Random screen shows Application Shortcuts with Ad - General Questions and Answers

For the last 10-15 days, I am getting a random screen that shows my application shortcuts like common apps, recently accessed apps, favorite apps along with Ads. The screen appears randomly and is very annoying.
I suspect this is result of some App that has got upgraded. I am not sure how to go about identifying the offending app. I don't want to do a factory reset or resort to disabling Apps one by one.
Any pointers to resolving this would be helpful. Is there any way I can upload the screen shot of the app.

Related

Mystery icons on homescreen

Every time I reboot my phone a mysterious icon on my home screen appears. Usually it's an icon to a game of some sort that I've never installed. I've tried every security software in the market to see if it finds any type of spyware or adware with no luck. I've uninstalled the last app may have caused this type of adware on my phone but it is still there. Any suggestions will be greatly appreciated. Thanks!

Bizarre black box lorem ipsum bug

Has anybody ever seen anything like this? I'm experiencing a black box popping up maybe 20 seconds or so after booting that is unclosable with lorem ipsum text in it, here are some screenshots:
[xda won't let me post links yet so bear with me and fill in the rest of these urls]
imgur /LYCMosA.png
imgur /fsh6nWh.png
imgur.com /tde44HA.jpg
The box cannot be closed, and anything above it doesn't respond to touch input, but everything below it can still be used (like the shortcuts to chrome, contacts, etc. in the last screenshot). This box persists everywhere, including the lock screen.
Additionally, when I go to the lock screen the screen starts turning on and off rapidly, forcing me to reboot by holding the power and volume down key into maintenance mode.
I am able to start the phone in safe mode with no problems (safe mode disables all apps that aren't samsung or google), making me believe it's a third party app that is causing the issue and not something in android. But before I begin the awful task of uninstalling apps one by one to see which is the one that's causing the issue I figured I'd turn to reddit for help.
Additional info: I'm on verizon, the phone is rooted and I'm on 5.0.2
Flash with stock 5.1.1 ROM via odin.
Update: If you're reading this from the future it was cerberus, the security app. Really ****ing pissed because I uninstalled just about everything else because I didn't want to uninstall my security app until I had my phone back at my house (just tempting fate too much). Oh well, at least I've figured it out.

