Android messages flashes black and white, used to work on verizon S4 phone

sdowney717 · Sep 12, 2018

I recorded a video. It shows me starting up messages for android.
It used to work fine.
I uninstalled, reinstalled, cleared cache.
Yes, I restarted the phone
So how to fix it?
Everything else on phone works including Samsung messages
https://photos.app.goo.gl/11QhAyWWj9kGqCUq6

lunatic59 · Sep 12, 2018

That looks like an older model Galaxy ... S4? In any case it might be a case of incompatibility. You could try booting into recovery and wiping the system cache, or, if it is important that messages remain your SMS app, then you might consider a factory reset -- after backing everything up, of course.

sdowney717 · Sep 12, 2018

S4 it is.

Is wiping system cache preserving my information?
How does that differ from wiping the cache in app manager for android messages?
Less aggressive than a factory reset?
Android messages used to work fine, this issue with Android messages showed up 2 days ago.

I see, I may try it after backing up messages
https://www.urtech.ca/2015/09/solve...ion-do-on-android-devices-like-the-galaxy-s6/

lunatic59 · Sep 12, 2018

Wiping the system cache won't affect your data.

The cache in app manager is the cached data that the app uses during normal operation. Sometimes that can get corrupted or just grow so large that it interferes with performance. The system cache is the used by Android to run your apps, so if that becomes corrupt, it might indeed cause an app to not run at all.

Clearing the system cache is perfectly safe. All that will happen is the next time you boot the phone or launch an app, the cache will be rebuilt, which might cause a little lag, but even with an S4, I'd bet you'd never notice it.

sdowney717 · Sep 12, 2018

I cant enter that menu.
press vol up, power on, home button just reboots phone to the os

press vol down, home, power on, gives a load new os menu.

I know I have done this before! I have tried it now 5 times.

Ok, got it, but it never vibrated.

Wipe cache partition: Samsung Galaxy S4

Turn off the device.
Press and hold the following three buttons at the same time: ...
When the phone vibrates, let go of the Power key but continue to press and hold the Volume Up key and the Home key.
When the Android System Recovery screen appears, release the Volume Up and Home keys.

lunatic59 · Sep 12, 2018

It can be a little tricky sometimes.

First, make sure the phone is off.
Press and hold vol. up + power + home until the screen comes on (and/or the Samsung logo appears).
Now you either must release only the power button or release all three (I don't remember with the S4). If you continue to hold the power button for longer than a few seconds, the phone will reboot.

sdowney717 · Sep 12, 2018

Android messages still blinks black and white, so its dead on the phone.

I uninstalled it.
Wiped cache
reboot
reinstalled it
ran it == black and white screen

Plus, it overheats the phone, I let it flash for a while, then got an overheat message.
So maybe the programers screwed up the functionality with an S4 running android 5.0.1

lunatic59 · Sep 12, 2018

I have an older S3 in a drawer here running LineageOS (Nougat, I think) and Messages didn't have any issues. The overheating either indicated that the processor get's stuck at maximum frequency or it's failing, but the latter would probably affect all your apps. I'd just switch message apps for now.

sdowney717 · Sep 12, 2018

I am back to using Samsung messages.
Obviously something is really wrong, but have not noticed anything else with the phone.
Phone plays the kid games just fine.
Can watch video.

Obviously, deleting the cache still leaves something behind that is screwed up, some damaged file, maybe only a factory reset can fix.

sdowney717 · Sep 12, 2018

its a pain to do a factory reset. I end up with android 4, then Verizon has to send android 5, then everything has to be reinstalled.
I dont think its worth doing.
Anyone know an easier way?
Is there a way to run a newer version of android?

lunatic59 · Sep 12, 2018

No no. A factory reset doesn't revert you to the original Android version. All it does is clear user data and apps.

Your S4 is over 5 years old. Official upgrades stopped at 5.01. You might want to consider upgrading to something that will run a newer OS.

sdowney717 · Sep 12, 2018

lunatic59 said:
No no. A factory reset doesn't revert you to the original Android version. All it does is clear user data and apps.

Your S4 is over 5 years old. Official upgrades stopped at 5.01. You might want to consider upgrading to something that will run a newer OS.

It did last time I did a factory reset.
This phone originally shipped with android 4.
Verizon upgraded phone to android 5.0.1

I have heard of people using android 6 and 7 on an S4.

red5ive · Oct 4, 2018

Just curious if you ever got this working? This started happening for me as well after a recent update.

mikedt · Oct 4, 2018

red5ive said:
Just curious if you ever got this working? This started happening for me as well after a recent update.

A recent update for a Samsung Galaxy S4? Is that the phone you've got there? Because AFAIK Samsung no longer supports that device, and stopped updating it 2 years ago now.

sdowney717 · Oct 4, 2018

Never got it working. I have not had the time to do a factory reset yet.
The update is of course to the APP, IMO, not the OS being updated which then breaks the functionality.

I do think they do OS updates of some kind, maybe security updates. I had a problem with speaking search on the phone app which Verizon broke and then they fixed.
It was NOT just my phone as the other S4 we have also failed and was fixed at the same time. So the programmers still mess up these phones with changes to the APPS.

It could be the messaging APP does some reference to the video subsystem that is not supported by the hardware of an S4.

Since it used to work great, then they could fix it again. Can we tell them there is a problem?

red5ive · Oct 5, 2018

sdowney717 said:
Never got it working. I have not had the time to do a factory reset yet.
The update is of course to the APP, IMO, not the OS being updated which then breaks the functionality.

I do think they do OS updates of some kind, maybe security updates. I had a problem with speaking search on the phone app which Verizon broke and then they fixed.
It was NOT just my phone as the other S4 we have also failed and was fixed at the same time. So the programmers still mess up these phones with changes to the APPS.

It could be the messaging APP does some reference to the video subsystem that is not supported by the hardware of an S4.

Since it used to work great, then they could fix it again. Can we tell them there is a problem?

Thanks. I went ahead and just grabbed an older version from APK mirror, v3.3.044. That was the version I started using it, mainly for the Messages For Web feature and it's working fine for me now. I always manually update my apps so for now I'll keep it on this version unless it breaks again or I hear of a newer version that works for my phone. That or until Google stops all support with this app for Lollipop, then it may be time to upgrade my device.

Psst, my phone is next to me so I hope Google isn't listening to my typing right now and has an algorithm to make out my keystorkes. I really don't want to upgrade any time soon.

sdowney717 · Oct 6, 2018

red5ive said:
Thanks. I went ahead and just grabbed an older version from APK mirror, v3.3.044. That was the version I started using it, mainly for the Messages For Web feature and it's working fine for me now. I always manually update my apps so for now I'll keep it on this version unless it breaks again or I hear of a newer version that works for my phone. That or until Google stops all support with this app for Lollipop, then it may be time to upgrade my device.

Psst, my phone is next to me so I hope Google isn't listening to my typing right now and has an algorithm to make out my keystorkes. I really don't want to upgrade any time soon.

Hi, do you have a link I can use for that app version?

Android messages flashes black and white, used to work on verizon S4 phone

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