KB: Samsung Tablets Hanging/Freezing

Samsung Tablets Hanging/Freezing

An issue came to our attention in November 2018 that has been affecting Samsung Galaxy tablets.

So far we are aware of this affecting the Galaxy Tab A (2016 and 2018 models) running Android 7.0 and 8.0, although may also affect other variants/Android versions.

The effects were that the Kiosk Browser app would hang/freeze and render the tablet unusable until it was either rebooted, or the power and volume buttons were pressed which would attempt a screenshot capture, opening a dialog for permissions, and the device could be used as normal until it froze again.

We were unable to replicate this issue on any of our test devices which made it an extremely frustrating issue to get to the bottom of, as we cannot fix a problem that cannot replicate ourselves.

With the assistance of a very helpful customer, as of 13th March, the cause has now been found and the current workaround is to disable the Samsung lock screen as follows:

Android Settings > Lock Screen > Lock Screen Type > Set to "None".

(See screenshots at the bottom of the article.)

The reason we were unable to replicate this is because the lock screen was already disabled on our test devices, so they would never hang. As soon as we enabled the lock screen, we saw the same issue that many customers have faced for several months.

We appreciate that the lock screen may be required on some devices, and this is currently a workaround; we are now working at trying to establish a fix for this bug if we are able to for a future release.

Updated on: 07/09/2020