The Android One Xiaomi Mi A1 is mostly a great piece of hardware. It packs powerful specs, a decent display screen, a great camera, it runs near stock Android and above all, it’s cheaper compared to devices rocking the same specs and features.

But like any other smartphone, it’s far from being the perfect phone and things are currently more apparent in the software department. Despite doing a great job with timely software updates that saw the Xiaomi Mi A1 Oreo update start rolling out late last year, there has been a myriad of problems reported after the update – problems that have forced Xiaomi to halt the Oreo update. One of the problems is freezing of apps.

When apps freeze, they can easily lead to the entire phone freezing as well. This renders any commands useless, be it touching the screen or pressing any buttons and it can be worrying for many smartphone owners. This is where it was a joy when good phones still came with removable batteries because all you needed was to remove the battery for a few seconds and put it back. But today, many phones, including the Xiaomi Mi A1, have non-removable battery units.

So, if your phone happens to freeze, you don’t have to panic. You can still force restart the Xiaomi Mi A1 and it’s very simple. All you need is to long-press the power button and don’t let go until the phone turns off. The phone will automatically restart and work like it should.

Note that unlike hard resetting, when you force restart the Xiaomi Mi A1, it won’t erase any of your stored data. So, you don’t need to back up anything before force restarting the Mi A1.