Samsung Interface Not Updating

All,
First time poster, frequent visitor of XDA Forums. I've come across an odd issue that I don't know how to solve and I'm hoping some of you smarter than me folks can get me squared away.
I have a Galaxy S8+ from AT&T running Android 7.0 and Samsung Experience 8.1.
Problem:
I've recently noticed a delay or completely non-updating interface on my phone. It updates on occasion, but I can't determine what triggers an update. For example, I will pick up my phone from the desk and when I press the power button it shows the accurate time. When I unlock the device, the sense flip clock I use on the main home screen shows an earlier time (could be 30 minutes... could be a few hours). I don't believe it's just the Sense app because I noticed this issue where I checked a facebook messenger app that came and and when I closed the app, it still showed I had 1 notification. I went back in thinking I had another new message, but I didn't. So it was still hanging on to the notification. It happened a couple times with a text message as well. Most importantly, my calendar doesn't alert me prior to an appointment either, even though it's showing in my calendar and an alert is active. If I save an event, and exit, I can normally see the event appear on the on widget immediately as well... but that hasn't been happening. I have to press the widget to open it and confirm it is there (which it always is). Eventually it refreshes and shows up. But that delay is likely the reason why I'm not getting my alerts.
All of this did seem to happen after a recent update Samsung/AT&T pushed out but I don't know for sure. I tried clearing the cache from the boot menu but it doesn't seem there is wide success with that.
And perhaps I'm just not a good enough user, but everything isn't all backed up in the cloud so doing the factory reset to me is always a fairly large task as I have many things to manually transfer out and then back in. Not sure if there are great tools that help with this on a stock phone.
BUMP
try disabling battery optimization for those apps.
It seems that you have several bugs and if they all start happening after you have installed the latest update, then expect a patch coming soon.
MINTED7 said:
try disabling battery optimization for those apps.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
I have actually done that. Found very limited success. I'm also finding very few results on this topic. Surely it's not just me though.
And I'm dreading the idea of a hard reset as I have many things on my phones, not all of which is sync'd to the cloud so it's a task to back things up appropriate. Specifically regarding "encrypted" apps like my password keeper app etc.
It would be great if there was a software application that allowed you to backup whatever is necessary to not lose data, then wipe the phone and instead of just simply restoring the full phone (which is likely to create the same problem one had before the hard reset), you could simply dump back in app data as needed. It would also help diagnose if the problem lies in a specific app's data.
High level overview of issues...
I have the Ring Doorbell app. I get notifications after "live". Could be 5 minutes, could be 1 hour... or possibly not at all. I have the app setup on my wife's iPhone and she gets them immediately. If I restart the phone, I will get notified right away (it's like it runs the app again and then I get the notification). Keep in mind, this is AFTER i disabled the battery optimization feature for the Ring app.
I also notice it occasionally with texting. I won't have any text notification in the notification panel, nor will my messaging icon have a little red circle indicating a message is there. But if I open the app, a specification conversation will have a red circle indicating a new text is unread.
All of this is leading me to believe the Samsung UI itself is not updating and therefore notifications that actually have arrived (from whatever app), are not displaying because of the UI and not because of their own delay.
Because of this concern I have turned off battery optimization for "System UI", "Themes", and "TouchWiz Home". I have not seen any change however.
[Solved]
I was able to determine by various other threads around the web (thought for sure I'd find it here, but I didn't) that the culprit might be the Google app. Supposedly it was fixed in some prior release, but it's not on my Galaxy S8+ w/ AT&T.
Once I disabled the Google app all the odd issues with notifications and clock interfaces and app icons not updating went away. The downside to disabling it is that I lose the Google Assistant functionality which stinks but otherwise there is no impact to using the phone. I re-enabled it at a later date and it worked fine for a few days and then started acting up again. Once I disabled it, the problems all disappeared. Clearly Google app is to blame.

