Galaxy S3 Unusual Freezing (a.k.a. know about Sudden Death Syndrome)
Now that the Galaxy S3 Sudden Death Syndrome has supposedly been fixed by the Update 7 by Samsung patched for Kernel and Recovery ,
There is some poping up posts about the Galaxy S3 freezing with lockups,Lockscreen not responding that requires pulling out battery
and ending up with unsual rebooting and bootlooping which is a very awkward and annoying issue, especially the Q&A section which contains
a lot of angry S3 users reporting this problem ; Ex
Galaxy S 3 keeps freezing every 5 mins (50+ freezes a day)
Galaxy S3 keeps freezing
Well i decided to make this thread in the benefit of spotting the problem and to make sure we have accurate causes and eventually elaborate a solution to this disturbing problem.
Share your experiences down by posting the ROM, the Kernel, the Recovery and the Bootloader that you are on right now, so we can filter the answers and relate them with the freezing problems on The Galaxy S3.
Reported Issue Reasons :
1) - Facebook app for Android.
2) - Google Chrome Browser.
3) - Some Samsung Based Android 4.1.2 builds/Roms causing freezing.
4) - In Some cases, Media Scanner causing lockups.
5) - In Some cases, Swiftkey Flow Bêta causing freezing.
Possible Direct Reason :
Possible Current Solution :
I. If the phone freezes, wait until it unfreezes itself. I think this is the important part.
II. The DFG "Dummy File Generator" is only used to trigger the freezes.
III. I think you could also just wait for the freezes to be triggered by all-day-use, but this would be very impractical to wait 20 minutes to
unfreeze when you need the phone.
IV. So we write dummy data with DFG to provoke the freezes.
Highly Recommended Advice :
The write access to an affected block without Sudden Death fix seems to damage the data on this block which _can_ lead to a sudden death.
Because of that I would recommend to stay with KERNELS that have the Sudden death fix included, even if it could cause freezes.
Reported Most Stable " Freeze Free " Build/Rom :
XXEMB1 and all Custom Roms based on this build.
Dummy File Generator :
Alternate Working Solution :
LagFix (fstrim) Premium
Rob's Dummy File Generator Method to solve persistant freezes on the Galaxy S3 :
Rob's DFG Method , Please take a moment to thank him for his contribution to solving this problem.
Let me repeat it again:
Whoever has problems with freezes, please try this at least and give positive or negative feedback here. We have good experience with this method to sightly reduce and/or completely eleminate the freezes.
No, this means that the problems occur when writing the eMMC, not reading.
Try to wait for the phone to unfreeze (5-25 minutes) it seems that it helps and the freezes get less.
If you have that kind of freezes, that are caused by the SD-Fix your phone will unfreeze after that time without reboot.
To provoke the freezes you can also empty your internal storage as much as possible and then use the dummy file generator (generate all) to fill the internal memory 1-2 times.
After each run you can simply delete the dummy files with the delete button.
https://play.google.com/store/apps/d...nomunomu.dummy
Free up 8GB or more to have enough free space on internal memory.
If you have 8 GB free internal space, write 2 times dummy files. 2x8GB are 16GB. The internal wear leveling algorithm spreads these writes over the whole 16GB physical chip area.
There is a good chance that writing EACH sector on the eMMC resets/averages out the internal block data (f.e. write counters) that trigger the Bug and the Fix (Freeze).
If the phone freezes while writing the dummy data (it propably will), just let the phone do what it wants. It will continue to work after 2-25 minutes for each freeze.
This unfreeze after 5-25 minutes seems to have a positive effect.
You can have more than one freeze while doing this. Just let the phone do what it wants. If the dummy file generator crashs cause of a freeze, just restart the App.
When your finally able to write a amount of 16GB data (2x8GB dummy files) in subsequent runs without freezes you have a good chance that your freezes are gone for now or maybe even forever.
You need to write a minimum amount of 16GB data (or more) with this procedure! If you write less data, you didn't even need to thest this DFG method.
The idea behind it:
The SD-Fix causes freezes when writing eMMC blocks in a specific eMMC block parameter state. There parameters are for example the block write counter. Just some few blocks are affected, but when they get written, the SD-Fix freezes the eMMC. Now it seems to have a positive ("healing") effect to wait for the eMMC to unfreeze itself, which happens after 5-25 minutes. For all day use this is not very practicable. So we write just some dummy data to the eMMC to trigger the freezes when we do have the time to wait for the unfreeze. Thats all.
-- From the forums I monitor I get 80-90% positive feedback that the S3 gets again long-time-stable (usable) with this DFG-method.
I got from 10-15 freezes/day to only 1 single freeze in the last 2 weeks without factory reset.
-- Some people needed to write 60-80GB of data until the phone became stable.
In the hardest case (only 1 case) I know, someone wrote about 1TB (1000GB) of data and then the phone became finally stable. He didn't got warranty so DFG was his last resort and after that it finally got stable.
In most cases 20-60GB written data should be enough to get back the phone on a stable state.
If youre familiar with odin, you can also flash XXEMB5 or newer firmware, cause it seems this includes a new, better SD-Fix that doesn't casue freezes anymore. DFG is not needed in this case.
