or a banking app as some also offer contactless they conflict and the terminals block if they detect more than one....

[abdullah1526]

Nope no smart watch and Google wallet was the only app installed when it stopped working. It doesn't even show an error message or anything, just doesn't do anything when I put my phone up to the reader.

[Josh50052]

okay so clear cache and data for google play store , google play services, google play games , google wallet and gpay/google pay if you have those apps too ( all these apps hold account data so they all need to be purged at the same time) if this doesn't work a device reset may be needed but you could always try resetting settings first.