[Update: New build] Samsung Galaxy S8/S8+ August 2019 update reportedly causes lags & performance degradation

New updates are being added at the bottom of this story…….

The Galaxy S8 series came out in 2017, and it truly brought a revolution in the age-old Samsung design language. The physical Home button was gone in favor of a 3D Touch one, while the ‘Edge’ variant was retired as the rounded display became a standard component.

The Korean OEM gave two major Android version updates this iconic phone family – Nougat to Oreo and Oreo or Pie. The Samsung Experience skin was also replaced with One UI. The transitiotion was not perfect though, as users experienced a number of side effects after the Pie based One UI OTA.

Samsung took care of such problems with periodic monthly software updates. One such OTA came out last week, which brought August security patches for the global Exynos variants. US Snapdragon models joined the race yesterday, as T-Mobile pushed the same update with a different build number.

However, Galaxy S8/S8+ owners started to face some weird symptoms after installing this new build. Abrupt lagging, unexpected rise of temperatures, app crashing etc. are some of the common reported glitches.

I have installed the august 1 security patch like an hour ago and since then my phone is heating like crazy. I tried to restart it, clean memory, disable apps, etc but even when its on the lowest display light setting it’s hot. It’s even warm when the screen is turned off. Any tips?

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I’m so pissed off right now .. phone was great before this August 23rd update. Now apps won’t open correctly or they take a long time. Downloads from the Play Store take forever. Things just hang before opening. Swiping the keyboard doesn’t work right. Voice to Text takes forever or times out. Tried calling Verizon and all they did was tell me about a data plan. So disgusted. Anyone else having these problems too?

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Someone even stepped one step further and run Geekbench on their phone to observe the downfall. Believe it or not, the benchmark values literally displayed the deterioration after the August update compared to the average scores.

This is not the first time Samsung pushed a botched up software update. Back in May, they did the same with Galaxy S10 lineup. The initial May security update (build ASE5) had to be pulled back, which was later replaced with ASE6/ASE7 hotfix.

Though the Galaxy S8 family is almost two and a half year old, the sudden performance degradation is not expected from a flagship phone. The Galaxy S8/S8+ subreddit is full of such reports, which signifies the gravity of the situation.

Can’t speak for OP, but in my experience things like opening task switcher now has “blank” task previews and it takes anywhere from 3-5 seconds for the proper detailed preview and label at the top to show up. Opening apps sometimes takes longer (Instagram for example I just stare at a blank white app, again usually for 3-5 seconds) or at times just doesn’t even react to my input meaning I just stare at my home screen after touching an icon- again anywhere from a couple seconds to over 5 seconds.

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Perhaps Samsung will rollout another hotfix to address the issue, but it seems highly unlikely at this moment. PiunikaWeb is monitoring the situation, so do let us know your experiences after installing the August 2019 update on your Galaxy S8/S8+.

Samsung is pushing a second set of August 2019 update for Exynos Galaxy S8/S8+ in some regions. The changelog mentions camera stability improvements, but it probably contains lag fixes for the previous August patch. Details here.

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