How to fix an Android device that’s restarting or crashing

Why your Android device is restarting or crashing

Undoubtedly, smartphones have become an integral part of our everyday lives. We are all inherently dependent on them, and any problems related to their consistent usage may put us into an awkward spot. This is what has been a subject of worry to some percentage of people experiencing problems with Android devices. Specifically, the scope of such issues has been centered around unexpected restarting or crashing cases that occur while performing various tasks. Due to this, some users are left with little or none of adequate device usage to satisfy their needs. Unfortunately, there is no single reason why such issues occur – it can be linked to the outdated operating system, incompatibilities caused by third-party apps, the presence of malware, insufficient memory space, and, in rarer cases, even hardware problems. Below, we have compiled a guide with the most potential and efficiency-tested solutions to breathe new and flawless life into your Android smartphone. Note that all instructions located below are generic and can only differ slightly on some smartphone models.

1. Make sure your Android is up-to-date

Some OS versions can become outdated and no longer as good as they used to be before. New updates can contain fixes that resolve some known bugs or flaws causing various issues. We thus advise you to check your smartphone for new updates and install them if any are found. You can do it the following way:

1. Find and open Settings on your smartphone.
2. Scroll down the list and open Software update or similar.
3. Then, click on Check for update to search for updates.
4. If found, Download & Install it to upgrade your system.

Now you can check if new updates brought your smartphone back to normal user experience. If nothing has changed, proceed to further solutions down below.

2. Update or Uninstall third-party apps

If you experience problems while using a certain application, then it is worth updating or removing it completely. Also, if your smartphone started restarting or crashing expectedly after installing a recent application, you can target its deletion specifically. You can do it easily via these steps below:

To update an app:

1. Open Play Store or other app markets and search for the app you have problems with.
2. Click on Update and wait until the process is finished. You can also click Uninstall on the same page to remove the application. As an alternative, you can delete applications in Settings as shown below.

To uninstall an app in Settings:

1. Go to Settings as we did before and open App management or similar.
2. Click on App list and search for the app you want to have removed.
3. Tap on Uninstall and confirm the action.

3. Ensure enough memory storage

If your Device Memory falls under 10% of available storage, your smartphone may start experiencing performance issues, including unexpected crashes and restarts. This is why it is important to have enough space remaining to prevent such problems from happening. Check your storage using the steps below and, if insufficient, free up some space by deleting necessary files or apps on the device.

1. Open Settings and navigate to Storage or similar.
2. Look at your Device storage and make sure there is more than 10% or memory available.

You can also view what type of files holds the most memory and delete files within that category.

4. Scan your smartphone for malware

Your smartphone can also be infected with malware (like trojan) or unwanted apps that cause such problems. Knowing this could be an option, we advise you to perform a thorough device scan. A specially-educated program like antivirus can offer high-quality and trusted anti-malware solutions, with constantly updating databases of infections to find and neutralize quickly. Manual removal may not be as effective as using anti-malware software. The virus may be reluctant to deletion or leave redundant traces after successful removal. We recommend our readers to use Norton Mobile Security for Android. It is a popular and high-level company developing solutions for various threats – on both desktop and smartphone operating systems. You can download it from Google Play for Android and run malware removal for free.

Download Norton Mobile Security

5. Perform a Factory Reset

If your smartphone has not yet been liberated from non-friendly behavior such as crashing or restarting, then you should consider resetting the entire device to factory settings. This step will remove all the data stored on your system and roll all configuration settings back to the default condition. In other words, you will reinstall your system from scratch. This will delete possible infections and clean your smartphone from other unnecessary stuff. Before doing so, make sure there is no important data to lose. It is also worth jotting the names of Google accounts and other services because most people tend to forget them throughout their usage. After performing the Factory Reset, you will have to log in to all of your user accounts once more. Now you are ready to dive into the process of resetting your device itself.

1. Open Settings and go to About phone.
2. Right there, you will see information about Android and UI versions, your CPU, RAM, Memory, and more.
3. Somewhere at the bottom, you will see the Reset button. Click on it and choose Factory Reset to erase all data and get your smartphone back to default settings.
4. Agree with everything promoted and wait until your device completes the reset. It might take up to 30 minutes.
5. Also, if you do not have the same location of settings and unable to find some of these steps, you can type Reset in Settings and open it up.

In fact, you can find any setting you need using the search. It is our responsibility to provide detailed instructions, so you have a full picture of the entire process.

6. Deeper issues like Hardware

The last thing everyone wants to have on a smartphone is problems with physical components (hardware). If your Android device continues running into the same problem over and over again despite trying all the available options, including factory reset, chances are the device is subject to issues with hardware. It could be a battery or other component forcing the device to crash and act in another strange way. If your smartphone is still on warranty, you can go to the shop you bought it from and ask for help. Maybe they will simply give you a new smartphone or offer another solution. Otherwise, if you have a very old device, you should give it to the repair center or maybe consider buying a new one. There are plenty of cheap and decent options to choose from on the smartphone market these days nowadays.

Summary

When people report that their Android is restarting or crashing without users’ participation, it is often generic and may be hard to determine the reason for that right away. Better understanding requires a context of when and how such problems occur to draw better and more precise scope on the solution. We hope you tried the methods above and finally managed to resolve the issue. As mentioned, some problems are beyond the capabilities of such tutorials since there are issues related to hardware, which have to addressed on a physical level. Hopefully, you are not part of that story…