Help All Home Screen Icons disappearing

[minyangmao]

I getting this bug where ALL my home screen icons (on all three home screens) will disappear completely. I can add new icons, and the phone basically thinks it's totally empty. However, when i reset my phone via removing the battery, all my icons magically appear...for a while...then they all disappear again and I have no way of making them reappear except resetting.

Anyone have any clue a fix for this? or what program might be causing this? I've uninstalled all the alternative Home's, and have minimal widgets on my homescreen (like two I think - battery widget and something else i think)

 

[minyangmao]

an update: soft reset (power button, turn phone off, without removing battery) works as well to restore my icons. I uninstalled advanced task manager, and every other program I didn't use, as well as all widgets. Tried stopping all running processes I could. Didn't make a difference. Only thing that will make the icons come back is soft reset. Tried dragging an icon onto the blank home screen; on reset, the icon was there, on top of my old icons; when I removed that new icon, the old icon that had occupied that space was under there.

Weird.

Anyone have a similar experience, or a possible fix? frustrating to have to soft reset my phone 2-3x a day.

 

[blbaustintx]

This first happened to me a couple of days ago. My symptoms Alex identical to yours.

Has now happened 4-5 times!

I have never tried any " home screen replacement " stuff

Very very irritating -- I power down and back up to restore the icons

 

[minyangmao]

This first happened to me a couple of days ago. My symptoms Alex identical to yours.

Has now happened 4-5 times!

I have never tried any " home screen replacement " stuff

Very very irritating -- I power down and back up to restore the icons

Yeah it was driving me nuts....hasn't happened in a few days though...keeping my fingers crossed. Still no clue what the underlying issues is.

 

[ddelphin]

Recently installed software update to for droid and now this is happening to me as well. Any ideas?

 

[Barbara]

I have not lost any icons but I use Apps Organizer (free in the market). All of the icons on my screen are "folders" that contain the programs I use the most organized into categories. I used quote marks because they look nothing like folders. They are different icons representing each of five categories that I selected. But they have never disappeared whether in portrait or landscape.

 

[minyangmao]

Thanks for the tip Barbara - will try apps organizer.

Ddelphin: it hadn't happened for a long time, but like you, after the update, it happened to me again - just once so far; again, resetting it by turning off the phone and turning it back on (power - power-off - yes - power back on long press power button - no need to remove battery) restores the icons as they were before without loss of any data as far as I can tell...still have no clue what causes it.

 

[moneymon82]

I didn't have this problem until I installed the update. It has only happened once so far.

 

[Barbara]

Thanks for the tip Barbara - will try apps organizer.

Ddelphin: it hadn't happened for a long time, but like you, after the update, it happened to me again - just once so far; again, resetting it by turning off the phone and turning it back on (power - power-off - yes - power back on long press power button - no need to remove battery) restores the icons as they were before without loss of any data as far as I can tell...still have no clue what causes it.

If I was only allowed to keep one app, this would be one at the top of the list. It would be a tough decision among SportsTap, K9 mail, handcent, and Golf Card, but I don't think I could give up Apps Organizer.

 

[Cruzatte]

I have the problem too, post-update.

I thought it was related to undocking for a bit (it was happening whenever I pulled it off the multimedia station), but I could be completely wrong--haven't done any testing, and I think I recall that it's happened without any dock involvement.

Come to think of it, first time it happened I was just sitting at my desk playing Gem Miner D) and the game crashed, the whole phone restarted (totally odd for a typical crash) and when it came back on, no icons.

Anyway, other than that first time, a restart always cures the problem.

 

[Redflea]

Haven't seen this.

Have heard some people losing icons when going landscape, having Home++ installed (but not using it) fixed the issue.

You might try installing Home++ (it's free) and see if that helps. Again, you don't have to use it, just have it installed (maybe).

Also, please call Verizon and report the bug - they need to know about this (feedback to Google) and they might have some idea of how to fix it. (I know, highly unlikely.)

The other thing to try (and VZW will probably suggest it) is a factory reset (under the Privacy menu, IRRC).

 

[Jeffruby]

just happened to me today (post update) for first time! only new app i installed last night was handcent. has anyone had it happen without handcent sms installed???? may be problem.

 

[efdisaster]

This happened to me for the first time, today. 2.0.1, in car dock, charging w/ Motorola charger, navigating, just finished playing an album off SD card, was about to pick the next one... also running: weather.com widget, last.FM & locale

 

[clint]

All of my home screen icons were disappearing every time I opened the keyboard on the Droid.

When I removed the Picture Frame widget from the home screen, the problem went away. I don't know if this is related to the 2.0.1 update since I had never used the Picture Frame widget while running 2.0.

 

[Cruzatte]

Happened to me again pulling it off the home dock.

This isn't a "fix," necessarily, but I figured out how to solve it without a restart: kill the Home process.

settings > applications > manage applications > [menu button] > filter > running > "Home" > force stop.

 

[Cruzatte]

All of my home screen icons were disappearing every time I opened the keyboard on the Droid.

When I removed the Picture Frame widget from the home screen, the problem went away. I don't know if this is related to the 2.0.1 update since I had never used the Picture Frame widget while running 2.0.

Interesting-- I just tried opening the keyboard, and I lost almost everything from my home screen. Only Pandora, Places Directory, Contacts, and Calwidget are still there. Nuts.

Edit: I should add that I don't use Picture Frame. The stuff that DIDN'T stay were mostly other app icons, the native power manager widget, mototorch widget, google search bar, and weather forecast widgets.

 

[Cruzatte]

Also, it only happens when I'm on the home screen and open the keyboard. If I open & close within an app (like gmail), no problems.

 

[clint]

You might need to try removing the widgets one at a time to see if you find one that is causing the problem.

After removing the Photo Frame, I'm have not lost any icons or widgets from the home screen. I am currently running widgets for Weather Bug, DoggCatcher, Music, Pandora, and Remember the Milk.

 

[droiiiiid]

I'm having this problem too.

 

[2001400ex]

Any resolution to this? Mine happens when I hit the back button after sending a text message, about 50% of the time. Rather irritating.

 

[cdawg3731]

Do any of you use toggle settings? It was recently updated to allow periodic auto app kill and I just realised that I began having the aforesaid mentioned problems (as well as a very slow loading of the home screen when it loaded at all) when i began using this periodic auto kill feature. So I just deleted my list of auto kill apps and immediately my home screen was back to it's snappy ol' self.

It's too soon to know for sure if this fixed the disappearing home screen but I wanted to know if you also use TS. I'll keep you posted.

 

[rdillz]

Issue? Low memory. Solution? Advanced Task Manager!

 

[cdawg3731]

For the slow loading home icons? Yes, low memory. For the home screen that disappears and does not come back? Doubtful that it's low memory, especially seeing that I've rebooted my phone many times and the home screen wouldn't reappear until I shut down, plugged the phone into a power supply, and then rebooted.

By the way, for what it's worth, my home screen hasn't disappeared since I made the modifications mentioned in my previous post.

 

[nrobins]

I had it happen once. That time it happened when I turned the Droid off and then back on. Turning it off and back on again fixed it. Fingers now crossed.

 

[Louie]

I've had this problem on 2.0 and 2.0.1. It happens when I hit "home" when in landscape mode (keyboard open). All home screen icons, widgets, and folders disappear. I can't reproduce it on demand though, seems to happen randomly every couple days.