How is this Possible? S5 has left me with nothing.

[Citizensnips2]

Hi all, after having my S5 for a year, today it basically decided it was time to pull a couple of tricks on me. For the record I run NovaLauncher on it.
Basically today when from memory I had around 60% battery it just died on me. I wasn't looking at the phone at the time so when I noticed It was flat I turned it back on. When I turned it on I was greeted with basically no apps on my phone, not even the standard ones such as gallery, camera, playstore and so on. My contacts and message history still exist and funnily enough my background is still the same but asides from that there is just two apps, settings and the App Drawer for NovaLauncher which contains the standard phone, message, contacts as well as settings again. Can anyone suggest why my phone has been taken back to the stone age? It won't let me install apps or do anything......about the only thing that is possible is to use the stock browser and search the web. Additionally it remembered my wifi passwords. All of this makes me think it's Nova that's having a laugh with my phone, either way I just want all my content back.
If anyone has any idea any advice would be appreciated. For the record I had a browse of the forums and couldn't find any similar instances. Hopefully someone out there knows!
Thanks

 

[B. Diddy]

Welcome to Android Central! Can you switch back to TouchWiz? Does that still give you problems?

If TouchWiz works, I'd suggest going to the App Manager, selecting Nova, and Clearing Cache/Data, then Force Stopping. Of course, this will clear your saved Nova setup, so you'll have to set it back up again, or restore it (if it's backed up somewhere).

If TouchWiz doesn't work either, then try wiping the system cache partition: http://support.t-mobile.com/docs/DOC-10404

 

[Citizensnips2]

Hi, thanks for the reply. Touch Wiz works however it's still as useless as Nova, the only benefit is that it brings the little google search bar widget back and that's it. Asides from that there is still no gallery, camera, clock, calendar anything...just the same apps as mentioned before. Tried clearing the cache, didn't change anything. Appreciate the response however hopefully there is something else I can try.
Thanks

 

[B. Diddy]

Did you clear the app cache or the system cache partition (or both)?

 

[Citizensnips2]

The option to clear cache data in Nova doesn't appear to exist so I did the system cache clear and it didn't achieve anything.

 

[B. Diddy]

I just want to make sure I understand correctly--are all of the apps you installed previously not even showing up in the App Manager?

Try booting into Safe Mode and see if everything comes back: https://support.t-mobile.com/docs/DOC-10696

 

[Citizensnips2]

Yes all apps I installed are gone. As well as things like camera, gallery, calander, clock...all off that is gone. The only apps left are contacts, google, internet, messages, phone, voice search, settings, pocket news. Thanks for the tip on the safe mode but it didn't change anything....still the same apps.

 

[B. Diddy]

Grrr. I'm sorry, I'm stumped. If all apps were gone and you were able to install things, I would guess that somehow, the phone did a spontaneous factory reset (which is a catastrophic glitch, but essentially still recoverable, since you can always set up a phone that's been factory reset). But you're unable to install anything. Pure speculation here, but I would guess that the firmware somehow got corrupted. I'd probably do a factory reset, and see if it works normally afterwards. If the problem still persists, then re-flash the stock ROM via Odin: http://forums.androidcentral.com/am...w-flash-stock-rom-via-odin-new-interface.html. Find the correct firmware here: Firmwares - SamMobile

 

[Golfdriver97]

It sounds like the ROM crashed for whatever reason. B. Diddy is probably right in the idea that reflashing the stock ROM will fix this. The loss of basic apps like camera, gallery, clock are a pretty big tip that something went wrong in the ROM, and reflashing is the only fix.