The Galaxy Note 7 had a serious battery problem that caused overheating, explosions, and fires last year, prompting Samsung to cancel and recall the phone. Since then, Samsung fixed the quality assurance process in an effort to prevent any similar issues in the future (even though the problem was actually the design, not QA), proving with both the Galaxy S8 and the Galaxy Note 8 that battery scares are a thing of the past.
The Galaxy Note 8 may not suffer from overheating issue, but ironically, it appears as though it does have a freezing problem.
It’s not actual cold that some users are experiencing. Rather, the software freezes when they try to use the device to make voice calls. The Contacts app seems to be the culprit, Android Police says, even when the app is opened from other applications, including the messaging and phone apps. The freezes usually occur whenever the user is doing something related to calling or texting.
A post on Samsung’s forums titled Note 8 Freezing and unresponsive reveals that many Note 8 versions are affected by the problem. Android Police compiled a list of freeze triggers from the post forums:
- Using speed dial
- Making calls from the recent calls list and contacts
- Tapping on contacts in the Phone app
- Tapping on contacts in the Messages app
- Loading an Excel spreadsheet from an email
- Opening contacts
- Using the contacts list
- Using Pokémon GO, Chrome, and the Google app
- Tapping a contact in the Messages and Contacts apps
- Charging overnight
- Opening the Phone app
- Opening an individual contact in the Contacts app
- Opening Contacts while texting
- While making a phone call
It sure looks like you can’t avoid the freezes unless you navigate the phone specifically to avoid these actions. Of course, that might not always be possible.
To fix the problem, you have to either force restart the handset or wait for the battery to drain. It goes without saying that if you experience the issue on a regular basis, you should take your phone in for repairs. That said, this sure sounds like a software issue and I would imagine Samsung will have it fixed in a future update. But you may have to wait a while to get said update, sadly.
UPDATE: A Samsung spokesperson contacted BGR with the following statement:
We are aware of a limited number of reports about Note8 devices experiencing an issue with some of their applications. Any consumer who experiences this issue should update their apps in the Samsung Galaxy Store and the Google Play Store. Any consumers with questions should contact us directly at 1-800-SAMSUNG so that we can help them.
