Original topic:

READ THIS IF YOUR SAMSUNG GALAXY M30S KEEPS RANDOMLY FREEZING AND RESTARTING AUTOMATICALLY

(Topic created on: 06-13-2021 07:00 PM)
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MatthewI632
Active Level 6
Options
Galaxy M

STOP CREATING NEW THREADS ABOUT SAMSUNG GALAXY M30S KEEPS RANDOMLY FREEZING AND RESTARTING AUTOMATICALLY, READ THIS INSTEAD!

Please read this post from beginning to the end, so you understand deeply.

 

Why do I created this thread?

Because I've seen many people creating new threads about their Samsung Galaxy M30s devices keeps randomly freezing and restarting automatically. I also see more and more people gets affected with these issues. Instead of making new threads complaining about the same issue, why not create a single thread to cover all of future issues? Also we can easily communicate between victims (yes, victims, later you'll know why) about latest updates, causes, solutions, or even perhaps to found something very interesting about these issues.

 

What are the symptoms of the issue?

- Device keeps randomly freezing and restarting automatically.

- Device sometimes become stuck while booting (bootloop) or keeps restarting while trying to boot.

- Device sometimes won't boot for a few minutes to a few hours and feels warm.



What are the causes of the issue?

Mainly because you updated your device Android (Software Update) with an unstable internet connection, or you paused while the update is being downloaded. This caused incomplete binary files, which affects the stability of the OS. Also most Samsung Exynos 9611 has a bug which may leads to automatic restart if the OS was installed with incomplete binary files. This leads to frequent automatic restart in Exynos 9611 devices, especially Galaxy M30s. As of now, there's no exact known cause of the issue, whether it's hardware or software, but my guess it's a hardware issue. This means the incomplete update might permanently damage the bootloader of the hardware of your device, which is the eMMC/UFS chip in the motherboard. Damaged bootloader cannot be fixed by software updates. But to be sure if your device bootloader is damaged, follow the solutions provided below.

Unfortunately, Samsung does not care much about these issues, so more people are starting to experience these issues. Because of these, we can assume that we are victims of automatic restart issues. For further information, please read this thread: https://r2.community.samsung.com/t5/Galaxy-M/ALL-SAMSUNG-GALAXY-M30S-DEVICES-MUST-BE-RECALLED-ASAP/t...

 

How do I know the cause?

I read various threads about these issues in my country (Yes, my country isn't India, but I'm active here because India is the most active country so far, so I want to share and help others), and some people mentioned the cause is as above. Also I'm a victim of the issue, and I've visited both Samsung Service Center and local repair shops. Samsung Service Center told it's motherboard issue, and local repair shops told it's eMMC issue, because flashing doesn't fix the issue. I might create a new thread to share my complete experience with my device.

 

Which devices are affected with the issue?

As mentioned above, all Samsung Exynos 9611 devices are affected with these issues, mainly Galaxy M30s. There is currently no reports about automatic restart issues with Qualcomm Snapdragon devices.

 

Which updates are affected with the issue?

All software updates released to Samsung Galaxy M30s devices are affected. These issues has been happening since early 2020, even as early as late 2019. However, based on my observations, these issues are increasingly more common after Android 11 update has been released.

 

How to solve the issue?

First, try booting your device to Safe Mode and see if your device keeps restarting automatically. If so, try doing factory reset. Please backup any important files, as it will reset all of the data stored in the device. If that doesn't work, your device might need re-flashing. Visit the nearest Samsung Service Center to re-flash your device. Please note that they will charge you a bit if that fixed the issue. They should not charge you if that doesn't fixed the issue. If all the steps mentioned before did not worked, your device bootloader most likely is permanently damaged and need motherboard replacement or eMMC/UFS repair, which costs... A LOT!

Another good idea is to try downgrading back to Android 10 with the same binary version using Samsung Odin. But using the wrong software, firmware and configuration may result in unusable device. This might fix automatic restart issues, but please follow this method only if you are sure and with caution!

Also, if you cannot afford for motherboard repair, you can visit a local repair shop. It is much cheaper there, because they only replace the eMMC/UFS chip. For more information, please see the What can you do if you don't want to pay for motherboard repair, assuming your device motherboard is damaged? section below.

You can try enabling Power Saving mode and prevent using memory intensive apps, like Camera, Google Maps, etc. This might reduce the frequency of automatic restarts. But the issue can't be 100% fixed just by doing these. Also you can also help by reporting the issue to the Samsung Members app. Just ignore any automated replies, unless it's a reply from Samsung employee or CEO. Some people said Samsung will release a software update to fix the issue in the near future, but it is uncertain. So, the best option is to replace your device's motherboard if you still have warranty.

 

What can you do if you don't want to pay for motherboard repair, assuming your device motherboard is damaged?

