Many Samsung Galaxy S8 and S8+ owners are reporting that their still-new handsets are randomly restarting, indicating that the South Korean company’s latest Android flagships could be suffering from a software glitch of some sort.
Some users have also claimed that their seemingly faulty Galaxy S8 or S8+ handsets restart on their own several times over the course of the day. In fact, one user allegedly saw their handset restarting seven times over the first 10 hours of use, TechTimes reports.
Samsung is yet to officially acknowledge the issue. Although, judging by the many threads that have popped up on different social media platforms recently, it seems the issue could be widespread. If your Galaxy S8 or S8+ is suffering from the same glitch, you might want to check the official Samsung Galaxy S8 sub-Reddit, official Samsung U.S. community forum, and XDA Developers forum for further input from other fellow S8/S8+ users.
According to some users, the random restart occurs while apps such as the native camera, Samsung Themes are being used. The common symptom is that the app suddenly stops responding, the display turns itself off, and a few seconds later the device restarts. This happens irrespective of whether or not the phone is charging.
At least one user seems to have tried performing a hard reset on their Galaxy S8+, only to have the handset rebooting repeatedly thereafter.
What’s causing the Galaxy S8 random rebooting
Since an official explanation is yet to come from Samsung, no one can pinpoint the underlying issue behind the glitch with absolute certainty. An XDA Developers user stated that the issue could be due to users restoring their S8 from an old phone. According to him, apps by Samsung, as well as third-party developers could be creating some soft of version conflicts after being transferred to the newer handset.
Meanwhile, some users are also of the view that the issue may have something to do with the Always-On display feature and the lock screen.
How to fix Samsung Galaxy S8 and S8+ rebooting error
Most (claimed) solutions to the problem so far revolve around the microSD cards inside the S8. Users who have found themselves at the receiving end of this issue are advised to try using their handset without a microSD card and check whether it resolves the glitch. Although, this would hardly count as a “real” solution. A permanent fix will arrive only with Samsung rolling out some sort of update.
Worth noting, a Redditor has claimed that he too was at the receiving end of the issue until his carrier T-Mobile issued a software update which seems to have resolved it. Admittedly it’s too early to say now if a software update is the only practical way to deal with the issue, although we hope that Samsung is already aware of it and will roll out a patch real soon.