Android 4.3 update for Galaxy S3 temporarily stopped after multiple complaints

Samsung temporarily suspends Galaxy S3 update after numerous reports of battery drain, screen lag and other issues.

Omar Qudsi, Published 11/19/2013

While Google has already gotten their Nexus 7 and 10 updated to Android 4.4 KitKat, Galaxy S3 owners have been sitting around waiting to make the jump to Android 4.3 Jelly Bean. Unfortunately, the wait will continue for a while as Samsung paused rollout of a previously released update following numerous user complaints.

The OTA update was first made available a few weeks ago, aiming to bring with it compatibility with the Galaxy Gear as well as updated GPU drivers and S-Voice. Shortly afterwards, complaints began arising of users facing numerous glitches, including Wi-Fi issues and random freezing, with some folks even experiencing a large battery drain and difficulties with multitasking.

As a result, Samsung has now halted the 4.3 update globally until they investigate and solve the problem, though no fix is currently available for users who already installed the software. To make matters worse, most S3 owners are still running Android 4.1.2, since Samsung skipped 4.2 in favor of working on this update, which hasn't turned out too well.