Samsung phones crash if you use copy & paste more than 20 times. http://t.co/2OnBwo86

Shockingly bad engineering. — Terence Eden (@edent) February 20, 2013

Sounds crazy, doesn’t it? If you copy and paste text more than 20 times, your phone will restart! Some people have reported more severe crashes than that – but for me it is only (!) a soft restart. This affects the Galaxy Note II, as well as the SIII and Note tablet. Other Samsung products may also be broken in this manner.

This has been reported to Samsung multiple times. Ever since Konrad Krakowiak, a Samsung Developer, acknowledged this bug on October 29th last year, the official message has been the same.

This bug was reported and I think that it will be resolved soon.

Typical Samsung. Sloppy engineering followed by complete indifference towards their customers.

How Does This Bug Occur

As part of Samsung’s desire to “improve” Android, they’ve created a “Clipboard History” function.



It’s pretty nifty. It shows you the last 20 items you copied – be they text or images. The only downside is that it only works if you’re using the default Samsung Keyboard. (For iOS users – keyboards on Android are apps. You can swap them out if you want a better or different keyboard).

If you don’t use the Samsung Keyboard, items are still copied onto their clipboard – but you’re unable to access them.

Once you have copied around 20 items, the phone throws this error:

java.lang.NullPointerException at android.content.ClipboardManager.setPrimaryClip(ClipboardManager.java:146)

And then restarts. See this video:



Work Around

There is a permanent fix. If you change the permissions on the /data/clipboard folder to read only, this bug cannot occur again. Do note – this will prevent you from copying anything.

A less drastic solution is this:

Root your phone. Use a file manager to visit /data/clipboard The folder should have lots of folders in it.

Select all the folders and delete them.

Repeat every time you’ve copied around 15 – 19 items.

It’s a manual and cludgy process – but it will stop the reboots.

Screw You Samsung

You’d wonder how many times I’d keep getting burned by Samsung’s atrocious attitude to its customers, wouldn’t you? After they screwed me over with the original Samsung Galaxy S (“Oh yes, it will get an upgrade. Oh, no it won’t; it’s impossible. Oh, look, CyanogenMod have made it work.”) I should have known better. They then pulled the exact same stunt with the Galaxy S II!

Then I found out that Samsung’s engineering team are so poor, they let anyone spy on what your printer does!

I remember almost the very first thing the Note II did when I turned it on was crash!



I love the Note II’s screen size – and the fact that it’s one of the few Android phones to support BlueTooth AVRCP 1.3. But it’s clear that Samsung couldn’t give a damn about its customers. Once you’ve purchased one of their phones they seem to think that if they treat you like shit, you’ll happily buy the next model.

You’re biased because…

I work for Telefonica – but this blog is personal and does not represent the views of Telefonica, O2, or anyone other than me. O2 sold me the Note II (and sell many other fine phones).

And to stave off the inevitable…

You must be an Apple fanboi

Nope.

You must be a BlackBerry fanboi

Nope.

You must be a Windows 7 fanboi

Nope.

You must be a Sony fanboi

Nope.

You must be a Symbian fanboi

Nope.

You must be a…

Oh give it a rest! I’m an equal opportunity curmudgeon. I like Linux and generally favour Android, but I get pissed off at anyone who produces a shitty product and doesn’t stand behind it.

Samsung – either up your game, or get off the pitch.