XZ Icon folders have all disappeared

[Kitteecat74]

Hi all!

I had arranged the majority of my app icons into folders: banking, shopping, games, productivity etc but they have all just disappeared.

The apps are still there in the app area, just not on my homepages. They were a mix of SD card and Internal memory apps and all of the widgets and single app icons are still where they were originally.

Has this happened to anyone else? Any fixes? (I have tried the ubiquitous restsrt).

Thanks

KCat

[Jonas]

Hi @Kitteecat74, I'm so sorry to hear about this.

Did the folders disappear when you updated your phone, when you installed a new application or if you changed the icon appearance for the home screen?

Are you able to see these folders if you reboot your phone in safe mode? If you are using for example, another launcher.

If you can't see them in safe mode, could you please try and reset the icon appearance for the home screen in your phone? To do that, press and hold on any empty area on your home screen > Settings in the bottom right corner > Icon appearance > Default.

Can you see the folders now? If you can't I'm afraid you will have to redo the folders again, I'm very sorry for the inconvenience.

Should this happen again, could you please try and observe if it happens when you do something in your phone, for example installing an update or installing a new application.

It would also be great if you could create 2 new folders on some home screen that you aren't using very often and put 1 app icon in each, 1 app that is stored on your internal storage only and 1 app that is stored on your SD card.

Let me know how it went!

[Humble_jo]

Hi support team,

I have exactly the same phenomenon.

I arranged all my frequently used icons in explicit folders on my home folder: Google  (which was there by default), Synology,  Social media, Microsoft, Navigation, Information & Tools.

Every time again, with no reason at all, those folders disappeared,  leaving only one folder Microsoft, containing OneNote badge.

My Sony Xperia XZ is a model F8332 with android 7.0 (kernel 3.18.31-perf-gbdc9ee#), build 39.2.A.0.386 with a 200GB SD card.

I tried restart, change icon appearance to default... nothing seems to help.

Any suggestions? I'm frustrated having to rebuild my home screen every 2-3 days.

Can't a home screen setting be saved explicitly and restored when needed, in some way?

Thanks in advance for suggestions or a permanent solution,

jO

[Jonas]

Hi @Humble_jo, welcome to our forum!

I'm so sorry hear about that, I understand that this must be very frustrating.

Do I understand you correctly that this always happen every 2 or 3 days? If that is correct, for how long has this been going on, and do you remember if you installed a new application or updated the phone just prior to this?

The Microsoft folder that is still there after the other folders have disappared, does it include more app icons or just the OneNote badge, that is still there after the "reset"?

If you are using the Xperia home launcher in the phone (the preinstalled one) I would recommend that you start with clearing data for the Xperia Home application in your phone, this is the app that handles all the data for the home screen(s). To do that, go to Settings > Apps > 3 dots > Show system > scroll down and find "Xperia Home" > Storage > Clear data.

This will delete all folders, icons and widgets that you have added to your home screens so they will be reset back to default.

After you are done setting everything up again, I'd recommend that you turn automatic backup on in your phone, or that you create a manaul backup with the current information in your phone, or you can only choose to backup the Xperia home layout.

To set this up, go to Settings > Backup & reset > enable "Automatic backup" or tap on "More" and choose Manual backup > choose which storage the backup should be created in.

Let me know if that helps!

[waleedmak]

I think this happens after backup process with the Xpedia companion process is interrupted. It happened to me several time when the backup process is Disconnected either by user or else.
Sony Xpedia Team may check on this.

[Jonas]

Hi @waleedma,

Thanks for the great information on this! I will make sure to forward this internally.

Have a great Thursday!