Samsung S21 FE 5G keeps crashing when restarting

[archpol]

Hi,

At the start of January this year, my Samsung Galaxy S21 FE 5G began crashing randomly and repeatedly, making it unusable. Since then, I’ve been using a different phone in the meantime.

The issue first appeared while I was using the phone normally. It suddenly crashed, but I didn’t think much of it and let it restart as usual. However, after using it for another few minutes, it crashed again. From that point on, it began crashing repeatedly during the restart process. I left the device alone for a few hours until the battery eventually ran out.

After plugging it in to charge, the phone powered on automatically and appeared to be fine. I let it charge fully before attempting to unlock it. Once unlocked, it functioned normally for about 30 seconds before crashing again. The screen went black, the phone attempted to restart, and then entered the same cycle of crashing repeatedly during the boot process. This cycle continues until the battery is completely drained, sometimes repeating over a hundred times. Sometimes the phone will just turn off completely after many attempts trying to restart, but if I go to turn it on again, it just proceeds to crash on boot process. 

The only time I seem able to reach the lock screen and enter my password is letting the phone charge after the battery has been drained fully. After unlocking, the phone crashes again, and the entire cycle repeats. The longest the phone has lasted without crashing after unlocking is around 3 minutes; the shortest, about 15 seconds.

As I write this message, the phone is still stuck in this restart-crash loop and feels warmer than usual. Prior to this issue in January, I had noticed the battery life worsening gradually. I can’t recall if there was a software update around that time that may have triggered the issue. On the rare occasions I manage to get past the lock screen, I’ve attempted to download and install the latest update, but the phone always crashes before the installation completes.

Solutions I have tried:

• Factory reset

• Wiping the cache partition

• Booting into Safe Mode

Any help on potential solutions or next steps would be greatly appreciated!

[arianwen27]

If you've tried a factory reset and all the rather extreme steps. There's a final thing you can try.

Using the recovery menu, put the phone into download mode. Connect it to a pc, open/install smart switch on that pc. Use emergency software recovery and it will guide you through getting the pc to reflash the phone with a brand new fresh android version. If that doesn't fix it then it's a hardware issue.

You might have heard of odin before, this is odin, just in an official and easy way.

Oh and for the record I should say "take it to a samsung store and they'll figure it out". But thats not free

[archpol]

Thank you. I will give this a try!

[OrangeHoney]

Hi there,

Did any of the above suggested solutions work for you to fix the galaxy issue...?

[archpol]

Hi, 

Unfortunately, I have had no luck yet. 

I have attempted to do the "emergency software recovery" via smart switch as suggested, but the process seems to require the phone to be turned off manually (phone unlocked>power button hold>turn off). I am struggling to do this step because the phone just crashes immediately after I unlock it!

I am trying this solution, although it has been a few days since I've even managed to get the phone to turn on without crashing, so I am losing a bit of patience!

[Naulee]

You've been dealing with this since January? My S21 5G started doing this last Saturday and I'm totally at a loss. It was restarting at random times in the middle of me using my phone then became more frequent throughout the week. I was really hoping doing the OneUI 7 update would fix it but no luck, tried the cache resets and nada. I managed to get it on long enough last night to transfer some photos to my computer while I wait for a replacement phone but now I want to back up using Smart Switch and it won't turn on again. I fear its also trying to drain itself before it lets itself start charging again. I'm probably going to have to take it in to a repair shop just to get my data recovered.

[JosephJoachim]

Hello there

Same problem with my S21+ 5G