Android is the most popular and preferred smartphones’ and tablets’ OS platform, by many manufacturers and millions of users worldwide today. It was adopted by Google slightly less than a decade ago and is used by manufacturers such as Sony, HTC, Samsung among many others on their smartphones and tablets.
Many love the Android devices due to their flexibility, reliability, affordability and offer a plentiful of cool features which are very customization to one’s needs. However, despite all the great functions and features of this platform, there are several issues that make it very frustrating to use at times.
Below we have selected some of the most common issues and problems that Android phone owners face, and their quick fixes.
1. Android White Screen of Death
This issue is characterized by a white screen which is unresponsive or a white fading screen with translucent apps which are operable at times. The phone might even boot to this white screen at times. It can arise as a result of:-
- Battery issues which might be causing the device not to power important display components.
- An android Firmware Update going wrong.
- A Custom ROM flash which is incompatible with the device or something goes wrong during the process of flashing.
- A loose or damaged cable which connects the LCD display.
Ways to solve the White Screen of Death issue
Method 1: Check your battery to see if it’s swollen or damaged and if it is, consider replacing it. If not remove the battery and w ait for some few seconds, then reattach it back and reboot your phone and this should solve the issue if the battery was the problem.
Method 2: Sometimes an Android firmware update may not go as planned which could lead the White Screen of Death. This can be solved by doing a hard reset on your phone to reset it to its factory default settings.
Method 3: In other times White Screen of Death comes after you flash a Custom ROM which means it’s incompatible with your device and the solution to this is flashing the original Stock ROM which should solve the white screen flaw.
Method 4: Another solution to the white screen of death is to check whether the LCD connector is damaged or just loosely connected. Try reattaching it firmly and if the problem isn’t solved replace the connector and if the issue was a loose or damaged connector then the white screen problem is solved.
2. Android Black Screen of Death
An unresponsive black screen sometimes hit on your device making it unresponsive to touch when it is still on. You know that you have a Black Screen of Death when the soft keys backlight is on, the screen is completely black and the buttons such as the sleep/wake become completely unresponsive. This issue may be caused by:-
- A system error or a virus attack.
- Rooting on your device and the process goes wrong.
- Flashing a custom ROM incompatible with your device or which encounter problems during the process.
- An interruption during the updating of an Android firmware.
- Installing a malicious application on your device.
Several ways of solving the Black Screen of Death issue
Method 1: Boot your android device in Safe Mode which allows your device to boot without any third-party applications. Thereafter you can uninstall any malicious app that might be causing problems with your device. The Safe Mode succeeds in booting your device since it eliminates all the buggy apps that might be affecting the boot process.
Method 2: Hard Reset your device to return it to its default factory settings to get rid of any system error or virus attack that could be causing the black screen of death. Hard resetting also solves the failed firmware update issues and this could help if you sense the black screen of death is as a result of an interrupted firmware update.
Method 3: Flash the Stock ROM in case you had previously attempted to install a Custom ROM. This solves the incompatibility issue by running the android version tweaked for your device.
3. Android stuck in a Restart Loop
This occurs on devices whose users have tried to either root their gadgets or install Custom ROMs.it is characterized by the android phone starting up and after getting to the home screen it restarts again in a continuous loop. If you are experiencing this problem, you need not worry. There are several fixes to this issue which will return your device back to normal
Solutions to the boot loop issues
- If the cause of the boot loop is rooting your device, you can solve this by resetting your device back to factory defaults in Recovery Mode. Also, ensure that when in the Recovery Mode you wipe cache partition and go to Advance and wipe Dalvik cache.
- Flashing a Custom ROM and thereafter encountering the boot loop issue means that the custom ROM is incompatible with your device and the only solution is to flash back the Stock ROM which should solve the issue.
4. Android is stuck on the boot screen or won’t go past the logo screen during start up
This problem is common amongst many android users and is caused by a number of issues.
These issues may include:-
- A scrambled or corrupted Android OS
- A virus attack on your device
- Malicious applications that could be affecting the device from booting normally.
Solutions to android stuck on the logo screen during start up
This can be fixed by attempting either of the following fixes:-
- Try a soft reset on your device and see if it will boot past the logo screen.
- If the soft reset fails, then start your device in safe mode and after it boots up, remove any malicious application that you have installed recently and then restart your phone and it should restart.
- The other solution is doing a hard reset to revert back the phone to its factory defaults and which wipes out all the data settings and applications that might be causing the problem.
5. Android stuck in Recovery Mode
Sometimes you might get a problem with your device and decide to get it into Recovery Mode to try and solve the issue at hand. However, instead of the Recovery Mode helping you solve the issue, it adds a problem on top of another by getting stuck. When this happens users cannot conduct any further operation when in this Mode. Another scenario of an android stuck in recovery mode, is after restarting it reboots back to the Recovery Mode Screen. This is a very nagging problem which makes someone feel like hitting his/her Android phone against the wall.
Solutions to an Android stuck in Recovery Mode
In scenario 1: Try pressing the power button for more than 10 seconds which will make your smartphone again and go into the system directly.
In scenario 2: Remove the phone’s battery and then reinsert it back > set your device into recovery mode > select “wipe data/factory reset” > delete all user data
Now having talked so much about safe mode and hard resetting in recovery mode let’s look on the step by step of how to handle these two steps. In order to successfully perform these steps, locate the power button, volume up, volume down, and the home button on your device since they are critical in performing the processes.
How to boot your android device in Safe Mode
The android safe mode loads the operating system without any third party applications which might be bagging the boot process. This mode is important in uninstalling any malicious apps that might be affecting the device The process of loading into safe mode include:-
- Switch off the android device.
- Hold power, volume up, and volume down buttons until the Android boot screen displays.
- After the android screen displays release the power button and continue holding onto the volume up and volume down buttons until the android system completely boots up
- If successful, then you will see grayed up icons and the words “Safe Mode” like in the image above.
How to soft reset your android device
It is the simplest of all the methods and all you have to do is just hold the power button for about 10 seconds within which the device should reboot
How to hard reset your android phone
Hard resetting is the same as resetting the Android device back to its factory defaults and it requires setting your device into recovery mode first. The steps include
- Switch your device off.
- Press the power and volume down buttons until the boot loader displays which will mean you are successful in setting your device into recovery mode. However, accessing the boot loader may vary from device to device and if one method fails, try either of the following combination of keys.
– Power + volume up
– Power + volume down
– Power + volume up + volume down
- Since the factory reset wording often differs with different manufacturers use the volume up or down to scroll to any option that sounds like factory reset and use the power button to select.
- Choose the factory reset option which will wipe out all the data and revert your settings to default.
If this succeeds, you will have performed a hard reset on your device.
Android offers users with very clear solutions to the problems that they might encounter during their android usage life. If you encounter either of the above issues, try all the highlighted solutions and if all of them fails then visit an android expert near you for assistance.