widgets not working/not updating

[Niall Leonard]

REVELATION!

Of course, what one should always do in that situation is ask yourself what part of your setup changed that day. I remembered this morning that last Wednesday when this issue appeared I HAD JUST SWAPPED MY 3G SIM FOR A 4G SIM. That was the only difference. What prompted me to make the connection was the earlier poster who noted that the widgets froze when he left home and moved from WiFi to LTE.

It seems very much as if it's connected to the phone function and network switching. Really, really deep bug, if you know what I mean.

I put the new SIM in a spare blank Nexus I had and the widgets work fine. I plan to backup my Samsung, factory reset it, put the new SIM back into it and set it up like a new phone. Hopefully if the problem is that the phone used to have a 3g SIM and moved to a 4g, the blank-slate approach should fix it....

THREE HOURS LATER: Yes, it worked. The phone was factory -reset, then I put in the new SIM. I installed Beautiful Widgets and they seem to be working fine.

Now I just have to spend a few hours restoring my screens, logging into various apps, sorting out my wallpaper... thanks Google.

SHEEPISH UPDATE: A few hours later I left the house. As soon as the Samsung moved from home WiFi to the 4g signal the widgets froze. So I can confirm the earlier posting, at least, though my so-called 'solution' did not work.

 

[Henry Pang]

I also have the Nexus 5 with similar issue my clock and battery widgets is not updating but when I tap the widget to open up the app for that widget then the widget update it again but if you close off the app in the background then the widget will stop updating again. This issue is caused the way the latest android OS KitKat was designed. I can confirm this is Kitkat issue because I have another handset Galaxy S4 originally run with Jelly Bean, all the widgets was running fine but the moment I update my Galaxy S4 to KitKat, I had the same issue as my Nexus 5.

 

[kornybrad]

My HTC ONE M7 started doing the same thing to me recently. Did it awhile back but corrected itself. Now it's doing it again. No idea how to fix it.

 

[Jaheira]

I tried to activate an "always keep in memory" option on my Apex Launcher. I thing it helps, but only a bit.

 

[dkwon]

I'm not sure if you guys use greenify, but I used to greenify my widget-related apps and it would cause this same issue. Once I realized what the issue was I un-greenified those particular apps and the widgets started to update normally again.

 

[CBoudreaux]

I'm having the same problem with many of my widgets, but not all. I have a Note 3. The weather.com widget is still working and another small widget is updating. But the Calendar widget, Samsung's S Health widget, and DGT GTD widget aren't updating. This just started a couple of weeks ago. Tried restarted and the widgets updated, but only for a little while.

 

[Cheryl Tower]

Im having the SAME problem with my Galaxy Core LTE... brand new, the widget alarm and clock are never right... ive had other things go wrong too but the widgets are a constant issue. i hope you got it resolved, im hoping to find an answer!

 

[Cheryl Tower]

The widgets come on the phone deleting them and re-placing them on home screen does not help at all. actually sometime nothing is applied to homescreen. its retarded. my clock is always stuck for hours and hours then suddenly it will be right but then stuck at that time the next 4 hours or so. im getting fed up. annoying that this is happening to others too.

 

[Cheryl Tower]

yupp that sounds like mine too. tried changing so many settings and if it ever fixes it is very short term.

 

[Cheryl Tower]

do fancy widgets also have one for your phones alarm clock?? soooooo annoyed im having issues with that BASIC thing too. COME ON THE CLOCK WIDGET SHOUDL WORK!

 

[Cheryl Tower]

this is happening with my galaxy Core too !!!

 

[Zookeeper63]

Having this issue on my Sprint Note 3, very frustrating...

 

[Noghar]

Here's a doozie - moved on from the accursed Note 3 to a HTC that was fine. Then on to a OnePlusOne which was also fine with widgets.

last night went to bed without plugging phone in for recharge. In morning charged it and switched it on.

Widgets busted. Exact same problem. Nothing updates. The widget for my aCalendar app reads '0' which is a date you don't often see.

Went looking for an answer, found myself back in this forum!

Hey ho. Think we're all f**ked on this one.

 

[TuoDev]

Here's what I did (also have a Note 3 with the widgets busted):

1. Used the "Active Apps" widget (one of the only ones that still worked) to find my way into the RAM and cleared it all (multiple times; kept hitting clear for the heck of it))
2. Restarted the phone

The widgets seem to be working (just tried the calendar one and gmail one; both worked). Only time will tell if this is a more permanent fix or not. My RAM was indeed rather high in usage, so hopefully this fixes it...

 

[Dan Halverson]

I think it was mentioned earlier, but I tried turning off auto updates in the Play Store app and that seems to be working to keep the widgets updated.

Posted via the Android Central App

 

[Server5]

This is what worked for me.

1. Boot up in SAFE MODE. (Hold the Power and Vol button Down)
2. Reboot from home screen
3. Reboot again in full user mode
(You should see many missing widgets when you are back)
4. Reload your widgets one by one. and reboot again
5. enjoy

This is a temporary 'Fix'. Apparently, this process clears stuck widgets and or cached widget.

The issue seems more common on samsung galaxy Note3's, and in all my testing
I have not determined if this is a third party app, OS, hardware, related issue. All signs
point to a OS or Third Party issue.

 

[timotei77s]

I had same problems.. for me to change settings of NOVA launcher helped:

- Settings
- Apps & Notifications
- Apps
- Nova Launcher
- Start-App
- Special Access (in advanced register)
- Device Administrators
- Nova Launcher
- Set to 'Activate display blockage'

 

[JasonA10]

Was a solution to this problem found? I have the new galaxy s9+, and I'm having the same problem listed. PLEASE HELP

 

[Tampa8]

Was a solution to this problem found? I have the new galaxy s9+, and I'm having the same problem listed. PLEASE HELP

Same with my Note 8. This is so widespread I can't believe Google/Android has not addressed it. Been going on for sometime now. As someone posted I don't think one widget is causing the others to freeze in this case. I deleted all, restarted phone clear cache etc and add one at a time. With one or two exceptions any one widget still freezes given time.

 

[Tampa8]

I hope people find this post. I have fixed the freezing widget problem on my note 8 using an aftermarket launcher.
First a tip though not what fixed it permanently.. Not see if a widget is causing a problem, and not only the program itself where the widget comes from, but if you have a Key downloaded for that program delete and replace that also. One problem I had was the Key for Sound Profile, it got corrupted.

What ended up fixing my problem is turning off everything for Samsung Touchwiz, on the Note 8 called Samsung Experience Home. Turn off notifications for it, turn off any permissions, and be sure to turn off that is can change the system. Then Force Stop, delete cache, then restart the phone. Note I did not have to delete the data.
The widgets were freezing because the built in launcher was trying to take control. It's been days now and no more freezing, before it was random several times a day. In fact everything seems smoother and faster.