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Help Galaxy Tab 10.1 Keeps Crashing

jaypeecee

Well-Known Member
Dec 14, 2011
112
11
Berkshire, England
Hi folks,

I am the proud owner of a brand new Samsung Galaxy Tab 10.1 (16GB/3G/WiFi). However, in the one week that I have had it, it has crashed twice for no apparent reason. It just dies on me. When this happens, it becomes completely unresponsive. It is running Android 3.2. The only way to bring it back to life is a full restart.

Is there any way (e.g. by installing a suitable app) that I can diagnose the likely cause of these crashes? Anything else I can do? For a product that has such an excellent reputation, I'm surprised to be having this problem.

Any suggestions greatly appreciated.

Thanks

JPC
 
I am the proud owner of a brand new Samsung Galaxy Tab 10.1 (16GB/3G/WiFi). However, in the one week that I have had it, it has crashed twice for no apparent reason. It just dies on me. When this happens, it becomes completely unresponsive. It is running Android 3.2. The only way to bring it back to life is a full restart.
Since it's still new, I suggest doing a factory reset to wipe it clean and start again. It's possible the device never had a good setup from day one. To do the factory reset, tap the time in the lower right to open the notifications window, tap Settings, Privacy, Factory data reset, confirm the reset. The device will shutdown and reboot, and during the reboot it will wipe the device, including all apps, messages, settings, music, videos, etc. You will then be prompted to enter the setup info again like a new device.

Let us know if that resolves your issues. If it does, then it's probably a rogue app that is causing the issues. Make sure you install the apps one at a time and see if one of them is the cause.
 
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Hi bfksc,

Many thanks for your reply.

I really don't want to do a factory reset - simply because of the sheer inconvenience of having to reinstall everything. Instead, I would prefer to establish the root cause of the problem by doing some sort of crash diagnosis. I was hoping that there would be the PC equivalent of a crash dump (aka the infamous BSOD) analyzer. Hopefully, that would take less time. This is a brand new piece of kit after all.

What say you?

JPC
 
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I really don't want to do a factory reset - simply because of the sheer inconvenience of having to reinstall everything. Instead, I would prefer to establish the root cause of the problem by doing some sort of crash diagnosis. I was hoping that there would be the PC equivalent of a crash dump (aka the infamous BSOD) analyzer. Hopefully, that would take less time. This is a brand new piece of kit after all.
I'm not familiar with any tools for Android like that, mainly because I've never had any issues that would warrant such a tool.

I have found that whenever I update the firmware on my devices (phones, tablets, routers, etc.), I ALWAYS do a factory reset after the update. I find it seems to help with preventing glitches. I did the same with the iPhone (yuck!) I had previously. At first I just did an update/restore but found the software would be glitchy. But doing a full restore fixed the little glitches, and I've been doing wipes/resets of all the devices ever since and never any problems. The same applies to Windows versions - whenever I upgraded from Windows 3.x to 95 to 98 to 2000 to XP to Vista to 7, I always did/do a clean install and wipe the hard drive. Otherwise old bits of data are on the drive taking up space, but also there are lots of little glitches with Windows whenever doing major version upgrades as it seems Windows can't update itself without replacing/removing older versions of files. A clean install fixes those issues.

So basically, yes it's a bit of a hassle doing a reset and reinstalling everything. But if it fixes your problem with the OS crashing then it's well worth it, don't you think?
:)
 
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I started to suspect that TW Launcher might be causing the crashes after reading posts on this forum and elsewhere. Having made some changes, the crashes seem to have gone away (says he with fingers crossed).
You never mentioned that you were using a third party launcher. Since you said nothing about customizing your Tab, I could only presume you were running it stock, hence the recommendation to reset to factory settings.

Anywho, so it's working ok now?
 
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You never mentioned that you were using a third party launcher. Since you said nothing about customizing your Tab, I could only presume you were running it stock, hence the recommendation to reset to factory settings.

Anywho, so it's working ok now?
Hi bfksc,

Many thanks for your reply.

Your comment is interesting. I had not customised my Tab - I received it from Amazon UK with TW Launcher already installed. Indeed, TW was the only launcher installed. That leads me to believe that all Samsung Tabs are not created equal. Why would they install TW Launcher in the UK, but not Canada? Crazy! I think this is the nature of the fast-lane industry that we find ourselves in. Oh, boy!

Anyway, thanks a bunch for your support.

JPC
 
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Your comment is interesting. I had not customised my Tab - I received it from Amazon UK with TW Launcher already installed. Indeed, TW was the only launcher installed.
If it was installed, is there an option to uninstall it in the Market or in the Applications settings? TouchWiz has it's own launcher, as does vanilla Android, so this is just another launcher laid over top.
Why would they install TW Launcher in the UK, but not Canada?
Perhaps they did it with the earlier models before TouchWiz was made available in v3.1? Or perhaps yours was not brand new but a return that had a custom launcher install and it was never factory reset?

I don't recall reading anything about TWLauncher being included in UK versions.
 
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Are you sure that Tw Launcher is different from (the) TouchWiz Launcher?
My Bad! You're right, I googled for it and it seems an XDA member took the original Samsung TouchWiz Launcher and modified it and made it available for others. The default TouchWiz overlay has a "Tw Launcher" which is the process for the TouchWiz interface.

I've never had a crash of any kind on my Tab from the TouchWiz overlay, nor have I heard of anyone having the Tab crash on them, so I figured it was something else.
:eek:
 
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If it was installed, is there an option to uninstall it in the Market or in the Applications settings? TouchWiz has it's own launcher, as does vanilla Android, so this is just another launcher laid over top.

Perhaps they did it with the earlier models before TouchWiz was made available in v3.1? Or perhaps yours was not brand new but a return that had a custom launcher install and it was never factory reset?

I don't recall reading anything about TWLauncher being included in UK versions.
There is no option to uninstall TW Launcher from Settings>Applications>Manage Applications. Incidentally, the version installed on my Tab is Version 3.2 - XWKL1.

My Tab was brand new. It arrived from Amazon UK in a sealed box and had the protective film on front and back of the Tab itself.

Sounds like your Google search revealed more information.

JPC
 
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I really don't want to do a factory reset - simply because of the sheer inconvenience of having to reinstall everything.
JPC

There is no need to reinstall everything, when you finish and set you google account, the device ask if you want to restore your account info. I did this and install everything again, with no extra effort needed and all glitchs solved :)
 
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There is no need to reinstall everything, when you finish and set you google account, the device ask if you want to reinstall everything. I did this and install everything again, with no extra effort needed :)
That's well worth knowing - many thanks! Was your Tab fully restored to how it was before you did the factory reset? By which, I mean - were all app settings, other settings, data, etc. - restored as well as the apps themselves?

Looks like I won't need to do a factory reset now.

JPC
 
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