OK lets start with the weirdest thing...a freaky screen that I see at boot up....it says Samsung Galaxy SIII, white on black background but below is an EVIL looking android guy cartoon in light to medium blue. He has antennas and arms and half moon white disks for eyes and a big white circle on his chest. His head is separate from his body and he is skinny to normal sized, not plump like the regular Android cartoon. He doesnt look like the happy andriod guy....this is spooky.
The phone is a Galaxy SIII Sprint version, refurbished and sold to me by FreedomPop. Model SPH-L710. The service provider is FreedomPop but they actually just use Spring and Verizon towers. No SIM Card. It has worked fine for 3 months now, occasionally just cutting off for no reason or an app stopping and needing restarted but nothing serious.
And of course now the blue guy and the phone won't work, it won't finish booting up, is caught in a loop of three things.
Symptoms:
I am stuck in a reboot loop that never completes. Regular black background Samsung Galaxy SIII text logo, then black for a long time (10 seconds) then a flash with dark blue text on black in top left corner, tiny says RECOVERY __________ something else too small/fast to read, then it vibrates, then black, then the Samsung Galaxy SIII logo text with this evil guy. Then he goes away, phone vibrates, then back to regular screen like it will boot up, then black, then the tiny text followed by this freaky blue guy. I have to take the battery out to get it to stop.
I have tried booting up using Home + up Volume + power and nothing happens. It stops rolling through this process but nothing new happens, plain black screen. When I let go of the 3 buttons, back to the loop.
History: 2 nights ago the phone battery died, got to 3%. I went to plug it in, it kept complaining it was dying even plugged in, beeping, screens popping up so fast I couldnt click OK on them all. So, I had to take the battery out to turn it OFF, the reassembled it and plugged it in and it blinked red light. In morning it was green all charged.
That day, phone starting acting weird. First said Amazon Kindle had stopped. Then said Google drive couldn't update. Then said Google + couldnt update. I had new things in facebook, but facebook wouldnt load, told me a file was bad. I removed facebook via apps. I also removed Kindle, removed Pet Saga Rescue, removed several other non-android apps. I then turned it off and back on. Then I went to apps, turned off Google+ and it complained I might break something. I went to google play and updated google + and it said it was complete. I then reinstalled facebook app and it took 3 tries before it would complete. Then it seemed to complete and it was working ok but not letting me post pictures. Worked as usual otherwise. Google pictures was working, Google calendar was working, etc. That night I had 10% battery and plugged it in. I was shopping on the web, just browsing and I touched a picture and the screen went dead. It acted like it was going to reboot but it never finished, just got caught in this loop described above. I took back off, removed battery (wanted some quiet!) and set it aside til morning. In morning, I reassembled it and put it on charger without turning it on. It acted like it was charging, gave me the battery symbol and green line on it, then darkened out. I thought it was fine. I came back to it several hours later and it is caught in this loop mentioned above.
Also, I went on Google pictures today and removed 800 megs of pictures and vidoes, in case things go from bad to worse, coping off to an external hard drive and deleted out of google pictures. I hoped maybe it was just too full to boot up so I tried it after this, reassembling it and trying to power it up. same screens, same cycle, same scary blue dude. I wish I could show you this blue dude! I can't find his pic anywhere on net even.
So what do I do? Is this malware? How do I even get in it to start tinkering? I could care less about anything on it, my pics are off,my contacts are saved and all my apps are replaceable.
My son had 4 apps that might have malware on there. The Pet Rescue Saga one, a bowling app, temple run and a flashlight, which was really quite handy. I removed the flash light today also and if I could get in the phone would remove the rest.
ANY HELP APPRECIATED. PLEASE REPLY! FreedomPop is cheap but it's mail order and has no customer service at all so I have a pretty glossy white paper weight at the moment. Mom here, needs her phone! Thanks!
The phone is a Galaxy SIII Sprint version, refurbished and sold to me by FreedomPop. Model SPH-L710. The service provider is FreedomPop but they actually just use Spring and Verizon towers. No SIM Card. It has worked fine for 3 months now, occasionally just cutting off for no reason or an app stopping and needing restarted but nothing serious.
And of course now the blue guy and the phone won't work, it won't finish booting up, is caught in a loop of three things.
Symptoms:
I am stuck in a reboot loop that never completes. Regular black background Samsung Galaxy SIII text logo, then black for a long time (10 seconds) then a flash with dark blue text on black in top left corner, tiny says RECOVERY __________ something else too small/fast to read, then it vibrates, then black, then the Samsung Galaxy SIII logo text with this evil guy. Then he goes away, phone vibrates, then back to regular screen like it will boot up, then black, then the tiny text followed by this freaky blue guy. I have to take the battery out to get it to stop.
I have tried booting up using Home + up Volume + power and nothing happens. It stops rolling through this process but nothing new happens, plain black screen. When I let go of the 3 buttons, back to the loop.
History: 2 nights ago the phone battery died, got to 3%. I went to plug it in, it kept complaining it was dying even plugged in, beeping, screens popping up so fast I couldnt click OK on them all. So, I had to take the battery out to turn it OFF, the reassembled it and plugged it in and it blinked red light. In morning it was green all charged.
That day, phone starting acting weird. First said Amazon Kindle had stopped. Then said Google drive couldn't update. Then said Google + couldnt update. I had new things in facebook, but facebook wouldnt load, told me a file was bad. I removed facebook via apps. I also removed Kindle, removed Pet Saga Rescue, removed several other non-android apps. I then turned it off and back on. Then I went to apps, turned off Google+ and it complained I might break something. I went to google play and updated google + and it said it was complete. I then reinstalled facebook app and it took 3 tries before it would complete. Then it seemed to complete and it was working ok but not letting me post pictures. Worked as usual otherwise. Google pictures was working, Google calendar was working, etc. That night I had 10% battery and plugged it in. I was shopping on the web, just browsing and I touched a picture and the screen went dead. It acted like it was going to reboot but it never finished, just got caught in this loop described above. I took back off, removed battery (wanted some quiet!) and set it aside til morning. In morning, I reassembled it and put it on charger without turning it on. It acted like it was charging, gave me the battery symbol and green line on it, then darkened out. I thought it was fine. I came back to it several hours later and it is caught in this loop mentioned above.
Also, I went on Google pictures today and removed 800 megs of pictures and vidoes, in case things go from bad to worse, coping off to an external hard drive and deleted out of google pictures. I hoped maybe it was just too full to boot up so I tried it after this, reassembling it and trying to power it up. same screens, same cycle, same scary blue dude. I wish I could show you this blue dude! I can't find his pic anywhere on net even.
So what do I do? Is this malware? How do I even get in it to start tinkering? I could care less about anything on it, my pics are off,my contacts are saved and all my apps are replaceable.
My son had 4 apps that might have malware on there. The Pet Rescue Saga one, a bowling app, temple run and a flashlight, which was really quite handy. I removed the flash light today also and if I could get in the phone would remove the rest.
ANY HELP APPRECIATED. PLEASE REPLY! FreedomPop is cheap but it's mail order and has no customer service at all so I have a pretty glossy white paper weight at the moment. Mom here, needs her phone! Thanks!
Plus he makes my phone not work. lol. 
