Help Phone factory reset itself after entering Safe Mode

[Botdroid]

My phone is Samsung Galaxy Note10 Lite, running Android 12 One UI 4.1.

I put the phone in my suitcase for a while then took it out. Suprisingly, the wallpaper changed to default and there was a Safe Mode text at lower left corner of the screen (may be something hit the volume & power button).

After I had unlocked the phone using password, it behaved like a factory reset was done (language choosing, privacy options, etc).

What confusing me is that all 3rd party apps such as Telegram, Reddit and games have disappeared not only on the screen but also in Settings>Apps (I noticed 15gb of data loss when checking the device storage). Media files, documents on the other hand, are still intact and located exactly where they supposed to be.

Whenever I try different ways to exit Safe Mode (restart system, press the Exit Safe Mode notification), the phone keep booting back to Safe Mode and a message is shown:

"Phone started in Safe mode. There's a problem that's preventing your phone from starting normally. You'll need to factory reset your phone to exit Safe mode. you can use Safe mode to back up your data to a computer or SD card before resetting your phone."

What problem am I facing with? Is the Safe Mode meant to erase all 3rd party apps? And are there any chance that I can get those apps back? Please help me figure this out. I have Google Authenticator app installed before, if I lose it, I will be really screwed up.

 

[ocnbrze]

No safe mode is designed to prevent 3rd party apps from running. Only system apps will work. Your 3rd party apps are still there, you just can't use them in that mode.

You should be able to get out of safe mode by just powering the phone off and then on again.

https://safemodewiki.com/how-to-disable-safe-mode-on-samsung-galaxy-note-10-lite/?amp

 

[nickdalzell]

There's a distinct possibility that the phone did an auto system update and something got borked along the way forcing Safe Mode to be enabled and recommending factory resetting to fix. Samsung phones all have auto updates enabled by default, and after three times of ignoring the pop-up (or just never catching it) the phone will eventually reboot to install it, unless disabled by the user (settings-->software update-->untick 'auto download on wifi').

I have only seen Safe Mode happen back in the Android 2.3 days (2009-10) and it was after I flashed a ROM as root and something got messed up that prevented the kernel from properly booting (the Android equivalent of a 'kernel panic?'). I never could exit that mode unless I flashed again and reset everything.

I hope this isn't your case because if it were my phone I'd be quite miffed. It's just another reason I always disable updates. Best not take chances of dealing with an unnecessary change or a borked phone.

 

[ocnbrze]

sorry op i misread your post and missed the part where you restarted the phone. if re-booting does not work, then yes as @nickdalzell suggested you might have to do a factory reset......or if you are up to it, you can try flashing a firmware update that you can get here https://www.sammobile.com/firmwares/........just make sure that you get the correct firmware for your phone. it has to be exact......flashing the wrong firmeware could have dire effects and could render your phone useless.

 

[nickdalzell]

Also be sure the firmware is the one for your specific carrier. Not just the exact model of phone. Sometimes you can flash the wrong carrier firmware and you lose all cellular access. The carrier (if in the U.S.) will be a letter designation after the phone model. For example, the Verizon Variant of the Samsung Galaxy S5 is SM-955V. V for Verizon. T for T-mobile. A for AT&T.

 

[svim]

My phone is Samsung Galaxy Note10 Lite, running Android 12 One UI 4.1.

I put the phone in my suitcase for a while then took it out. Suprisingly, the wallpaper changed to default and there was a Safe Mode text at lower left corner of the screen (may be something hit the volume & power button).

After I had unlocked the phone using password, it behaved like a factory reset was done (language choosing, privacy options, etc).

What confusing me is that all 3rd party apps such as Telegram, Reddit and games have disappeared not only on the screen but also in Settings>Apps (I noticed 15gb of data loss when checking the device storage). Media files, documents on the other hand, are still intact and located exactly where they supposed to be.

Whenever I try different ways to exit Safe Mode (restart system, press the Exit Safe Mode notification), the phone keep booting back to Safe Mode and a message is shown:

"Phone started in Safe mode. There's a problem that's preventing your phone from starting normally. You'll need to factory reset your phone to exit Safe mode. you can use Safe mode to back up your data to a computer or SD card before resetting your phone."

What problem am I facing with? Is the Safe Mode meant to be erase all 3rd party apps? And are there any chance that I can get those apps back? Please help me figure this out. I have Google Authenticator app installed before, if I lose it, I will be really screwed up.

Actually, it's a more involved process to get either Recovery Mode or Safe Mode so your conclusions it was done by some random jostling of your phone isn't likely.
Recovery Mode
https://hrdreset.com/samsung-note10-lite-hard-reset-factory-reset-and-recovery/
Safe Mode
https://www.samsung.com/us/support/answer/ANS00062983/

Note that running your phone in its Recovery Mode is only intended to do base-level maintenance tasks, and that its text-based interface is also more involved and requires one to actually use button combinations to do anything.
When running in Safe Mode, you need to follow through specific actions so your phone boots up into Safe Mode. While in Safe Mode only the base Android operating system gets loaded into RAM, all third-party apps and services that normally also get pre-loaded are left out. So your phone is running just the Android OS and any apps you want to use will take longer to start up the first time. And yes, you can do a Factory Reset while in Safe Mode but that's also something you have to intentionally choose to do via the Settings menu. It's not an accidental thing that can 'just happen'.

