Alright, I've had an issue with my phone for a few weeks now, and it's really starting to bother me.
I have a Samsung Galaxy S4; I got it from a trusted friend about 3 months ago, factory reset and in good condition. It's worked great over time, but 2 or 3 weeks ago it began freezing for a couple seconds at a time. Specifically, sometimes the touchscreen and picture freeze solid while the audio keeps playing (YouTube), or sometimes the touchscreen freezes but everything else keeps going (Mortal Kombat X) so I get to stand still for 5 seconds and watch the opponent beat me down. I have noticed that when this happens, if I touch the screen at any point, when it unfreezes, the actions I put in are quickly performed. So, if I'm playing Clash of Clans and it freezes, I can touch all my collectors, and as soon as it unfreezes all of my collectors get touched and collected at the same time.
The freezing happens either every 30 seconds or 2 minutes; it varies. The freeze usually lasts for 3 to 7 seconds at a time, and recently it's also followed by another 1 second long freeze at which the entire phone quickly stops responding, screen and all.
I've spent the past week looking for a fix and haven't found anything. I've taken the battery out before, and the issue stops but starts back up again within the hour. Recently I removed the Battery, Micro SD, and Sim card for an hour or more and when I turned the phone back on, it began freezing again after about an hour.
About a month and a half ago I bought an official battery to replace the old one, and an official SanDisk 32gb ultra micro sd for storage. This was about a month before the freezing began and I don't believe that they have anything to do with it, but I figured they were worth mentioning. I've made sure they are securely in place and it doesn't help.
There is an app I believe the freezing originated with. An app called "Traffic Rider" became popular recently on the App and Play Stores. I downloaded the app when it had only a couple hundred downloads, it seemed to be quality but after a short time playing it the game would buffer every second making it impossible to play. Shortly after this began happening, my freezing issue began, and it's gotten worse over time. Only 2 or so days after getting the app did I realize this began happening, and I uninstalled "Traffic Rider" and a few other apps in had recently downloaded, but obviously that didn't fix it. I've also cleared my RAM multiple times, in fact clearing the RAM at the time was the only way to stop "Traffic Rider" from buffering every second, although it rarely worked and would often begin to buffer again after a short period of time.
I've booted the phone in safe mode (I actually did accidentally, no clue how), but there the freezing issue does not occur. I've also noticed that when I turn the phone all the way off, remove everything, and turn it back on, in the short amount of time that the phone doesn't freeze, it runs much smoother; when scrolling on my home screen and typing it doesn't lag.
It's becoming incredibly frustrating; playing apps aren't easy when you place all your troops in one spot, walk off a cliff, or get beaten down because your phone keeps freezing. It's also incredibly difficult to type because the freezing causes the phone to repeat words and sentences. I've tried multiple things to fix it and nothings helped, as I detailed above.
I'm not sure exactly how Samsung accounts work; when I first started the phone it wanted me to make a Samsung account, and then refused to let me make one, it was saying it was unavailable or something like that. I have a Google play account and its linked with my Gmail but I'm not sure if that is related, and so I'm worried about factory resetting the phone in fear that I'll lose everything.
Sorry for the wall of text, and I hope that someone here can identify my problem and help me. I'm a Nintendo/PC guy and this phone is really bothering me.
Frozen bump.
Anyone have any advice?
The freezing is actually getting worse; anyone know anything that could help?
