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Major carrier T-Mobile has pulled its Android 8.0 Oreo update for the Samsung Galaxy Note 8, citing the discovery of several bugs that were not found during production or beta testing. One of the bugs in question concerns the McAfee app and can cause blank screens. According to a T-Mobile representative, there may be other issues with the software, but that’s all the information that’s available to employees outside of T-Mobile’s dedicated software team. All that Samsung is saying on the matter, meanwhile, is that it needs to work on the software a bit more extensively. The update briefly launched in April but was seemingly pulled days later, and now T-Mobile has confirmed that to be the case. As of this writing, there is no ETA for when the update may be live again.
The McAfee bug mentioned has the potential to cause screens to blank out until the app is uninstalled. If you have gotten the update and are having that issue, you can use Bixby to uninstall the app. If all else fails, a factory reset via Samsung Smart Switch is always an option, albeit a painstaking one, so long as you happen to have a PC handy. The program is natively available for Windows and Mac. Those with a Chromebook will have to use something like the CrossOver app or install Windows or Linux on their machine. Linux users, meanwhile, will have to use Wine to get the ball rolling, and can also expect driver issues should they go down that road.
Thus far, similar issues have not been encountered in the Oreo updates for other variants of the Galaxy Note 8, including carrier models and the unlocked versions of the Android-powered phablets. The exact cause behind the bug has not been released to the public thus far, but Samsung’s software team has reportedly told T-Mobile that the wait to resume the update won’t be much longer now. In the meantime, Galaxy Note 8 owners running Android 7.1.1 Nougat are advised to wait until news of a mostly issue-free update comes through in case their phone accidentally pulls the bad update for any reason. This is far from the first time that an update has been pulled, and it seems to be happening quite often with Android 8.0 Oreo in contrast to older Android versions.