But getting back to your actual problem, it's something you will need to have a trained technician look into. Take your phone into a trusted, local smartphone service facility and explain all the details of what transpired, leaving out your assumptions on the cause.

 

[Botdroid]

Actually, it's a more involved process to get either Recovery Mode or Safe Mode so your conclusions it was done by some random jostling of your phone isn't likely.
Recovery Mode
https://hrdreset.com/samsung-note10-lite-hard-reset-factory-reset-and-recovery/
Safe Mode
https://www.samsung.com/us/support/answer/ANS00062983/

Note that running your phone in its Recovery Mode is only intended to do base-level maintenance tasks, and that its text-based interface is also more involved and requires one to actually use button combinations to do anything.
When running in Safe Mode, you need to follow through specific actions so your phone boots up into Safe Mode. While in Safe Mode only the base Android operating system gets loaded into RAM, all third-party apps and services that normally also get pre-loaded are left out. So your phone is running just the Android OS and any apps you want to use will take longer to start up the first time. And yes, you can do a Factory Reset while in Safe Mode but that's also something you have to intentionally choose to do via the Settings menu. It's not an accidental thing that can 'just happen'.

But getting back to your actual problem, it's something you will need to have a trained technician look into. Take your phone into a trusted, local smartphone service facility and explain all the details of what transpired, leaving out your assumptions on the cause.

If I remember correctly booting in Safe mode is not so complicated as you only have to press both the Volume down & Power button for seconds? In that case it's very likely a solid object can keep pressing on one side of the phone which will make the device enter Safe mode. Anyway according to you, my problem seems to be a weird one so I will try my best to contact a skilled technician.

 

[Botdroid]

There's a distinct possibility that the phone did an auto system update and something got borked along the way forcing Safe Mode to be enabled and recommending factory resetting to fix. Samsung phones all have auto updates enabled by default, and after three times of ignoring the pop-up (or just never catching it) the phone will eventually reboot to install it, unless disabled by the user (settings-->software update-->untick 'auto download on wifi').

I have only seen Safe Mode happen back in the Android 2.3 days (2009-10) and it was after I flashed a ROM as root and something got messed up that prevented the kernel from properly booting (the Android equivalent of a 'kernel panic?'). I never could exit that mode unless I flashed again and reset everything.

I hope this isn't your case because if it were my phone I'd be quite miffed. It's just another reason I always disable updates. Best not take chances of dealing with an unnecessary change or a borked phone.

Everytime my phone get an update notification, there's always two options: first option is download the update, the next one is delay which will make the notification vanish and reappear few days later. That would mean my auto update is disabled right? One more thing is before the problem occur, my phone last update was from May 2022. When the device got in Safe mode trouble, I ran an update check and update my phone to latest version (September 2022).

 

[svim]

If I remember correctly booting in Safe mode is not so complicated as you only have to press both the Volume down & Power button for seconds? In that case it's very likely a solid object can keep pressing on one side of the phone which will make the device enter Safe mode. Anyway according to you, my problem seems to be a weird one so I will try my best to contact a skilled technician.

Try to actually boot up your phone into its Safe Mode. If you continue to convince yourself those same required actions can take place spontaneously by just jostling your phone around, there's not much more to add otherwise.

 

[nickdalzell]

Everytime my phone get an update notification, there's always two options: first option is download the update, the next one is delay which will make the notification vanish and reappear few days later. That would mean my auto update is disabled right? One more thing is before the problem occur, my phone last update was from May 2022. When the device got in Safe mode trouble, I ran an update check and update my phone to latest version (September 2022).

Unless you specifically told the phone to 'not auto download on wifi' (uncheck 'auto download updates on wifi' in settings-->Software update) what happens is as follows:

You get a prompt that a new software update is ready to install. The options will be 'install now' or 'install later'

If you tap 'install later,' it will nag you three more times, and after the third, the update will be required.

This is the default setting out of the box. If you have unchecked that option (because like me, you hate updates changing what shouldn't be changed, for example) then you will just be continually nagged from time to time to download the update. Either way, if you chose to install it, things can break sometimes, and forces safe mode reboot.

I've ONLY had Android go into safe mode if there's a problem. I have never figured any way to manually force safe mode as a boot option. Usually if the phone isn't boot looping, it just boots into safe mode if something is wrong.

I'm going out on a limb here, but what I believe happened, is the phone was in the OP's pocket, and decided to install an update by itself (perhaps the OP had hit the 3 postpone limit and let it be) and somewhere in that time something went wrong, and the phone rebooted into safe mode. I doubt jostling did anything.

Also, if the phone woke up to remind OP about the update, or something from movement unlocked the phone (I've had pocket launching of apps and pocket unlocking tons if I just had 'swipe to unlock' as the only unlock option) and probably tapped the update button and whatver happened next is anyone's guess.