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Accidental delete of "Home"! Photon 4G

dpmanthei

Lurker
Mar 19, 2013
3
0
Hello all,
In a real panic here, never thought I would be "that guy".

Bought a very nice Sprint Photon 4G on ebay just a few days ago, was removing some of the bloatware using root file explorer. Meant to uninstall "Home screen tips" as that is deemed safe by the XDA guys, I missed and it uninstalled "Home"! Now the home button doesn't do anything and I can't get back to my home screen! Am I screwed?

Sprint Motorola Photon 4G
Android 2.3.4

My fiance does have the nearly-identical:
US Cellular Motorola Electrify
2.3.x (not sure what she has, she isn't here right now)

Is there a way I can grab her app and get it on mine? Thanks!
 
try going to the Play store, downloading Nova or Apex and pushing it to your phone. That should give you a launcher to use.

Neither of those are 'compatible' to push to my phone but your idea was perfect. I found a launcher that does work and I can navigate around again. Thanks a lot!! Didn't realize aftermarket launchers were common.

On a side note, file explorer was kind enough to make a backup of the apps I was deleting. I still have Home.apk in a backup folder on the internal storage but it wont install. So now I have the app on the phone, but can't install it. Anyone have ideas on that?

Thanks a lot ExtremeNerd!
 
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Neither of those are 'compatible' to push to my phone but your idea was perfect. I found a launcher that does work and I can navigate around again. Thanks a lot!! Didn't realize aftermarket launchers were common.

On a side note, file explorer was kind enough to make a backup of the apps I was deleting. I still have Home.apk in a backup folder on the internal storage but it wont install. So now I have the app on the phone, but can't install it. Anyone have ideas on that?

Thanks a lot ExtremeNerd!

Move home.apk back to the system folder using root explorer. They aren't like alternate launchers and have to be in the correct folder.
 
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Excellent, that's what I'm looking for. Thanks again!

It's a very long story, but I actually went from a 4.2 JB device (CM10.1) to a gingerbread device. I ended up using Holo launcher and prefer that over the stock launcher anyway. Runs pretty smooth and feels like home to me.

Hopefully Cyanogenmod 10.1 becomes stable enough on the Photon 4G that I can feel comfortable running it...right now I'm reading people have lost wifi, bluetooth, and even melted cellular radios in Th3Bill unofficial ports of CM10.1 for the Photon 4G. I hope he/they can pull through but I'm not willing to risk this much damage to my 'new' phone.

...I digress, thanks again!
 
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