New OS killed my phone dialer. What's the fix?

The new OS installed fine (apparently). However, I can't dial any phone numbers, check recent call info, or use the dialer at all. When I bring up the dialer it is totally unresponsive to inputs. After about 5 seconds the entire screen goes black. After another 5 seconds an info box pops up that says "Unfortunately Contacts has stopped.". When I click through this message I am returned to the normal home screen. Everything else seems to work OK. How do I get past this issue without wiping out my phone?

Accepted answers

Verizon_Support

Hi MTGrizSteve,

My utmost apologies for the issues that you're experiencing after your recent OS update. We definitely want to make sure this is corrected. To correct this issue a hard reset is needed. Once this is processed, the phone will function properly. Please keep us posted after completing if issues remain, thanks!

MatthewS_VZW

VZW Support

Follow us on Twitter @VZWSUPPORT

All comments

Dave-in-Decatur

This problem has been reported by a number of users. See this thread on Android Central: http://forums.androidcentral.com/samsung-galaxy-s4/329815-system-upgrade-issues.html. According to someone there, you need to force the call history to be erased; but he didn't have a good solution for how to do that. You might try going into Application manager and seeing if you can clear the cache of Phone and/or Contacts.

Verizon_Support

KosmicTom

The phone will not work after a hard reset. Won't work after 2 hard resets, either.

MTGrizSteve

Tom,

I heard that the VZ answer was a hard reset, but as you know from experience that isn’t necessarily effective. I found that by downloading another contacts program (Contacts +), I could access my phone log, delete the call history, and then things seemed to work OK. I later uninstalled Contacts + and things worked pretty well. Unfortunately, as time went by the problem returned. I went through several uses of Contacts + to overcome the issue, but each time the problem returns down the road.

I wish the hard reset would work, but VZ seems to have no other helpful info for those of us with this problem. Hoping they push another OS update to address this issue!

Steve