Samsung update is bricking Galaxy S10, Note 10, and some other devices

Ben Schoon | Oct 3 2024 - 8:18 am PT

An update rolling out from Samsung to older Galaxy devices including Galaxy S10 and Note 10 is reportedly bricking devices, requiring a factory reset to fix the problem.

Samsung has gotten much better about long-term device support over the past few years, offering OS upgrades and security updates for longer than ever. But, for some, this has turned into a problem as an update rolling out now to Galaxy S10 and Note 10 series devices seems to be breaking devices.

Users across social media – most prominently in a detailed Reddit post – have found over the past couple of days that, after installing the latest available update, their Galaxy S10 series (S10, S10+, S10e, S10 Lite, S10 5G) and Galaxy Note 10 series (Note 10, Note 10+, Note 10 5G) devices are no longer working. The Galaxy M51 and Galaxy A90 also appear to be having issues for some.

Affected devices are stuck in a bootloop, never fully allowing the device to turn on. The issue appears to be attached not to a full system update, but a faulty Samsung SmartThings Framework update.

Since the phones cannot fully boot up, there’s no option to roll back that update within the software itself. Rather, the only quick way to restore the phone’s functionality appears to be a factory reset performed through Android recovery.

To boot into recovery mode on Galaxy S10 you need to turn the device off entirely, then press and hold on the Bixby and volume up buttons, then press the power button and hold it until you see the Samsung logo on screen. At that point, release and the phone will enter recovery mode. On Note 10, just press and hold the volume up and power buttons.

Once in recovery mode, you’ll use the volume buttons to navigate to “Wipe data/factory reset” and the use the power button to select. You’ll then be asked to confirm the reset, and then go back to the previous screen when the process is complete where you can select the “Reboot system now” option.

The reset phone will mean you have lost your data, but it should be working again at that point.

Samsung has already pulled the update from rollout, but if you’ve still got a working device, you may want to turn off automatic updates via the Galaxy Store and make a backup of your important data, just to be safe.