I understand you object to pay for the motherboard repair. Unfortunately, these issues cannot be fixed by software updates if the bootloader is already permanently damaged. Another thing you can do is to fix in a local repair shop, it is much cheaper there, because they only replace the eMMC/UFS chip. But actually this is Samsung's fault, so we as Samsung customers have the right to complain, boycott or even announce about these issues. They just need to admit that it is their fault. So, we as victims can and need to work together to complain Samsung about these issues, so they recall all defective devices.

 

Can software updates fix the issue, assuming your device's bootloader has been permanently damaged?

Unfortunately NO. Because as of my knowledge, there's no way to re-flash the bootloader inside the eMMC/UFS chip as of now. So the only options are to either replace the motherboard in a Samsung Service Center or replace the eMMC/UFS chip in a local repair shop.

 

How to prevent the issue from happening?

If you have replaced your device motherboard, or you haven't experienced these issues, I strongly recommend you to disable automatic software update download. Also always use very stable internet connection and never pause while downloading a software update, or better use Smart Switch to update the Android OS.

 

What if I have additional issues, or want to add something to this thread?

Feel free to leave a reply below! I will try my best to respond as soon as possible.

 

Thanks for reading! Hope this thread helps!

 

Best Regards,

MatthewI632

 

Last Updated: June 14th, 2021

NOTE: This thread might be updated regularly, so please check it out regularly! Be sure to give a like if you support this thread so it will show up in the Most Liked Posts section in the homepage, meaning more people will read this thread, or even better, Samsung employees might read it and forward these issues to the HQ.

64 Comments
AYUSHvish
Active Level 5
Galaxy M
I m afraid of this problem ... and complained many times and there only response is to visit service center either wait for next update ....
MatthewI632
Active Level 6
Galaxy M

We need to complain it together. We also need to discuss further to know the exact cause, so we can find a solution. Here's a thread about it:

https://r2.community.samsung.com/t5/Galaxy-M/Help-us-to-Further-Investigate-Samsung-Galaxy-M30s-Rest...

AYUSHvish
Active Level 5
Galaxy M
But now what can we do ...
Sokul
Active Level 7
Galaxy M
Even the M21 is affected. So your point regarding the fact that almost all 9611 chipset phones have issues is correct. Its all because lack of optimization. A51 has no such issues
MatthewI632
Active Level 6
Galaxy M

However Galaxy M30s devices are the most affected, in fact since early 2020, and until now, Samsung didn't recall or provide warnings about these issues. We hope Samsung will respond very soon.

DashingDukes
Active Level 3
Galaxy M
I got my motherboard changed free of cost from samsung.. mark an email to ceo and this option is available on samsung website only..
Mark an good email with all details and provide them the link that many users are facing this issue. They will surely repair it free of cost. My phone was out of warranty only
shivammoluji
Active Level 4
Galaxy M
Great work brother...we support this thread....
Galaxy M

To add a bit of my research into this problem:

My phone (SM-M307FN) is rebooting many times every single day due to a Linux kernel issue which has been already fixed a long time ago in the mainline version. I am still running Android 10, because that's the latest version (M307FNXXU2BTC6) of the OS Samsung has released on their open-source portal. I can use this source code to fix and rebuild the OS to prevent the issue from happening.

The issue and the fix is well known among the Samsung M30s community. It's two lines of code that need to be changed to prevent at least one of the common reasons for frequent reboots.

It takes a lot of work for a private user to fix those two lines of code, because Samsung releases source code that's non-trivial to compile and actually run on your device afterwards.

Samsung's Android 11 still ships with the same old kernel version (4.14.62) as their Android 9 (4.14.62), released back in 2018. There might have been some fixes between 4.14.62-19694174 and 4.14.62-20748039 introduced by Samsung in the meantime.

Regardless, this fix is not part of the source code for M307FNXXU2BTC6 (linked above) that's been released by Samsung in June 2020. Therefore, it doesn't seem like Samsung is actually applying all fixes to their kernels.

The kernel itself should have been upgraded to a higher version - at least to 4.19 - to fix bugs that's been plaguing users of Exynos 9611 chips running on Linux v4.14 for a long time.

Samsung: Please apply this fix to your Android kernels and push the update to your customers. Thank you!

References about the "fix NULL pointer deref in smaps_pte_range()":

Mainline Linux kernel fix:

[4.19,248/361] mm: /proc/pid/smaps_rollup: fix NULL pointer deref in smaps_pte_range()

https://lore.kernel.org/patchwork/patch/1010971/

Google Android Linux kernel backported this change in 2019 :

https://android.googlesource.com/kernel/common/+/043c92bd0517e0018cb6307390eb9c36b864fb9f

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EDIT: After more hours of experimenting I have managed to compile a kernel with the patch mentioned in this post. I can confirm that I faced no reboots since I flashed my phone with this new kernel. Hence, I can confirm this fix really prevents frequent reboots.

mukundhanr
Active Level 3
Galaxy M
This really works how can I do this