Samsung is pushing a new update to the Galaxy S21 series. It’s the second update for the 2021 Galaxy flagships this month. The latest release fixes an annoying bug present in the previous release. The devices remain on the May 2023 security patch level.
The Galaxy S21 series was one of the first Samsung devices to receive the May SMR (Security Maintenance Release). The company began the rollout about three weeks back in Europe and gradually expanded the coverage to other markets, including the US. The update didn’t bring anything notable, though the official changelog in some markets mentioned device stability and reliability improvements.
However, it turned out a bug slipped unnoticed into the Galaxy S21, Galaxy S21+, and Galaxy S21 Ultra with that update. It caused the phones to abruptly freeze and reboot without any apparent issue. Samsung has seemingly fixed this problem with a new update that’s now rolling out widely in Europe and a few countries in Asia. The new firmware build number for the phones is G99*BXXU7EWE6 (via). As said earlier, this update doesn’t bring a new security patch.
It’s unclear if this bug was present in the first May update for the Galaxy S21 series in other regions. Samsung’s changelog didn’t mention any “stability and reliability improvements” in most other markets. The build number also varied (G99*BXXU7EWE1 in Europe and Asia and G99*BXXS7EWE2 in Latin America despite both units having the same model number, i.e. G99*B). Carrier units in Europe got a different build too (G99*BXXS7EWD3).
As of this writing, the second May update is only available for Galaxy S21 units that received the first update with the build number ending with WE1. Nonetheless, if your Galaxy S21, Galaxy S21+ or Galaxy S21 Ultra has been acting up lately, particularly since the last update, maybe there’s a new update coming your way. Watch out for a notification prompting you to download the OTA release. You can also manually check for updates from the Settings app.
The Galaxy S21 series will get the Android 14 update
Launched in early 2021, Samsung’s Galaxy S21 flagships came running Android 11 out of the box. The devices have since received updates to Android 12 and Android 13. And thanks to the Korean behemoth’s generous update support, they will get Android 14 and Android 15 as well. These are the oldest Samsung devices eligible for four generations of Android OS and five years of security updates. Android 14 should be available for the Galaxy S21 series by the end of this year.
2023-05-31 15:07:21