Some owners of the Galaxy Note 8 recently took to Samsung’s official forums to complain about a highly specific issue that sees their smartphones frozen when the default Contacts app is launched. Almost all reports about the issue originated on Samsung’s U.S. forums where units like the SM-N950U and SM-N950/DS were reported as experiencing the problem, whereas only a single customer from another part of the world claimed to have encountered the same bug. Some customers of Verizon, Sprint, and T-Mobile in the United States are saying they’re having their phones freeze on them the moment they tap the Contacts app. Only one user from India claims to have encountered the same freezing behavior when opening not only the Contacts app but also the default Phone one.
The main difference between the Galaxy Note 8 units sold in the United States and those intended for most other markets is the system-on-chip powering them; while the stateside variants of the phablet feature Qualcomm’s Snapdragon 835 SoC, the ones sold in other countries apart from China come with Samsung’s own Exynos 8895 silicon. While this state of affairs could indicate that the newly uncovered bug may somehow be related to Qualcomm‘s chip, i.e. its drivers, no official confirmation of that possibility has yet been provided by the South Korean original equipment manufacturer. The Snapdragon 835 may also have nothing to do with the issue, as suggested by the aforementioned report about the same problem from India.
Samsung has yet to even acknowledge the issue on its official forums, with none of the users who reported it being able to resolve it on their own. In case you’re experiencing the same problem, clearing the app’s cache and reinstalling its updates may help to a degree, but the situation will most likely be resolved for good with a client-side patch issued by the phone maker. First reports of the problem emerged in early October, though the bug doesn’t appear to be widespread and may even be caused by an unrelated app. Users who aren’t able to circumvent the problem should rely on a third-party contacts book app until Samsung manages to determine its cause and address it.