S3 booting only into safe mode

[chibae]

Okay, my S3 is no longer my daily driver. However I use it when in the field birding for my ID apps. I'd rather risk it than my S7 going in and out of my pocket frequently. Plus i have the add on to attach it to my spotting scope for pics.
yesterday I turned it on and it booted into safe mode. It gave me the option to turn safe mode off, I did and it rebooted itself right back into safe mode. Turning it off all together and restarting gave the same results.
It took a battery pull to sort things out.
Happened again this morning. any thoughts other than a factory reset?

 

[svim]

When you did the battery pull, how long did you leave the battery out? If you just pulled it out and then put it back in right away, try pulling the battery out again but leave it out for a couple of minutes. That allows any residual power that might still be remaining in components like capacitors to drain.

If that doesn't help and you're still stuck in Safe Mode, try wiping the system cache partition. The system cache partition is completely separate from the general user partition, where all your personal data and settings are stored, so this won't affect your files and apps. Power off your S3 and when your restart it, simultaneously hold down the Volume Up, Home, and Power buttons. When you feel your phone vibrate you can release the Power button but continue holding down Volume Up and Home buttons until your phone boots up into its Recovery Mode. Use the buttons indicated to navigate through the text-only menus and select the 'wipe cache partition' option. This should only take a few seconds so when done, just reboot your phone.

If that doesn't help, you can try a Factory Reset but do make sure you back up up all your personal files and other data. A Factory Reset is more of a last resort option. I don't know if a Factory Reset is going to solve something like trying to escape out of a Safe Mode boot loop issue. Safe Mode is more for diagnosing a problem, and is implemented outside of user data and user installed apps, it's a system level matter. A more likely step to take at this point is to reflash the factory ROM, which is in essence reloading the Android operating system. Note that reflashing the ROM affects the protected system partitions, unlike a Factory Reset which only affects the general, user partition.
http://www.technobezz.com/flash-stock-rom-via-odin-samsung-galaxy-s3/

 

[chibae]

Thank you for a very detailed answer. It will boot normally if I turn it off and pull the battery, leaving it out for a few minutes. But if I turn it off, when I turn it back on I am back in safe mode, unless I do another battery pull.
I put a new app on it last week, but the same app went on to my GS7 and my tablet and neither of those are having any issues.
I will follow your suggestions to try and resolve it. It is an older Verizon branded phone and no modifications have been tried with it.

 

[chibae]

The wipe cache partition seems to have done the trick.
Thank you again.