Galaxy S8 And Galaxy S8 Update Stuck

Doing all the necessary updates on time is a good thing for your Samsung Galaxy S8 or Galaxy S8 Plus. Nevertheless, the same actions can make you experience a series of extremely frustrating problems that, most of the time, will actually prevent you from getting to use your phone.
Some users complained that their Galaxy S8 or Galaxy S8 Plus is stuck on software update. Others have noticed that it will not accept any new security update, which is, again, very problematic. And there are also users who noticed that following a system update, the smartphone won’t boot up successfully, always restarting after a couple of seconds from the bootup.
In today’s article, we are going to separately treat each of the three problems mentioned above. Let’s see what is it that you can do on your own and if you really have to take it into service or you might have a chance with your own troubleshooting.

Problem #1 – Samsung Galaxy S8 or Galaxy S8 Plus is stuck on software update
This problem occurs right in the middle of a software update. You can see what is going on and it actually seems to be doing just fine. But then, all of a sudden, it enters a continuous loop. The phone restarts and instead of the Galaxy S8 startup screen, all you see is the blue screen with the Android icon. The initializing system update stage will then switch to the error screen with the Android fell over icon.
You could try to switch the device Off and then back On, but you might notice you can no longer use the regular commands. You can also try the combination of Power Up and Volume Down keys, for a forced reset. If nothing happens, you can suspect that a glitch showed up during the update process.
Unfortunately, to get rid of it, you will have to access the Recovery Mode and to perform a Factory Reset from there. As you can imagine, it also means that the reset will delete all the data currently stored on the device, so it is very important that you backup before you reset!

Problem #2 – Samsung Galaxy S8 or Galaxy S8 Plus won’t accept any security update
This problem usually starts with the device downloading a security update. But right after the updates download and the installation begins, you will see at some point, when you were expecting the installation to finish, the Android robot icon falling down and a yellow exclamation point. The smartphone will automatically restart after that, notifying you about the failed update.
You could try to clear the system cache, to uninstall all the third-party apps from it, to turn it off, let it sit like that and turn it back on after at least 10 minutes, but without success. From this point, checking for newly available security updates will most likely get you a notification to contact the Samsung Center. It’s frustrating, especially since you’ve been running these security updates on your Android 6.01 for quite some time without any of these problems.
The truth is that this security update issue on Galaxy S8 or Galaxy S8 Plus can show up anytime. So, without trying to investigate the causes, you have four different solutions that you can test:

Use a different Wi-Fi network to download the security update;
Boot the device in Recovery Mode and run a wipe cache partition;
Connect the smartphone to a PC and try to run the update through Smart Switch;
Backup all your data, perform a Factory Reset from the Recovery Mode, and only then try to do the update one more time.

Problem #3 – Samsung Galaxy S8 or Galaxy S8 Plus won’t boot up successfully, restarting seconds after bootup
Your smart, fast, and good-looking Galaxy S8 Plus could work flawlessly for months. One day, you see it performing an update on its own. You pay little importance to it and the device seems to finish it without problems. You actually continue using it for a few days when, all of a sudden, it enters this bootup loop. If you press the Power key, it powers on, but only for a few seconds and then it restarts over and over again.
Especially since it happened a couple of days after the update, you have all the reasons to ask yourself if it is, indeed, the update to blame. Truth to be told, it can be more than one factor to blame and you cannot really tell what caused it. What’s important, however, is to troubleshoot the problem by testing several potential causes and fixes. And there are three aspects you really need to look into:

Make sure that the Power key is working fine

If this key is damaged and the Power switch stuck as if someone just pressed it, your Galaxy S8 or Galaxy S8 Plus will, naturally, keep restarting. Nothing will stop it until the battery will completely drain up.
This is, of course, the simplest problem to tackle. You could go to an authorized service and have a technician look at it, suspecting a serious hardware issue. But it isn’t unlikely to deal with someone who will just open up the device, clean it a little bit, unlock the power switch, and charge you a lot claiming that it was, indeed, a serious hardware malfunction.
Now, even if it is a Power key problem, it is possible that you are actually dealing with some broken circuits and not just a blocked switch. If you have removed the smartphone’s case and kept tapping and pressing on the Power key for multiple times in a row but you didn’t manage to unlock the switch, it could be a faulty circuit.
Nevertheless, before you ask the help of an authorized technician, there are two other software issues you need to look into. Just in case it’s not actually the Power key’s fault.

Make sure you’re not having a malfunctioning third-party app

This is simple to test since all you have to do is to boot your Galaxy S8 or Galaxy S8 Plus in Safe Mode and let it run like that. If the device stops restarting in this mode, you can tell for a fact that the cause is one of your third-party apps. That’s because the Safe Mode relies exclusively on the preinstalled apps and nothing from what you have manually installed will actually work in there.

To access the Safe Mode:

Tap and hold the Power button;
Release the key when you see “Samsung Galaxy S8 Plus” on the display;
Tap and hold the Volume Down button;
Hold it throughout the entire rebooting process and only release when you see “Safe mode” at the bottom-left corner of the display.

Confirm yourself that you are dealing with a hardware problem

If not even the Safe Mode can stop the restart loop, you can suspect that it is neither a physical problem nor a software problem. To test that it is, indeed, a hardware issue, all you have to do is to run the smartphone in Recovery Mode. If it still restarts in there, you will have to ask a technician check on it. If it doesn’t, performing a reset should solve the issue.

To boot a Galaxy S8 or Galaxy S8 Plus in Recovery Mode:

Turn off the device;
While pressing and holding on the Home and Volume Up buttons, start pressing and holding on the Power button as well – the command will only be complete once you hit the Power key, so you don’t really need to hurry or to worry when holding the first two keys;
Let go of the Power key when you see the “Samsung Galaxy S8 Plus” text on the display;
Ignore the Installing system update message that might show up on the screen and keep holding the two buttons;
Let go of the Home and Volume Up keys when you see the Android logo on the display;
Once you’re in the Recovery Mode, wait for up to 60 seconds and only then start navigating through the menus.

As mentioned, if the device will no longer restart, you can simply do a general reset and get rid of all these update problems.