Don't Pull The Battery From A Running SGS2

Background

I am used to the Nokia way where pulling the battery out on a running device really doesn't do anything except turn the device off.

Not so with Android, or at least in my case the Samsung Galaxy S2 International Version.

Cause

I needed to get the Serial Number under the battery compartment, so decided to pull the battery on my Samsung Galaxy S2 handset without shutting down correctly.

Consequence

When I rebooted, I got a stack of Force Close messages cascading on each other. The messages entered into a continuous loop so I couldn't access any phone functions.

Forums suggested that the only way to correct the issue was to factory reset the handset, which is no good if you haven't done a back-up recently.

Fix

I found a method that allowed me to get my phone working again, without having to fully factory reset the device and lose your personal data.

1. If you can, power off your device correctly using the power button and let it fully shut down. 
2. Take the battery out and leave it out for 15 seconds to remove any residual charge in the mainboard.
3. Remove the microSD card.
4. Replace the battery (no need to put the battery cover back on).
5. Press and hold Home Key+Volume Up+Power Button.
6. Keep holding these buttons until you see a green Android robot symbol.
   During this process, the white and black Samsung screen should display, turn off, then display again.
7. Once the Android robot symbol disappears, the SGS2 Data Recovery Screen displays (which looks a bit like a command prompt on Linux machines).
   You can now release all buttons.
8. At the top of the screen, are four menu options (in green on my model).
9. Use the volume control to highlight Reboot Phone.
10. Press the Home Key to select the option.
11. Let the phone reboot. 
12. Give the handset time to attempt to load all data from the external microSD, and the internal storage.

Result

You should see no Force Close messages, and your phone should boot as it did before you pulled the battery. 

If you do see Force Close messages, the Force Close messages should be so few that you can note the com.android. classnames that are causing the Force Close message. Uninstall the app that is causing the Force Close issue (in my case it was the Facebook for Android app), then reinstall it. You should be back to normal.

You have read this article Force Close Message on Boot / Infinite Loop Force Close / Pull Battery / SGS2 with the title Don't Pull The Battery From A Running SGS2. You can bookmark this page URL http://azaquery.blogspot.com/2012/03/don-pull-battery-from-running-sgs2.html. Thanks!