Galaxy S21 buyers in a few European countries haven’t had the smoothest setup experience with the new flagship, as Samsung Pay issues and problems with OTA updates have unexpectedly cropped up shortly after the phone got shipped to customers. The good news is that the problem isn’t widespread, it’s manageable by users, and Samsung is already addressing it through a firmware update.
Samsung has apparently shipped the Galaxy S21 series with the wrong CSC (Country Specific Code) in a couple of markets, with Italy and the UK seemingly recording the highest number of complaints from customers. The CSC is used to apply geo-specific settings, access points etc. and because some Galaxy S21 units have mistakenly been shipped with a generic CSC for Europe, they’re experiencing various issues with OTA updates and other Samsung services including Pay.
Samsung is already addressing the issue and there’s a workaround
Samsung is reportedly rolling out a firmware update in countries affected by this problem in order to address it, so if you happen to own the Galaxy S21 and you’ve experienced OTA or Samsung Pay issues, you’re advised to head over to Settings and check for new firmware updates on your phone. As always, you can also download new firmware for free from SamMobile’s firmware archive.
If the update hasn’t reached your device yet then you can follow another solution that was discovered by the Samsung community. It turns out that the CSC problem occurs largely when setting up the Galaxy S21 for the first time without a SIM card inserted, but the CSC issue can apparently be solved by turning off Wi-Fi and removing the SIM, powering off the phone, re-inserting the SIM and then powering the phone back on. You can find a more detailed explanation on the community website.
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