Random reset! Lost info

[Android Central Question]

Randomly my s5 completely reset and lost some of my info.
It started with the phone screen turning black but the buttons at the bottom would light up when touched and a blue light at the top would come on. This would last anywhere from seconds to minutes. Sometimes I would have to remove the battery to restart. Then the screen would turn a yellow tinge which would come and go randomly and was affected by tapping on the phone. I figured it was time for a new one. then one night it went black then the red verizon screen came on and stayed on for approx 10min. Next thing I know I have to choose all phone setup options. I had to re-log back in to all apps. Now the phone has no black out issues and acts as new. However, I lost all contacts that were new as of the last year and some of my apps. I have reinstalled all but one app. The app I was using for chp road incidents is no longer on Google play. How can an app I was using daily dissappear from Google play after a reset? It doesn't even show up as a previous download in google play history. It was a yellow triangle icon. Wtf?? And what happened to the phone??

 

[B. Diddy]

Welcome to Android Central! First, this is a good lesson for every user that all important data should be kept synced or backed up on a regular basis, because you can't predict if or when a phone will fail. Second, if you do start to notice your phone behaving oddly, that should always prompt you to make sure your data has been synced or backed up recently, since those could be big warning signs of impending failure.

Apps can be removed from the Play Store for many reasons -- they might violate certain policies, or the developer might not support it any more, or the app might just be obsolete. If you installed it at some point on a phone, it'll remain on the phone, even if it's removed from the Play Store. But if you remove it from the phone and it's no longer available on the Play Store, then you won't be able to install it from there. You might be able to find it as an .apk installer file on some website, but you always need to be careful with those, since there's a risk of malware.