Fix My Tablet! Common Android Tablet Issues and How to Fix Them

Fix My Tablet! Common Android Tablet Issues and How to Fix Them

 Tech Castle    -     February 4, 2019

You just spent all this money on your Android tablet, and now you’re having problems with it.

Before you completely give up and ditch it, know that most of the problems that you could have with it are fixable.

Turning the tablet off and restarting it is always a good place to start, but maybe that didn’t work for your particular problem.

Do Android tablet issues have you screaming “fix my tablet!!”? Read on for common Android tablet issues and how to fix them.

Won’t Turn On or Off

Sometimes the Android Tablet will just freeze, refusing to turn on or off. When this happens, pressing the lock screen button won’t do what it’s supposed to.

There is a fix for this though. Just press the power and the lock key at the same time and hold it for 8 seconds. This is like the power on/off backup for when the actual one doesn’t work.

App Issues

Sometimes the apps we use don’t work the way we want them to. Sometimes the whole screen can freeze, or the app refuses to shut down. Sometimes it’ll give you a heads up letting it know that the app isn’t working, and other times it won’t.

If you do get a warning that the app is acting up, just hit the Force Close button to shut down the app. Wait a few seconds, open it back up, and it should be running normally again. To force close an app, you just need to swipe it away in the multitask menu.

If that doesn’t work, and if the app just keeps crashing, there may be a different issue causing this problem. Developers release updates to their app to keep improving it all the time, and if you don’t have automatic updates turned on, you may need to manually go in and update the app.

If you are running an older version of the app, this can be why your app hasn’t been working correctly. If this is actually the reason, installing the update should fix this problem.

Music Won’t Stop Playing

This issue can become really annoying really quickly.

If you were playing music and now can’t seem to get it to shut off while you’re trying to do other things on the tablet, there are a few things you can do.

You may need to go back into the app to try and hit pause or stop. You can get to the play controls through the app, on the lock screen, and sometimes in your notification area.

If this doesn’t work, you can try shutting down the app, and if that doesn’t work, you can try to restart your tablet.

Stuck in Portrait Mode

Maybe you want to watch your favorite movie or TV show on your tablet, but you can’t get it to switch from portrait orientation to landscape.

Some apps just don’t have the capability to do that, so make sure that the app isn’t one of those first.

But if it isn’t one of those apps, next go into settings and make sure that the orientation lock isn’t on. Sometimes people have this on so when they use their device while lying down, so they don’t have to keep switching between the orientation.

If you turn the rotation lock off, then the screen should be able to move to landscape.

W-Fi Problems

Sometimes an issue with your tablet may just be because it’s not connected to the Wi-Fi.

If this seems to be your issue and you can’t get it to connect for whatever reason, turn on Airplane mode for about thirty seconds to a minute, turn it off, and then try connecting to the Wi-Fi again. Doing this resets the Wi-Fi without having to restart your entire device.

The Touch Aspect of the Touchscreen Doesn’t Work

When the touch screen on your tablet doesn’t work, you really can’t use it. This is a major problem, and you might be wondering if you can’t touch the screen, how are you supposed to fix it?

If you dropped your tablet or the tablet fell off the table and the screen cracked, you may have to take to get it repaired.

If the screen isn’t damaged, at least not that you can tell, you may just have to charge your tablet. Sometimes if the battery is low, the tablet won’t be able to run at its peak capability. Plugging the tablet in and letting it charge for a little while may let you use the touchscreen again.

The Screen Is Too Difficult to See

If you find yourself squinting at the screen but still unable to see it because the brightness is too low, don’t worry. This is fixable.

Simply turning up the brightness up could solve the problem. You could do this in the setting app.

However, you should also know that Android tablets also come with a very small light sensor on the front of your tablet. This sensor detects how bright or dark the light is wherever you’re using the tablet and tries to adjust the brightness for you so that you don’t waste battery life.

But it’s not always accurate. If the sensor is covered, it will make the screen really dark. Sometimes it will give you the wrong brightness setting, making the feature somewhat annoying.

You can turn it off though. Just go to the settings and disable it. Once you turn it off though, it will be up to you to manually change the brightness.

Battery Keeps Running Out

As with any electronic device, the battery always poses a problem. People always complain that the battery runs out too quickly, and while it may just be a faulty battery, there could be some things you can do to get a little extra juice.

The easiest place you can start with by adjusting your brightness. Like we mentioned above, turning off the automatic brightness can drain your battery even more. The brighter the screen, the more battery will be used.

You can also check your location services. Some apps do require access to your location, but when every app is using your location and running in the background, your battery will not last as long. Turning unnecessary location tracking off can help prolong your battery life.

