Phone screen flashes

[MrAMX]

After a recent Google Play update to all my apps, my phone sceen constantly flashes or "blinks"  as if you were taking a screenshot.

If I am writing an email when this happens, it sends my email to drafts. If it happes while I am using Google Maps, it miniminzes the screen It has certain other affects to various apps.

If I am just on the home screen, I see it flash, but nothing else happens that I am aware off.

I have run multeple scans with my protection software for Malware, viruses etc. Ever scan comes back clean.

Has anyone else experianced this? Any suggestion on how to proceed next to correct this issue?

I have a S21+5G phone which is only a year old.

Thanks.

[Valeriya]

Hi MrAMX, Please try to start your device in Safe Mode.

Follow the below steps to start the device in Safe Mode.

First, completely power off the device.

Then, power on the device, and when the Samsung logo appears, press and hold down the Volume Down key.

If done correctly, "Safe Mode" will display on the bottom left corner of the screen. Once you're in Safe Mode, check for the issue.

To exit Safe Mode, simply restart your device and it will reboot normally.

Note: You can also enter Safe Mode by pressing the Power key, touching and holding the Power off icon, and then touching the Safe Mode icon.

If the flickering stops when your device is in Safe Mode, it could mean that the issue is being caused by a bug with one of the apps you have installed. Find out which app is causing the problem and uninstall it.

Start by uninstalling the most recent app you downloaded before the problem started.

Repeat until the flickering stops.

You can always reinstall an app if it wasn't causing the issue.

If the flickering persists even in Safe Mode, it is likely the issue is hardware rather than software-related.

Please get back to us if the issue still persists. 

[MDOsteo]

I'm having the same problem. It started from a permission request in the text messaging app. It was requesting permission to gather and share data from my provider. It gave options to agree or continue without the new features. After selecting continue without multiple times, the request continued to pop up very frequently and overriding any other app I was using. I restarted my phone which seemed to stop the permission request but now I have the problem with the flashes described by the other user. These flashes also minimize or pause the current app every few minutes. Very frustrating when GPS is minimized while driving. It has happened twice while writing this message. So it seems the problem is with the phone's built in text message app. How do we fix it?

[Marsover]

Same issue but I said no to the prompt. Looks like a very serious and very much a Samsung software bug, unlike Samsung moderator suggestions that it's hard ware. I get the flashing as a boot loop of sorts, every time I close a few minutes it re opens in the background and that's when it flashes. It'll then appear as the most recently used app, and on top I have no rcs messaging

[RedDogRabbit]

For the most part, Samsung Moderators are poorly informed & rely on cut & paste responses. 

There's enough people who have the screen issue since the update & that it seems to me that it's clearly an issue with Samsung Messages. 

There isn't an actual fix, but there's a workaround to stop the blinking. 

[Marsover]

Yeah I'm hoping there's enough posts and people complaining that it'll warrant someone to work on a fix asap

[MrAMX]

The work around worked for me. Especially using Google Messages. No issues since installing and using it as my default.

[Grammie]

YES! Same thing! Since the last update last week, my cell, Galaxy 20+ 5G, is flickering as well!
It's not App related as all my Apps have been on this cell for quite some time now.

Since the last update, my cell is automatically blocking calls or texts from people on my contact list.
Completely frustrating!

A new update to fix this needs to happen as nothing else is fixing these issues!

Not happy Samsung, not happy!

[RedDogRabbit · Accepted solution]

Don't bother with wiping cache or Booting into Safe Mode, that's not going to fix anything. 

Seems to be an issue with Samsung's Messaging app. 

Although it's not an actual fix, it will stop the blinking / UI glitch.

Go to Settings > Apps > Samsung Messages & click on it. Scroll down to where you see "Appear on Top" & Toggle it OFF.

 

[MrAMX]

Thanks for this reply. I will try this today and monitor over the weekend. I'll update the group on this thread.