A strange One UI 8.5 bug is trapping some users on the Galaxy AI welcome screen

Samsung is currently rolling out the One UI 8.5 update, and while it brings a host of exciting features, it isn’t without its growing pains. Several Galaxy S23 and S24 owners are finding themselves trapped in a frustrating loop, stuck indefinitely on the Galaxy AI welcome screen.

I first learned about this bizarre glitch when a friend of the site reached out for help. His Galaxy S24 had successfully downloaded the One UI 8.5 update, but he couldn’t get past the onboarding page. Clicking “Next” simply caused a “One UI Home has stopped” error, looping him right back to the start. He even sent over a photo showing the exact freeze, which you can see below.

The culprit boils down to custom display settings. Specifically, if you previously tweaked your developer options to use a tablet-like “minimum width” or heavily adjusted your screen zoom, the new One UI 8.5 setup screen panics, crashes, and forces a loop.

Looking for a quick resolution, my friend took his Galaxy S24 straight to a Samsung Kenya repair center. The technicians correctly identified the root cause as the altered display settings, but their recommended fix was a complete factory reset, which he did. However, losing all your data for a simple UI conflict is far too drastic, especially when a much simpler workaround exists.

If your Samsung phone is freezing on the Galaxy AI screen after the One UI 8.5 update, don’t touch the reset button. After digging through community forums, I found a way to escape the loop without wiping your device.

Some of those affected found that you can bypass the broken attempt to setup Galaxy AI using voice commands to fix your display settings.

• Say “Ok Google” to trigger Google Assistant or Gemini.
• Command it to “Open screen zoom settings.”
• Move the screen zoom slider back to a standard mobile layout middle position. Do the same for your font size.
• Retry the start screen, and it should now proceed to your home screen smoothly.

So, before you let a minor display conflict wipe your primary device, try these steps first and you should get back to enjoying your One UI 8.5 experience asap!