Samsung’s latest update for the Galaxy S10, which includes the June 2019 security patch, has a pretty major flaw. It’s locking users out of their phone.
After updating their phone with the latest update from Samsung, users are reporting that they are unable to get back into their phones. The lockscreen simply won’t let them in. One user said that they type in their PIN and then the screen goes black, then back to the lock screen. Which means that you really can’t do anything with your phone right now.
There is a workaround, but not one that many people will enjoy having to do. Some users have noted that doing a factory reset will fix the issue, but this doesn’t fix the issue for everyone. Samsung doesn’t yet seem to be aware of the issue – or in the least, it has not said that it is working on a fix yet. Which is a pretty big deal.
You’d think with all the certification tests that these updates go through with Google and each carrier, that the issue would have been found and fixed during those tests, but it looks like that is not the case. Luckily, those on Sprint and with an unlocked Galaxy S10 don’t have to worry about this, seeing as their phones haven’t gotten the update yet. Perhaps Sprint found the issue and that’s why its June update was held back.
However, those on AT&T, T-Mobile and Verizon are all experiencing this issue. Luckily, two of our writers here at AndroidHeadlines installed this update on their Verizon Galaxy S10+ and didn’t have any issues getting back into their device afterwards. So it’s not happening to everyone. It’s unclear if perhaps it’s only happening to those with certain things enabled or not, but it is a pretty serious situation for Galaxy S10 owners.
A factory reset is going to be the best way to deal with this, at least for now. Which is unfortunate, especially if you have a bunch of data that is not backed up – that’s why it’s a good idea to use things like Google Photos and Google Drive to back up documents and photos. Galaxy S10 users are upset, and rightfully so. This is an issue that is going to cause them to lose their data, and it wasn’t even one that the user did themselves.
We always say that it’s important to install updates once they hit your device, and not to put them off. This is because these updates do include some security fixes for your phone and other improvements, and putting it off can harm your device. But in instances like this where the update actually makes your phone unusable, it’s not hard to see why many people wait to install these updates. And in this case, it’s a good idea not to update your Galaxy S10 yet, at least until Samsung is able to fix the issue. While it’s not affecting everyone with a Galaxy S10, it is still affecting enough people to warrant not updating right away.