There may even be a battery saving mode on your tablet, which would be located in your settings. This will dim your brightness, turn off some of the locations, turn off the ability for your apps to refresh in the background, and may even limit notifications.

Tablet Isn’t Charging

If your child is using your tablet or their own, a lot of the times they may come to you asking, “Can you fix my tablet?”

Many times when they ask this, it may be as simple as just charging the tablet. But what if the charging doesn’t work?

If your tablet doesn’t charge properly, this becomes a problem because then you won’t be able to use it. This is one problem that you really need to figure out how to fix, just like the touchscreen not working.

You can start troubleshooting this problem by going to the source of the power. Is there electricity going to the power source? Some wall sockets need to have the light switch turned on before electricity will flow to it, so make sure that the socket isn’t one of those.

If you are plugging the USB cord into your computer to charge your tablet, make sure that you are plugging the USB into the right socket. If you’re not sure if it’s your tablet or the computer port, try plugging something else in to see if that charges. Make sure that your computer is also turned on because it won’t charge your tablet when it’s turned off.

If the wall socket or the computer aren’t the problem, the next thing to check would be to make sure the cord is working. The charging codes aren’t very durable and don’t last forever. They can fray easily, exposing wires and ruining the connection of electricity to your tablet. You could try buying a new cable.

With that being said, you should also make sure that you are using the right cord to charge your Android tablet. Some tablets don’t use a USB cord to charge; they have their own special charging tablet.

Gets Too Hot

Sometimes when you use the tablet too much, it becomes too hot. With all the reports of Samsung phones exploding and catching on fire, you may be worried about your device overheating.

It’s not uncommon for tablets to become too hot when you are using them a lot or running an app that takes up a lot of your battery life. When it starts getting warm, just take a break from using it for a little bit.

If you’re not running a lot of apps and your tablet is still overheating, you may want to take it into a professional and have someone check it out. It could be a sign of something going wrong inside of your tablet with the hardware. This would be a problem that would be difficult to fix on your own.

Google Play Isn’t Working

If your play store won’t connect, then you can’t download any new apps or install new updates to make sure your apps work properly.

If it’s not loading or running correctly, you may need to clear your cache if it became corrupted. To clear this, you can do this in settings.

Once in settings, you can go to:

  1. Applications
  2. All Apps
  3. Google Play Store
  4. Storage
  5. Clear Cache

After doing that, restart your tablet and the problem should be resolved.

If that doesn’t work, you may have to clear the history. Go into the app and find the three lines that should be in the upper left-hand corner.

Once you go into the settings located in the app, just hit clear local search history, and your app should start working again.

It Won’t Sync

You want to make sure that your tablet will sync to a backup source so that if something ever happens to your tablet, you won’t lose all your photos, contacts, and important information.

If you sync through Google or Dropbox, first make sure that those servers aren’t down. If other people are experiencing issues with the syncing, it’s probably not a problem on your end. You will just have to wait for the technicians on the service’s side to fix it.

If the problem is on your side, however, you should make sure that you are connected to the Wi-Fi so that it can back up.

If you are connected, make sure that you are also signed in. If you previously reset your password, you may need to enter the new one before it will start to back up.

If you’re still having issues and it won’t back up, you can try deleting the apps and removing your account from the device. This may solve the issue.

The Last Resort

So you’ve run through all of these solutions and troubleshooting, and you’re still searching “how to fix my tablet.”

If you’ve determined that it’s not a hardware problem that someone else could fix, there is one last resort you can take.

But only do this if you feel like you have no other option. You can completely wipe your tablet clean and reset it to its original factory settings. This means that it will go back to how it was when you first bought it.

Before you do this, you should definitely backup your tablet so that you don’t lose any of your data. Once you do the reset, you can actually restore your tablet to that backup.

To do this, follow these steps:

  1. Go to the settings app.
  2. Go to backup and reset.

This will backup your data to make sure that you don’t lose it all in the resetting. Then you will actually follow through with resetting it.

  1. Click factory data reset.
  2. Choose either reset tablet (or reset device button depending on which device you have).
  3. You may need to unlock the tablet at this point if you have extra locks.
  4. Click erase everything (or delete all depending on which device you have).

Once you complete these steps, your tablet will be reset to its original settings and hopefully will also fix your problem.

Fix My Tablet Today

Hopefully, some of these solutions answered your question: “how do I fix my tablet?”

If none of the solutions here worked, you can always take it into a professional who will be able to diagnose what is wrong with your tablet and get it working soon.

Don’t wait any longer, but look into getting your tablet fixed today.