Why aren't my app icons showing up after installed?

[jallenaz]

app icons not showing up after install

We just bought a S5 and everything looks good. But when we just installed a couple of weather apps the icons did not show up. On the install it said it was creating an icon. If we go to Play Store the app is there running. But no icons. We installed other apps earlier today and they have icons. We are probably doing something wrong as we are new to this.

TIA for any help.

 

[anon(5600632)]

Re: app icons not showing up after install

When you go to the Google Play store, it downloads the app and puts it in your app drawer. That's the icon on your "dock" - the bottom row of your home screen - that looks like a circle or square with a few dots. The app drawer shows you all the apps installed on the phone. But the icons on your home screen are really just shortcuts that only show up if you put them there. So open your app drawer, press and hold the app icon of your choice, and you'll be presented with the chance to place it on your home screen. If you remove the icon from the home screen, by pressing and holding and dragging to a trash can or an X, the app will still be on your phone in the app drawer, just not on the home screen.

Same is true of Widgets, which display, on your home screen, real time info from an app. For example, you can have a simple icon to open your weather app, or you might instead place something that actually shows the current temperature.

In the Play Store settings, you can check a box to always place an icon on your home screen when you download an app.

 

[jallenaz]

Re: app icons not showing up after install

The apps are not showing up in the app drawer either. I can go to the folder icon on the home screen and they all show. But I can't do anything with them from there. That I know of.

 

[Javier P]

Re: app icons not showing up after install

Some apps are going to create just a widget icon. I'm not familiar with TW but just look in the widgets tab and most likely they are going to be there.

 

[anon(5600632)]

Re: app icons not showing up after install

Javier P has a good point - it could be confusion between apps and widgets. Look in both drawers & be certain before considering any possibility of malfunction. These weather apps you installed - are you certain if they were apps or widgets? They are in separate portions of the app drawer.

Otherwise, you could take it back to the store, but that's not pleasant on Black Friday weekend.
There's a chance the phone's software just stumbled somehow when setting up your Google Play account. A few things to fix it:

Settings-storage-cache. This will clear the cache across all apps.
Restart the phone.
Turn off the phone, remove the back cover, remove the battery, wait a minute, put it back together & turn on.


If neither of these helps, consider removing than reinstalling your Google account. This might require a factory reset, which you do through settings-backup & reset. Normally this is a big deal but since your phone is brand new, you won't have much to reconstruct.

 

[jallenaz]

Re: app icons not showing up after install

What we installed were apps. They are not in the Widgets either. I have them all installed on another device. We might try a factory reset and start again. Maybe we did something to mess it up.

Thanks,

 

[anon(5600632)]

Re: app icons not showing up after install

One last thing to check before you go to the trouble of a reset: When you are in the Google Play store, look at one of the apps you've installed. Does the screen have two boxes for Uninstall and Open ? When you press Open, what happens?

 

[Javier P]

Re: app icons not showing up after install

What's the name of those weather apps?

 

[jallenaz]

Re: app icons not showing up after install

When in the Google Play store the last app to be loaded has an Uninstall and Open. When we select Open the app opens.

The last app installed was the TCM app for Turner Classic Movies. The other weather apps were for Weather.com and Weather Bug.

 

[jallenaz]

Re: app icons not showing up after install

What's the name of those weather apps?

Weather.com and weather bug

 

[anon(5600632)]

Re: app icons not showing up after install

When in the Google Play store the last app to be loaded has an Uninstall and Open. When we select Open the app opens.

The last app installed was the TCM app for Turner Classic Movies. The other weather apps were for Weather.com and Weather Bug.

Ok, so we know your apps are being successfully installed. You mentioned a folder on your home screen where you can find the apps. What is that folder? You might be able to drag them out of that folder and on to your home screen individually.

 

[anon(5600632)]

Re: app icons not showing up after install

Have you tried uninstalling then reinstalling any of these apps?

 

[Javier P]

Re: app icons not showing up after install

Have you tried uninstalling then reinstalling any of these apps?

That's the first thing you should do. Factory reset is a bit radical, I think
I had a quick look to that weather bug. There's an app and a widget. There are some problems reported in the comments that look similar to yours. Have a look. Some people couldn't find the app / widget or make it work.

 

[jallenaz]

Re: app icons not showing up after install

Did what I should have done long ago with any computer. Reboot and now the last apps icon showed up. Reinstalled the other two apps and the icons showed up. We messed up something in our ignorance. Learning though

Thanks for the help. Really appreciated it.

 

[Javier P]

Re: app icons not showing up after install

Glad everything is working fine. See you around the forums.

 

[anon(5600632)]

Re: app icons not showing up after install

You didn't mess anything up. Computers, including Androids, are always vulnerable to mysterious gremlins. As a general rule, when your Android phone gets weird, here is what to try, in order from least to most disruptive:

Settings-Apps - select the misbehaving app and clear the cache
Restart the phone (which never hurts following any of these actions)
Settings-storage-cache to clear it across ALL apps
Clear the app's data and/or uninstall-reinstall the app
Reboot from recovery mode and clear the cache partition
Factory reset only after all else has failed

Enjoy your new S5!

 

[Dragonslayer2065]

Re: app icons not showing up after install

Thank you, that last sentence solved my problem. Great job guys

 

[Paul Tackes]

Re: app icons not showing up after install

We just bought a S5 and everything looks good. But when we just installed a couple of weather apps the icons did not show up. On the install it said it was creating an icon. If we go to Play Store the app is there running. But no icons. We installed other apps earlier today and they have icons. We are probably doing something wrong as we are new to this.

TIA for any help.

Why can't Edge so appear. Had before, not now. Why?

 

[Dawn coker]

Why are'nd installed

 

[Isaiah Adedeh]

Why is it that my phone is not able to show any application on the screen?