The present invention provides a detecting method and device for a terminal and relates to the communications field, which can, when cell broadcast and paging messages cannot be acquired in time, read system information proactively within an appropriate time to acquire an enabled or disabled state of cell broadcast at that time, and, according to the current state, continue or stop receiving cell broadcast information messages, so as to decrease unnecessary decoding operations, reduce power consumption of the terminal, increase a cell broadcast message receiving rate, and save communication resources. This is implemented by defining a first time on a terminal and attempting to decode common traffic channel information in a cycle preset by a hysteresis timer, and further, attempting to receive system information according to different decoding results, and finally, according to a system state indicated in the system information, taking an action to continue or stop the reception.