Phone software updates are a good thing. In fact they’re becoming a selling point for some premium models, a welcome respite after years of manufacturers seemingly abandoning support for phones after a year or two. But pobody’s nerfect, as Samsung has recently illustrated. Software updates for the Galaxy S10 and Galaxy Note 10 have reportedly sent these phones into an unrecoverable “bootloop,” forcing owners to reset and lose their data.
Dozens of S10 and Note 10 users (and at least on one the Galaxy M51) on Reddit are reporting that their 2020 phones continually reboot after the update has been applied, never getting fully into Android and thus making the devices effectively inoperable. According to Android Authority, the culprit appears to be the latest version of Samsung’s SmartThings Framework software, though that hasn’t been confirmed by Samsung itself.
So far the only recourse affected users have had is to go into Android’s recovery mode and do a hard reset (or “factory reset”) of their devices. That gets it back up to working order, but the user then has to set up their phone again, and any files or settings are lost. It’s a nuisance at best, a disaster at worst, as photos or encrypted files on local storage are wiped out. Worse, the same update might come through and repeat the entire process.
This sort of thing isn’t uncommon with updates coming from phone makers and software maintainers. We see it on Windows on a depressingly regular basis. But a phone is a lot more personal and immediate than a PC — it’s becoming many users’ primary device and vector for connecting with the web and the greater world. A debilitating update from the people charged with keeping it protected is sure to cause some consternation. Hopefully Samsung can sort it out sooner rather than later.
