Help S3 (stock T-Mobile) reboot loop!

[fredthefish]

Hey,

My S3 (T-Mobile UK, stock OS - think it's on 4.0.4) is stuck in a reboot loop, and just keeps showing the white Samsung Galaxy SIII logo before restarting after a second or two.

Before it did this, someone complained that they were trying to ring me and my phone was randomly off (despite having half battery). Upon turning it on again I think it might have crashed while playing the Samsung bootup sound (the audio started glitching) and then the next time it booted, the phone had forgotten all my settings (such as the battery percentage being shown in the notification bar), wallpaper, but bizarrely had remembered the location of all the desktop icons.

I immediately went to try to call the person who was trying to get in touch with me, and watched the names of all the contacts in my recent call log slowly disappear in front of my eyes. Now, the majority of my contacts have gone, and the numbers in the call log show "unsaved"! What the hell is going on?!

Anyway I called the person back from memory and about ten minutes into the call the phone restarted again, and ever since, whenever I power it up it is stuck in a reboot loop, just showing the white Samsung Galaxy SIII logo before restarting after a second or two.

The last thing I did before it randomly turned off was look at a notification from the SwiftKey Flow Beta trial telling me it had updated language packs to download, and I selected to download an updated English language pack (my current setting). Whether that is related I have no idea.

Any advice on how to fix this would be incredibly gratefully received!
Many thanks.

 

[James_Bond]

Fredthefish this issue is a very unpleasant one.

Especially if the phone won

 

[fredthefish]

Hey,

Thanks very much for the reply. I have tried all of your suggestions and am unable to get into the soft/hard reset menu as the phone is always stuck on the boot cycle any time I touch the power button (or plug the USB cable or charger in).

Any idea what might be the cause of this? I would like to definitely avoid this happening again in the future if possible.

I have been on the phone to t-Mobile and they had me try all of your suggestions, plus Samsung Kies, and the woman even admitted that she was checking Youtube for tutorial videos(!), but eventually she offered to arrange for the phone to be sent in for repair/replacement.

Thanks again for your help!

 

[James_Bond]

No problem Fredthefish

This issue sucks, as of what caused it or what usually causes it is not entirely clear.

I have heard of a phone simply running slow the user turned it off and then back on and it wouldn