NeoLauncher crashing and resetting home screen to default

[Kurty00]

Description

Neo Launcher crashed and removed every widget, app shortcut, and page from the home screen.

Expected Behavior

Neo Launcher should keep the home screen and ideally would not crash.

Actual Behavior

Neo Launcher crashed and reset the desktop to default.

Steps to Reproduce

While this has happened twice already, I unfortunately have no Idea how to reproduce the issue.

Device and OS

Device: Fairphone 4 Android version: Android 12 Launcher version: 0.9.3 ROM: Stock Fairphone 4 ROM

Logcat

Since the logcat was too long for GitHub, I've uploaded it here: https://share.k00.eu/logcat_20230317_FP4.txt

[saulhdev]

It is related to #185. It will be closed when publish the next release.

[Nthoney]

I thought that the crashes were random, but now I found out they happen when my phone makes a Seedvault Backup. It happens every time after an automatic backup and after a manual backup. So it is reproducible.

My phone is a Nokia 6.1 Plus, running on LineageOS 20-20230511-NIGHTLY-DRG (Android 13). Wish this helps. Thanks for all Ur hard work!

[spart0n654]

I have this issue on pixel fold android 14 beta. I'm stock android without root and I can't reproduce it. It just happens randomly, 5-6 times per week. Thank goodness for backups for icon layouts but I have to still redo all my widgets.

[benplumley]

I just had this happen (it was triggered when I deleted a shortcut from my home screen) and it reoccurs immediately after applying my last backup, making the launcher unusable.

[ltguillaume]

For some reason, I can now reproduce this reliably when enabling the feature to lock the desktop.

1. Like mentioned in https://github.com/NeoApplications/Neo-Launcher/issues/359#issuecomment-1615887170 the row count and column count have been swapped after locking the desktop
2. (As a result of 1?) all icons but 1 are deleted. The only icon that remains is (strangely enough?) K-9 mail, which is normally positioned in the left bottom corner

I have used the feature to lock the desktop before without issues, though. I must have toggled it at least 30 times.

The only thing I can see changed when I compare with a backup when everything worked is that

• Icon shape was changed from rounded to circle
• <int name="pref_launcherTheme_x" value="4" /> was added
• <float name="pref_widget_radius" value="63.0" /> was added

...but after manually reverting these settings in the last backup and importing them, the problem still presented itself when locking the desktop.

[CarlosEkisde]

This happened to me too when locking the desktop. but also when unlocking, and as @ltguillaume I've also seen the rows and columns count swap when the reset happens.

However, I've managed to workaround the bug by adding and then deleting a row or a column just before locking or unlocking the home screen. Don't just delete without adding before because the launcher will just remove the icons from the row or colum it deleted.

Since the issue can be prevented by doing this (Has this happened to anyone using the same number of rows and columns? I'm personally using 10 columns and 13 rows) I'd bet the launcher precisely is internally swapping the rows and columns count which would cause corruption in the database leading to the home screen to reset when locking the desktop.

[ltguillaume]

@CarlosEkisde Thanks, I'll try this soon!

[ltguillaume]

This seemed to work for me:

1. Added a row
2. Went back to homescreen to check if the row was added
3. Removed the row and locked the desktop immediately after

Thanks @CarlosEkisde!

[CarlosEkisde]

This seemed to work for me:

1. Added a row

2. Went back to homescreen to check if the row was added

3. Removed the row and locked the desktop immediately after

Thanks @CarlosEkisde!

You're welcome. I'm glad it worked. Remember this bug can trigger too when unlocking. The same workaround seems also to work also here. I keep a backup with NeoBackup app just in case anyway.

[MrMusic25]

Hello,

I am also experiencing this issue. Occasionally the launcher will reset to defaults, so I restore from most recent backup, but all my widgets are missing. Usually this is not a problem since it only happens maybe once a month or so randomly, but I have found a way to trigger it on my phone fairly consistently which has increased the annoyance of having to redo my desktop.

1. Open Google Maps
2. Start navigation to a destination
3. Press the home button (return to Neo Launcher)
4. Google Maps will start in picture-in-picture mode
5. Once Neo launcher finishes loading, the desktop layout has been reset

This is on a Sony Xperia 1 V running Android 14 (patched to March 1st, 2024 but this has been happening for months now). I am running Neo Launcher 0.9.3 (build 934). I believe it has to do specifically with the picture-in-picture mode. I tried it with the Twitch app and YouTube and their picture-in-picture did not cause a reset,, but Google Maps caused the reset 4/5 times in testing. Maybe it has to do with the weird form factor of the spawned window, but the picture-in-picture feature seems to trigger it a lot. I tried to disable it, but it is on a per-app basis so that would take too long.

I am going to try the desktop locking method mentioned above in hopes that it also solves my issue, once I finally get all my widgets back in place. I am a bit wary to use anything that uses picture-in-picture for now but hopefully locking solves it for me as well.

[saulhdev]

It should be fixed on the new release