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Facepalm: Some Samsung phone owners are flaming mad over a bad patch. The Korean tech giant recently issued an update that has bricked multiple models. Complaints began hitting the social media sites and forums shortly after the update went live.
On Wednesday, Samsung pushed an update that broke several older model Galaxy devices, including many in the Galaxy S10 series, Galaxy Note 10 series, Galaxy M51, and Galaxy A90. It appears to be a nearly global problem, with confirmed cases in Korea, the United States, Singapore, Australia, Belgium, France, Indonesia, the Philippines, and Germany.
Reddit users report that the faulty update put their phones into a continuous boot loop. A hard reset has no effect, with the cycle resuming when the phone powers back on. In fact, all attempts to break the loop have failed aside from performing a factory reset. While some users are okay with this, others lament not having a current backup.
"I just really really want my photos," wrote one Redditor, illustrating the importance of regularly backing up your data.
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While some users in South Korea have reported that a visit to a repair shop fixed the problem without wiping their data, customers in the US have hit a brick wall with customer support – no pun intended.
"I talked to Samsung Care US on their Twitter, and they said they are working on a fix but have no ETA," said one Reddit user. "When I mentioned that Samsung Korea is able to provide a fix, they said they can't comment on what other regions are doing."
Not commenting on other regions' actions is fine and good, but that wasn't the customer's point. He wasn't asking for comment. It was a suggestion for the US support team to reach out to its Korean counterpart and find out how it resolved the problem.
Samsung has reportedly fixed the software flaw and re-issued the update. However, that doesn't do much good for people who can't restart their phones. The only fix for now is to do a factory reset, restore a backup (if you have one), and then download the patched update.
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Of course, Samsung's PR machine is trying to downplay the issue, telling Ars Technica that it is aware of the problem while not failing to mention that it only affects "a limited number" of devices.
"We are aware that a limited number of Galaxy smartphones running on Android 12 are rebooting continuously during an update to the latest version of the SmartThings app."
The spokesperson's statement also indicates that the issue is not with Android core. An update to the SmartThings app caused the failure. SmartThings is a proprietary software developed in-house to control other Samsung appliances, such as TVs. The app comes pre-installed on most Galaxy devices, so even users who have never used it will still experience the bug.
This admission made some question whether they should ever trust Samsung updates again or even bother shelling out $1,000+ for a flagship phone.
"[Seven] years of updates seems less important as I keep reading stories like this," Redditor Bassexpander wrote. "My next phone will likely be a 1 year-old used midranger. Why would I pour tons of money into a flagship that they casually brick or has an uncovered hardware failure in 3 to 4 years?"
Indeed, this bug only affects older devices running Andriod 12. If you are on Android 13 or later, you are probably safe – at least until the next device-breaking bug rolls out in a few years.
Image credit: Petras Gagilas