Samsung Smart Switch is a very fast way to transfer data from your old phone to a new one. It doesn’t work perfectly, and there are few issues that can occur when doing it. So, today I will explain what to do when Samsung Smart Switch isn’t working.
Do a soft reset on both devices, clear the Smart Switch app cache, free up any storage you can on both devices, uninstall the Smart Switch app and install it again, check that you have the latest version of Smart Switch, and try doing the transfer over USB cable.
Some of these steps may be quite self explanatory to you. But if you don’t have much experience using Samsung devices, or are like me and would rather read the instructions then to fiddle around in the settings trying to find stuff, below I’ve provided step by step details about exactly how to perform each of these troubleshooting steps. You will be able to do them if you’re brand new to using Samsung devices, or are very experienced.
Samsung Smart Switch Not Working
Samsung Smart Switch can take anywhere from under 5 minutes to about 1 hour depending on how many files you’re transferring. It can fail to start and give you an error message why it won’t begin, or can stop part way through and not complete. In either case here’s the reason this occurs.
The app cache can have had an error when it started and clearing the cache can cause it to start and complete successfully. Other apps open in the background can have frozen, which is resolved by closing all apps and restarting your devices. Otherwise using a cable rather than the Wi-Fi can work.
I’ve had a lot of experience working with smartphones because I used to work in a retail store that sold internet connections, modems, smartphones, prepaid sim cards, and smartphone monthly plans.
Over that time I’ve found that in most cases restarting the device works really well, and fixes most issues. So, I’ll explain how to do that first, then after that explain each of the subsequent steps you should take.
Note: It’s impossible to say which solution will work for you, so it’s a matter of doing each step one by one until it works. Also, each step below is a potential solution. Therefore, after doing each step, attempt to do the transfer again.
Additionally, none of the steps will make any permanent changes to your Samsung device or delete any files unless stated explicitly in the step. Without any further ado let’s get started:
1. Soft reset both devices
All Samsung devices can be reset much like a computer. Smartphones are generally always on, and most people charge their device before it runs out of battery. When it runs out of battery it will turn off and in effect restart itself. Doing a reset is one of the most effective ways to fix smartphone issues.
To do this press and hold the power button on the side of your device until a menu pops up on the screen. On virtually all Samsung devices it’s located on the right side of the phone around the middle. It will be slightly below the volume up and down button which is about twice as big as the power button.
The menu will give you 3 different options – power off, restart, and emergency mode. Touch the screen to select restart. Once you touch it, your smartphone will turn off, and power on again automatically. There is no need to do anything during this time. Simply wait for a minute or so until it shows the logo, loads up and returns back to the home screen or lock screen.
2. Close all background apps
As you may know, when you open an app it remains open in the background when you press the home button and do something else with your device. This makes it faster to do things on your device because it doesn’t need to open and load the app again. But, because of this feature some apps can crash in the background. Because most people don’t use every app all the time, it can go unnoticed.
Therefore, it’s a good idea to close all the background apps. Doing a soft restart in step one generally closes all apps. But, when you restart it, it can open them all again or you may have opened some apps when using your phone.
To close all the background apps that are running tap on the bottom left button on the touch screen. It has the icon with 3 vertical lines. It’s directly next to the home icon. When you tap on that it brings up a sliding carousel with all the apps that are open. To close them, swipe up on each app individually. Or, there is a button underneath the sliding carousel that says ‘Close all’, if you do that it will close all of the apps at one.
3. Clear the Samsung Smart Switch app cache
The app cache is a folder on your phone that stores temporary files that makes the app load faster. It also keeps a log that the app uses to know what to do. These files can become corrupted – in technical lingo, which essentially means that they don’t work and cause errors with the app.
It’s common that clearing the files in the cache can fix issues with apps. Here’s the short hand for how to do it if you’re familiar with using your Samsung device, otherwise follow the more in depth options provided
Settings > Apps > Smart Switch > Storage > Clear cache
Some device are different you might need to do:
Settings > Apps > Tap the 3 dots at the right to open additional options > Show system apps > Smart Switch > Storage > Clear cache
To do it open up the settings on your Samsung device. This can be accessed from the home screen by finding and touching the Settings app. Or by swiping down from the top of the screen. When you do that it opens up some additional options. One of these will be a ‘cog-wheel’ icon which also opens the settings.
Once the settings menu opens, it will show a list of options, one of these is ‘Apps’, select this and it will show a list of apps, scroll until you find the ‘Smart Switch’ app and tap on it. If it doesn’t show on this list, tap the three vertical dots at the top right of this menu which opens up some additional options.
One of these options is ‘Show system apps’, tap that and it will show another list of apps, scroll to find the Smart Switch app. After that select the ‘Storage’ option, at the bottom of this screen will be an option that says ‘Clear cache’. Tap that and the cache will be cleared.
4. Connect both device via the micro USB cable rather than Wi-Fi
The transfer can be done over Wi-Fi or over a USB cable. The micro USB cable that comes with a Samsung device has two ends. One end is a micro USB and the other end is a USB connection. The USB connection won’t plug into your new device so you need to use the micro USB adapter that comes with your Samsung device.
To do that plug the USB end into the micro USB adapter. Then plug the micro USB adapter into your new phone. Then open the Smart Switch app and select the option to do the transfer over USB instead of Wi-Fi.
