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How to Restart a Samsung Galaxy Phone When the Touchscreen Doesn’t Work

Restart a Samsung Galaxy with an unresponsive touchscreen using the Side and Volume Down keys—no tapping or swiping required.
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Hold the Side key and Volume Down together for more than seven seconds, until the Galaxy phone restarts automatically. Because this uses the phone’s physical buttons, you don’t need to tap or swipe the unresponsive screen.

Restart it with the hardware buttons

  1. Find the Side key (called the Power key on some older Galaxy models) and the Volume Down key.
  2. Press and hold both keys at the same time.
  3. Keep holding for more than seven seconds, until the phone restarts automatically. Samsung gives this instruction for Galaxy devices with touchscreen issues and devices that are slow or unresponsive: Samsung’s touchscreen troubleshooting steps and guidance for a slow or unresponsive device.

If a power menu appears

If the power menu appears and the screen still responds to touch, tap Restart. If touch does not work, or the menu does not appear, keep holding Side and Volume Down together for more than seven seconds to trigger the automatic restart. These are two ways to restart; the hardware-button method is the one that does not depend on the touchscreen.

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If the phone is completely frozen

If the phone will not turn off, Samsung says you may need to hold the Power/Side and Volume Down keys for up to 60 seconds. If Maintenance Boot Mode appears, use the hardware keys to select Normal Boot. See Samsung’s instructions for a Galaxy phone or tablet that will not turn off. Menu behavior can vary by model and software version.

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If touch still doesn’t work after restarting

A restart may clear a temporary software problem, but it does not diagnose a damaged display or guarantee that touch input will return. Samsung lists moisture, screen protectors, third-party accessories, accessibility settings, and temporary system errors among possible contributors to touchscreen issues.

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  • Check whether the screen or your hands are wet, and dry them before testing touch again.
  • Remove a screen protector or accessory that could be interfering with the display, then check whether touch works.
  • If the problem continues, run diagnostics in Samsung Members or contact a Samsung service center. Samsung’s touchscreen troubleshooting guidance covers these checks; available menus may differ by model and software version.

Restarting is not a factory reset: the steps above do not ask you to erase the phone’s data. If the screen is physically damaged or the buttons do not respond, follow Samsung’s troubleshooting and service guidance rather than relying on the restart procedure.

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