Aussie Samsung devices ‘bricked’ by a defective software update

Australians using Samsung phones may be in danger of losing their valuable photos, contacts and other data due to a recent software update issue which has apparently ‘bricked’ a lot of Samsung devices.

Samsung’s most recent update (Samsung One UI 5.0 OS) upgrades eligible Samsung phones to Android 13, and is supposedly causing user devices to crash when installed.

While Samsung is aware of the problem, the company insists that the issue only impacts South Australian users despite numerous complaints, and states that there is no solution yet as they “continue to investigate this matter”.

Users who have experienced the issue have either described a blank, unresponsive screen when attempting to turn on their phone, or being stuck in an endless bootup loop that doesn’t pass the Samsung logo.

“Hard reboots didn’t help, did recovery mode, wipe cache, etc nothing helped,” said a Reddit user who was impacted.

“The phone became incredibly hot when it was on the Samsung logo. Also unable to turn off the phone unless I put it into download mode and select shut-down.”

Adding to the problem, Samsung reportedly prompts users to download the update through a phone notification – leaving many users with a nonfunctional device only for following standard update processes.

Customers who contacted the device manufacturer’s support outlets looking for a fix were reportedly told that their only option was a full factory reset.