Anyone else getting the BLACK screen of death after Kitkat 4.4 update?

[ltg123]

Ever since the update, my phone is wacked, like everyone elses.  I got my Samsung Galaxy S4 a month ago.  Beautiful, loved it.  Update happens: I want to pitch this thing as far as I can throw it.

The phone rings.  I go to answer it but all I have is a BLACK SCREEN which is LOCKED.  I have the lock on the screen, but if the screen is black, you can't see it - and you can't answer the phone!    One day, I got a message, and could not get to that.  Why?  the BLACK SCREEN OF DEATH.

Someone told me to turn off Samsung Watch On and that has helped with some of the issues.  But I still get the screen occasionally, and my battery life is GONE.

How do we get rid of this update?   Should I just call Verizon and get a new phone with the OLD software?  I hate this.  I feel like I was the victim of bait and switch.

[Ann154]

Sounds like a hardware problem not a software issue.

Also you can't rollback to a previous version of the OS.

[vzw_customer_support · Accepted solution]

ltg123 It saddens us to hear that your phone is giving you so many problems. screen issues are devastating on a touchscreen device and we want to help. Have you tried a soft reset? Turn off the phone and pull the battery for 1 to 2 minutes then reset. Also, try to use the phone in Safe mode by powering the phone off, then  press and hold power until you see the Samsung logo then release. Next, hold the volume down key while you see Samsung logo. Hold volume down until you see Safe More appear on the lower left screen.


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[vchugo007]

ltg123 - did you resolve the problem yet?  If so, let me know how.

My (hopefully temporary) solution was to turn off my "Lock Screen" ... to do this, go to Settings, My Device, Lock Screen ... and select None.

The only issue is that you would no longer have any security for your phone and would be vulnerable to someone stealing your phone and having full access to whatever is on your phone that does not require a separate id and password.  Dangerous, yes ... but, for me right now, it's better than not having any access to my own phone!

The Android update simply sucks ... some heads should roll for allowing such a crappy update to get (no pun intended) rolled out.