Samsung Interface Not Updating

All,
First time poster, frequent visitor of XDA Forums. I've come across an odd issue that I don't know how to solve and I'm hoping some of you smarter than me folks can get me squared away.
I have a Galaxy S8+ from AT&T running Android 7.0 and Samsung Experience 8.1.
Problem:
I've recently noticed a delay or completely non-updating interface on my phone. It updates on occasion, but I can't determine what triggers an update. For example, I will pick up my phone from the desk and when I press the power button it shows the accurate time. When I unlock the device, the sense flip clock I use on the main home screen shows an earlier time (could be 30 minutes... could be a few hours). I don't believe it's just the Sense app because I noticed this issue where I checked a facebook messenger app that came and and when I closed the app, it still showed I had 1 notification. I went back in thinking I had another new message, but I didn't. So it was still hanging on to the notification. It happened a couple times with a text message as well. Most importantly, my calendar doesn't alert me prior to an appointment either, even though it's showing in my calendar and an alert is active. If I save an event, and exit, I can normally see the event appear on the on widget immediately as well... but that hasn't been happening. I have to press the widget to open it and confirm it is there (which it always is). Eventually it refreshes and shows up. But that delay is likely the reason why I'm not getting my alerts.
All of this did seem to happen after a recent update Samsung/AT&T pushed out but I don't know for sure. I tried clearing the cache from the boot menu but it doesn't seem there is wide success with that.
And perhaps I'm just not a good enough user, but everything isn't all backed up in the cloud so doing the factory reset to me is always a fairly large task as I have many things to manually transfer out and then back in. Not sure if there are great tools that help with this on a stock phone.
Samsung smart switch works wonders, the only thing that doesn't restore is passwords, you have to have and external SD card for it to work, or plug it in to a computer
talonpetty said:
All,
First time poster, frequent visitor of XDA Forums. I've come across an odd issue that I don't know how to solve and I'm hoping some of you smarter than me folks can get me squared away.
I have a Galaxy S8+ from AT&T running Android 7.0 and Samsung Experience 8.1.
Problem:
I've recently noticed a delay or completely non-updating interface on my phone. It updates on occasion, but I can't determine what triggers an update. For example, I will pick up my phone from the desk and when I press the power button it shows the accurate time. When I unlock the device, the sense flip clock I use on the main home screen shows an earlier time (could be 30 minutes... could be a few hours). I don't believe it's just the Sense app because I noticed this issue where I checked a facebook messenger app that came and and when I closed the app, it still showed I had 1 notification. I went back in thinking I had another new message, but I didn't. So it was still hanging on to the notification. It happened a couple times with a text message as well. Most importantly, my calendar doesn't alert me prior to an appointment either, even though it's showing in my calendar and an alert is active. If I save an event, and exit, I can normally see the event appear on the on widget immediately as well... but that hasn't been happening. I have to press the widget to open it and confirm it is there (which it always is). Eventually it refreshes and shows up. But that delay is likely the reason why I'm not getting my alerts.
All of this did seem to happen after a recent update Samsung/AT&T pushed out but I don't know for sure. I tried clearing the cache from the boot menu but it doesn't seem there is wide success with that.
And perhaps I'm just not a good enough user, but everything isn't all backed up in the cloud so doing the factory reset to me is always a fairly large task as I have many things to manually transfer out and then back in. Not sure if there are great tools that help with this on a stock phone.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Go to settings and check if your time is setup to adjust automatically.
On Edge of Note
norbarb said:
Go to settings and check if your time is setup to adjust automatically.
On Edge of Note
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
That is not the issue. As mentioned, it's not just the clock it's multiple interfaces.
norbarb said:
Go to settings and check if your time is setup to adjust automatically.
On Edge of Note
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
That is not the issue. As mentioned, it's not just the clock it's multiple apps/interfaces.
High level overview of issues...
I have the Ring Doorbell app. I get notifications after "live". Could be 5 minutes, could be 1 hour... or possibly not at all. I have the app setup on my wife's iPhone and she gets them immediately. If I restart the phone, I will get notified right away (it's like it runs the app again and then I get the notification). Keep in mind, this is AFTER i disabled the battery optimization feature for the Ring app.
I also notice it occasionally with texting. I won't have any text notification in the notification panel, nor will my messaging icon have a little red circle indicating a message is there. But if I open the app, a specification conversation will have a red circle indicating a new text is unread.
All of this is leading me to believe the Samsung UI itself is not updating and therefore notifications that actually have arrived (from whatever app), are not displaying because of the UI and not because of their own delay.
Because of this concern I have turned off battery optimization for "System UI", "Themes", and "TouchWiz Home". I have not seen any change however.
[Solved]
I was able to determine by various other threads around the web (thought for sure I'd find it here, but I didn't) that the culprit might be the Google app. Supposedly it was fixed in some prior release, but it's not on my Galaxy S8+ w/ AT&T.
Once I disabled the Google app all the odd issues with notifications and clock interfaces and app icons not updating went away. The downside to disabling it is that I lose the Google Assistant functionality which stinks but otherwise there is no impact to using the phone. I re-enabled it at a later date and it worked fine for a few days and then started acting up again. Once I disabled it, the problems all disappeared. Clearly Google app is to blame.

Always On Display not working well?

Hey!
I've been recently freezing couple of applications through trial and error. Somehow accidentally I have disabled some application which is in correlation with Always on Display. The problem is the fact I have lots of disabled applications so I don't really know what application is responsible for this.
I haven't touched application services.
My Always on Display freezes after couple of seconds.
Would be good if someone could tell me what application out of all of these applications is responsible for this behavior so I don't have to go back to trial and error again unfreezing applications and freezing them again.
I have attached a text file of disabled applications:
JustPaste.it - Share Text & Images the Easy Way
justpaste.it
Thanks!

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