Samsung causes new problems for Galaxy Watch4 series smartwatches with latest software update designed to fix critical issue

Today, Samsung has started distributing a new update for the Galaxy Watch4 series in an attempt to stop bricking units with GVI3. While the company stopped allowing people to download GVI3, it took roughly a month before it did so. In the meantime, any updated Galaxy Watch4 or Galaxy Watch4 Classic that powered off for whatever reason would brick.

Rolling out as GVK4, the update contains the November 2022 Android security patches and applies a 'power operation-related stabilisation code'. Unfortunately, Samsung has not provided any other details about this stabilisation code, nor what it changes on the Galaxy Watch4 or Galaxy Watch4 Classic. However, the changelog includes the following note:

While Samsung has not described what errors could occur, some Redditors appear to have experienced them. Specifically, some Galaxy Watch4 units bootloop multiple times when applying the update before staying on various boot screens for up to two minutes at a time. Supposedly, affected models continue to work after the update finishes, although this is not the case for all models. Instead, GVK4 has also bricked at least one Galaxy Watch4 model. It is unclear whether these issues are widespread, but it seems that Samsung is quick to rectify the issue, should you encounter critical issues after updating to GVK4 as well. 

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