Google Pixel Frozen Screen

crwdns2935079:0crwdne2935079:0 Jordan Coburn (crwdns2935087:02crwdne2935087:0)

We've all been there. You're in the midst of something important—writing an urgent e-mail, digging for a specific photo or eyeballs deep in research. But your phone locks up. In a fit of desperation you start mashing your fingers on the screen—to no avail. Lucky for you, this usually a quick fix.

Perform these preliminary steps to help get your phone working again. When your phone is operating normally, check some of the causes and solutions to prevent it from happening again.

Force restart (soft reset) your phone.
- First try holding the power button for 30 seconds. If this does not help, plug your phone into a charger and try again.
- If the above does not work, perform a soft reset by holding both the power button and volume down button for 20 seconds.
Check for Android updates (if you can). Open Settings, then select System > System Update.

If your phone’s storage is maxing out, this could impact the operating system’s ability to function. Think of it like your sock drawer. You can squish any number of additional pairs of socks in, but eventually your drawer will stop closing. We think you can see where this is going....

If your phone freezes after you've started using it, check how much storage is being used. Open Settings > Storage > Free up space.
View each category individually to see what is using the most space.
Connect to a computer to remove files.
- You'll need to select media (MTP) mode when connected via USB, but if your phone freezes after a short while, this is a quick way to get this data without much interaction on the phone.

The Google Pixel has the option to free up storage automatically when it nears the limit.

This is set by going to Settings > Storage > Free up space > Overflow Icon ⋮ > Settings > Smart Storage.

Out of date apps can cause various issues especially due to compatibility with newer versions of android or related applications. This is especially relevant if the issue occurs in a specific app.

Although app updates usually process automatically, you can manually apply updates from the Google Play Store.

In the Google Play Store, select the profile icon on the top right.
Select Manage apps & device.
From there, click Update All. Or find the problematic app in the list and update that one individually.

Please note this verbiage has changed slightly over the years, but will be in largely the same location.

Cell phones don't usually perform the same sorts of tasks as your laptop, but it still has hardware limitations. If the issue only occurs in specific applications, or when combinations of things are open, this may be to blame.

Close out all running apps by swiping up from the bottom of the screen and tapping Clear all.
Check to see if system or application updates are processing. These can utilize a high amount of system resources. If they are, verify that the phone is more responsive once these have finished.

During the course of using your phone, something in the ones and zeroes that makes it run might have been lost, or changed in a way that renders your device unusable. This is commonly a result of a botched update, an app conflicting in functionality, or even a malicious piece of software.

To attempt to correct this, perform a reinstall of the operating system. To do this, you're need to reset your phone.

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Since factory resets will completely wipe your phone’s data, make sure you have a backup of your phone before attempting this.

If the phone is functional for some time, use the reset option within settings.

Open settings and select System > Reset options > Erase all data.
There may be some confirmation of PIN or password before the reset.
After confirming for the final time, it will show progress as it resets onscreen and may restart a few times.

If you cannot get to the Settings menu, there are some alternate methods to reset from recovery mode. This a bit more advanced, but is mostly tricky because of timing.