Source/Keep reading a bit more: XDA-Dev
There is some poping up posts about the Galaxy S3 freezing with lockups,Lockscreen not responding that requires pulling out battery
and ending up with unsual rebooting and bootlooping which is a very awkward and annoying issue, especially the Q&A section which contains
a lot of angry S3 users reporting this problem ; Ex
Galaxy S 3 keeps freezing every 5 mins (50+ freezes a day)
Galaxy S3 keeps freezing
Well i decided to make this thread in the benefit of spotting the problem and to make sure we have accurate causes and eventually elaborate a solution to this disturbing problem.
Share your experiences down by posting the ROM, the Kernel, the Recovery and the Bootloader that you are on right now, so we can filter the answers and relate them with the freezing problems on The Galaxy S3.
Reported Issue Reasons :
1) - Facebook app for Android.
2) - Google Chrome Browser.
3) - Some Samsung Based Android 4.1.2 builds/Roms causing freezing.
4) - In Some cases, Media Scanner causing lockups.
5) - In Some cases, Swiftkey Flow Bêta causing freezing.
Possible Direct Reason :
Quote:
| Originally Posted by : Rob2222 The freezes are caused by the sudden death fix. On that kind of freezes the phone unfreeze itself after 5-25 minutes. The phone freezes when writing data to an affected eMMC block. An eMMC block is affected, when it's internal block pararameters (as f.e. write count for that block) are in such a state, that these parameters trigger a corrupted block without SD-fix (4.1.1) or trigger a freeze with SD-fix (4.1.2). When a phone is hitting an affected block with a writiing operation is completely unpredictable. So these freezes can occur on almost each situation on the smartphone when it writes data. But you have indeed a higher chance to trigger a freeze when writing much data. |
I. If the phone freezes, wait until it unfreezes itself. I think this is the important part.
II. The DFG "Dummy File Generator" is only used to trigger the freezes.
III. I think you could also just wait for the freezes to be triggered by all-day-use, but this would be very impractical to wait 20 minutes to
unfreeze when you need the phone.
IV. So we write dummy data with DFG to provoke the freezes.
Highly Recommended Advice :
The write access to an affected block without Sudden Death fix seems to damage the data on this block which _can_ lead to a sudden death.
Because of that I would recommend to stay with KERNELS that have the Sudden death fix included, even if it could cause freezes.
Reported Most Stable " Freeze Free " Build/Rom :
XXEMB1 and all Custom Roms based on this build.
Dummy File Generator :
Alternate Working Solution :
LagFix (fstrim) Premium
Rob's Dummy File Generator Method to solve persistant freezes on the Galaxy S3 :
Rob's DFG Method , Please take a moment to thank him for his contribution to solving this problem.
Let me repeat it again:
Whoever has problems with freezes, please try this at least and give positive or negative feedback here. We have good experience with this method to sightly reduce and/or completely eleminate the freezes.
No, this means that the problems occur when writing the eMMC, not reading.
Try to wait for the phone to unfreeze (5-25 minutes) it seems that it helps and the freezes get less.
If you have that kind of freezes, that are caused by the SD-Fix your phone will unfreeze after that time without reboot.
To provoke the freezes you can also empty your internal storage as much as possible and then use the dummy file generator (generate all) to fill the internal memory 1-2 times.
After each run you can simply delete the dummy files with the delete button.
https://play.google.com/store/apps/d...nomunomu.dummy
Free up 8GB or more to have enough free space on internal memory.
If you have 8 GB free internal space, write 2 times dummy files. 2x8GB are 16GB. The internal wear leveling algorithm spreads these writes over the whole 16GB physical chip area.
There is a good chance that writing EACH sector on the eMMC resets/averages out the internal block data (f.e. write counters) that trigger the Bug and the Fix (Freeze).
If the phone freezes while writing the dummy data (it propably will), just let the phone do what it wants. It will continue to work after 2-25 minutes for each freeze.
This unfreeze after 5-25 minutes seems to have a positive effect.
You can have more than one freeze while doing this. Just let the phone do what it wants. If the dummy file generator crashs cause of a freeze, just restart the App.
When your finally able to write a amount of 16GB data (2x8GB dummy files) in subsequent runs without freezes you have a good chance that your freezes are gone for now or maybe even forever.
You need to write a minimum amount of 16GB data (or more) with this procedure! If you write less data, you didn't even need to thest this DFG method.
The idea behind it:
The SD-Fix causes freezes when writing eMMC blocks in a specific eMMC block parameter state. There parameters are for example the block write counter. Just some few blocks are affected, but when they get written, the SD-Fix freezes the eMMC. Now it seems to have a positive ("healing") effect to wait for the eMMC to unfreeze itself, which happens after 5-25 minutes. For all day use this is not very practicable. So we write just some dummy data to the eMMC to trigger the freezes when we do have the time to wait for the unfreeze. Thats all.
-- From the forums I monitor I get 80-90% positive feedback that the S3 gets again long-time-stable (usable) with this DFG-method.
I got from 10-15 freezes/day to only 1 single freeze in the last 2 weeks without factory reset.
-- Some people needed to write 60-80GB of data until the phone became stable.
In the hardest case (only 1 case) I know, someone wrote about 1TB (1000GB) of data and then the phone became finally stable. He didn't got warranty so DFG was his last resort and after that it finally got stable.
In most cases 20-60GB written data should be enough to get back the phone on a stable state.
If youre familiar with odin, you can also flash XXEMB5 or newer firmware, cause it seems this includes a new, better SD-Fix that doesn't casue freezes anymore. DFG is not needed in this case.
Source/Keep reading a bit more: XDA-Dev
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