Samsung Galaxy updates are making headlines once again, just as the delayed release of its One UI 7 beta appeared to be calming things down. A raft of headlines in the last 24-hours have highlighted a new phone-breaking issue with a nasty sting in the tail. If this update failure hits your phone, it’s going to be expensive to fix.
Given current fears over mobile device security and attacks, users update as soon as releases are available for their phones. But not all updates work as billed. Per one Galaxy S22 owner on the company’s official user forum, “I’m posting because the boot loop issue after the One UI 6.1 update is clearly widespread, and I want to gauge just how big this problem really is.” The answer is yes, it’s widespread.
As SamMobile explains, “while the One UI 6.1 update brought several Galaxy AI features to the Galaxy S22, it also brought some serious problems… After installing a One UI 6.1-based update released in September 2022, several Galaxy S22 users claim that their phone is either stuttering or facing bootloop issues.”
Users claim they have engaged with Samsung service centers with mixed results. “This isn’t the first time the Galaxy S22 series is facing such issues,” SamMobile says. “Similar issues surfaced when the One UI 6.1 update was released for the Galaxy S22 earlier this year… Samsung had to pull the update. The company solved those issues and re-released the update a few weeks later.”
According to Phone Arena, “some Galaxy S22 series users state that their phone restarts and goes through this cycle several times a day while others say that their phone is randomly freezing and crashing. Regardless of which issue is making your Galaxy S22 model unusable, it is, well, making your Galaxy S22 model unusable. And this isn’t something that came out of nowhere. Earlier this year when Samsung released One UI 6.1 for the Galaxy S22 line, similar problems started to surface on the phones forcing Sammy to pull the update and re-release it a few weeks later.”
The best theory is that this is a motherboard issue, affecting devices powered by the company’s own Exynos 2200 rather than the Snapdragon chipsets powering S22 Ultra devices or devices sold in the U.S.
While the extreme bootloop issue might be contained, the issue is wider. “Given the number of reports,” Android Police comments, “it’s evident that the problem appears to be affecting a sizable number of Galaxy users. In cases where the update did not brick the phone, users complain of random reboots and overheating issues.”
The bad news for millions of S22 owners is that this issue could be a time-bomb on your phone. It’s not clear when it might hit. And the delay in getting One UI 6.1 to your S22 has likely timed out your warranty. That means the cost for a fix will fall to you—at least for now, as things currently stand.
But, says SamMobile, “if so many Galaxy S22 series users are facing bootloop or stuttering issues, and if the software update is the root cause of that issue, Samsung should issue a statement about it. It should also ask its authorized service centers worldwide to replace the motherboards of affected units for free.”
I have approached Samsung, but in the meantime says Android Police, “if you own a Galaxy S22 and have installed the One UI 6.1.1/September 2024 update, there’s not much you can do. Since then, the phone has received multiple updates, but they don’t seem to have helped with the random reboots and crashing issues.”