5. Version not supported error – update the Smart Switch app
When doing the transfer you can get an error that says ‘The version of the connected device is not supported. Please check the software version of your device’. This means the Smart Switch app on one or both of the phones is not up to date. And it needs to be updated to the latest version. To do that:
Go to settings from the home screen by swiping down from the top of the screen, and touching the ‘cog-wheel icon’ at the very top right. The next screen that opens has a search icon at the top left. Tap on that and type in ‘smart switch.’
6. Free up storage space on your devices
If the storage space available on the new device is smaller than the amount of files that are being transferred the transfer will fail. When you go through the initial steps of doing the transfer via the Smart Switch app it will ask you what you want to transfer.
To see how much storage space you have, follow the step by step instructions on this article on the official Samsung website. If you can see that the size of your new device isn’t large enough to transfer everything you want to from your old device you have two options.
You can either not send some of the items or delete some of the files on your old phone. When you go to transfer files on the Smart Switch app it will ask you to select what you want to send, such as photos, and messages. You can uncheck some of these items to make the total transfer size smaller.
Or, you can delete some of the files on your old device. Generally, it’s better to delete some of the items if some of the categories are very large. For example, the photos and videos can be very large. But, you don’t typically want to send any photos at all. In this case it’s best to delete some of the photos on your old device.
If you took photos or videos at a very high resolution they can be very large. For example, a 10 minute video can be 500MB or half a gig. Before deleting them, you can copy them to a computer using a USB cable so they aren’t deleted forever. And then upload them to cloud storage such as Google Drive.
7. Uninstall and reinstall Smart Switch
The Smart Switch app can be totally corrupted and needs to be uninstalled and reinstalled.
After that go to the Google Play Store, which is one of the apps on your home screen, and search for and download the Smart Switch app.
8. What to do if you still can’t get the transfer to complete
If you’ve tried all of the steps and the transfer is still not completing, won’t start, or the app won’t work for whatever reason get in contact with Samsung’s customer support on this page of the official Samsung website.
It’s likely they will ask you to repeat some of the steps explained above, so you may need to advise them you have already done so. Or, they will ask you to do them again to verify that it’s been done first before explaining what to do next.
Samsung Smart Switch Not Compatible
When using Smart Switch to do a transfer you can get an error message which says that the version of the connected device is not compatible. This is a very easy issue to fix, below is a summary of how to resolve this issue.
The Smart Switch app on one or both devices is not updated to the latest version. Generally, one device has a new version and another device has an older version of the Smart Switch app. Updating it is done by checking for updates from the options in the Smart Switch app.
Copyright article owner is ReadyToDiy.com for this article. This post was first published on December 31, 2021.
I’ve provided full step by step instructions for how to update the Smart Switch to the latest version on both devices near the middle of this article. Look for step 5 ‘Version not supported error – update the Smart Switch app’, in the list of 8 steps above, and follow the instructions provided there.
Samsung Smart Switch Crashes
Devices and apps can crash, this causes them to close or restart and anything you were doing needs to be opened again. This issue can occur with the Smart Switch app, and happens because of the following reasons:
The Smart Switch app cache can be corrupted, your device may be low on memory because too many apps are open in the background, or the Smart Switch app may have a bug and needs to be uninstalled and reinstalled. Also, restarting the devices can resolve this issue.
Because there are a range of issues that can be causing this problem, it’s a matter of trying each one by one. I’ve put together a list of steps near the top of this article, which you should follow step by step to resolve this issue with the Smart Switch app. But, skip steps 5 and 6 as they’re not related to this specific issue.
Samsung Smart Switch Taking Long Time/Stuck/Slow
Transferring files using the Smart Switch app is usually very quick, and takes up to 30 minutes even for a very large amount of files. As it’s transferring it can take a very long time, or get stuck and needs to be started again. To stop this from occurring here’s what you should do.
Restart both devices, close all background apps, transfer over the USB cable instead, clear the Smart Switch app cache, and uninstall and reinstall the Smart Switch app on both devices. If none of these steps work, then raise a support ticket with the Samsung support team.
I’ve made a list of all of these steps, and provided detailed instructions about how to perform each of them. You can find them at the top of this article. Scroll to the top, and start with step ‘1. Soft reset both devices’, and do each of the steps to fix this issue.
Samsung Smart Switch Stuck on Messages
The Samsung Smart Switch app will process each of the different apps separately, such as photos, and messages. Although, it’s not common, it can get stuck as it’s transferring on one of these and won’t proceed. Here’s what to do when it gets stuck on Messages as it’s transferring.
Begin by soft restarting both devices then try again. If that hasn’t fixed the issue then you should close all the background apps, clear the Samsung Smart Switch app cache, try to do the transfer over the micro USB cable instead of Wi-Fi, then reinstall the Smart Switch app.
For detailed instructions for how to perform each of these steps scroll to the top of this article. Start with step 1 and do each of the steps but skip steps 5, and 6.
Soft restart the device you’re transferring from and the device you’re transferring to and then try again. If it’s still not working then clear the Smart Switch app cache, check you have enough storage space on the new device, and try the transfer over the micro USB cable rather than Wi-Fi.
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ReadyToDIY is the owner of this article. This post was published on December 31, 2021.