Frozen Phone Screen: How to Respond

In part one of this two-part blog series, we went over some of the basics on smartphone screens that have become frozen. There are a few possible culprits for these issues, from storage concerns to problems with apps, and avoiding them is generally relatively simple. At FixIT Mobile, our phone repair services include numerous areas, from those dealing with physical damage like a cracked screen or water concerns to those with software or operation issues – including screens that have frozen and cannot be unstuck. While much of the game here involves preventing these issues to begin with, how should you proceed if a frozen screen has taken place and won’t go away? Here are some basic steps to follow before bringing the phone in to our team for repair considerations.

Restart

The first step to take if your phone screen has frozen: Turn off the phone and wait a few seconds before turning it back on, just like you might normally to reset it. For Android models, this involves holding the power button – for iPhones, you can either hold the power button or hold it together with the volume down button for more specific reset.

In cases where the frozen screen is due to an unresponsive app or overused memory, this will often solve the problem. However, if it does not, move to the next step in our process.

Battery Removal

In many cases, the frozen screen you see on your smartphone will not respond to traditional power-down methods. You might hold the power button for 10 minutes straight, but nothing changes. So what do you do?

In these cases, the next move is to remove the battery from the phone to power it down. This involves removing the back cover and lifting the battery out – this is not possible on iPhones due to their construction, but is possible with many Androids.

Updates and Installations

In cases where you’re able to restart the phone or remove the battery to get rid of the frozen screen successfully, your next big step should be to identify the problem that caused the freeze – especially if this is happening often. Have you recently installed a new app or taken on major storage needs? Is your memory getting full? Check these and other basic update or technical areas to avoid the issue in the future.

Factory Restore

Another cover-all method here for preventing future issues is restoring the phone to its factory settings. For Androids, this means going to Settings, then Privacy, then choosing Factor Data Reset, Reset Phone and Erase Everything. For iPhone, this process involves connecting to iTunes on the computer to perform the factory restore. Be sure to back up and save any relevant phone info here, as it will be deleted – but this process will also clear the phone of storage and related needs, in many cases removing frozen screen issues.

Finally, if none of the above are effective, or if you need assistance with any of these steps, contact the team at FixIT Mobile for these or other device repair needs.