[Galaxy Tab S Q&A, Help & Troubleshooting] AussieMouse:
I've had my Samsung Galaxy Tab S 8.4 (SM-T705Y) for just over two years now and it has worked brilliantly beside the odd issue here and there, including the device freezing from time-to-time. Each time that particular freezing issue has happened, I've used the 'Power and Volume Down buttons' technique and it has successfully fixed the issue.

Now, a few days ago, I was using my tablet for normal morning things; music app playing in the background, YouTube opened on the side, using the preinstalled Browser and Google Chrome apps, etc. I am not sure if it was updating any Google or Samsung apps at the time. The screen froze up so I left it for a few minutes, seeing if it would unfreeze. When it didn't, I used the same Power and Volume Down technique, which successfully forced-restarted the tablet. There was a small mistake I made doing this; I was holding down both the Power button and Volume Up button. It took me around thirty seconds to realise why the screen wasn't turning off and switched to the Volume Down button. At the time, both my earphones and the charging cord were connected.

However, upon the loading screen, I noticed that it did not pass the Samsung logo screen with the little explosion of blue circles and just kept replaying the same animation repeatedly. The Application History and Back buttons did not light up and the device did not vibrate as it normally does when it boots up. I repeated the Power-Volume Down technique to see if that would fix the issue. Once again, the tablet rebooted normally but was stuck at the logo screen playing the animation. I tried this same force-restart again, this time without the charger plugged in. No change.

So, I left it running through the animation while doing Google searches through forums and getting into contact with Samsung as to what the issue could be. I'll list down below what my tablet can and can't do at the moment and hopefully someone will have a clue as to what is going on and how to fix it. I will point out now that it was not going through a firmware update at the time, the device is not rooted and nor do I plan on taking that path with it, and I have not made any changes to it that can void the warranty.

It can:

- Recharge (The battery icon will show up if it is force-restarted and the charger is plugged in at the time.)

- Reboot (It's not exactly stuck in a bootloop, more of just the 'explosion' animation replaying over-and-over.)

- Enter Recovery Mode

It cannot:

- Enter Safe Mode

- Be Shut Down without the charger attached (As stated above, the device will only turn off with the Power-Volume Down buttons held for about 30 seconds and that causes the device to restart, not turn off. The only way for it to completely shut down is to have the charger connected and then unplug it after the battery icon appears.)

I have tried removing the SD card and placing it back in, power-cycling it, letting it run on the animation until the battery runs out and then letting it recharge to 100% before turning it on again, connecting it to Samsung Smart Switch (which recognises that there is a Samsung device connected, but not being able to register the device itself), and wiping the Partition Cache (Also note; the Recovery Mode has the 'No Command' sign with the android laying down and the red triangle with the exclamation point above it. Clearing the Partition Cache seemed to go smoothly, however when I chose the 'reboot device now' option, the 'No Command' sign changed to 'Error!' and rebooted the device anyway.) I am now currently trying another technique written on a different website (though since I am a new user, I cannot post up URLs at the moment). So far, plugging in the earphones alone hasn't worked and the device is currently connected to my laptop - which is shut off - and still has the earphones connected, but the animation is the only thing the screen is still showing.

I have important files saved in the internal storage of my Tab S and I do not have them backed up, which is the only issue that's stopping me from just going ahead and doing a Factory Reset as I cannot lose these files.

I am unsure if my Tab S is soft-bricked or if this is another issue entirely and I just missed something that could have already fixed it.

Yes, this is a long and detailed post, but hopefully with these details, someone will be able to help with this issue. If I can restore my Tab S to its condition before the freeze, that would be amazing, but I can definitely settle with only being able to salvage my files from the internal storage and then performing a Factory Reset on it.

Thank you in advance~