Google pixel home button and app switcher button don't work

[puch96]

My wife's Pixel XL had this issue yesterday. Home and recent apps buttons were not responsive. Furthermore, the notification panel was also unresponsive (cannot pull down). AND, she was not getting any notifications.
I performed a factory reset, so we'll see if it comes back or not. But i'm thinking Google needs to push a patch ASAP.

 

[ortie001]

This is an awesome problem to have right before you announce your new version. Mine has been doing the same thing for 3 days now. It seems like darn near everything is fubar. It was working fine one sec, then it just restarted on it's own and now it's a totally different device. I did the factory reset and guess what? It did it again! Google has been no help. I was just about ready to get the Pixel XL 2once it was available. Maybe it's time I went back to the Note. I guess we'll see what the community comes up with on this one because I think we aren't the only ones with this issue.

 

[pareshp]

I am having the same issue - has any one figured out the issue yet?

 

[chris franzen]

Add another pixel xl user to this issue started last night.

 

[pareshp]

I have an update - My phone was paralyzed - I could not do anything. I could not even backup the data on Google Cloud. No notification, No Home Button, No Previous App button, No pull down Bar. After spending 2 hours on chat with support - last resort was Factory Reset and restore from Cloud. So I host few pictures and messages. The phone is working again - but the cause is still unknow. The support person refuses to comment on the fact that this is not an isolated issue when I share the link to this chat. He also refuses to accept that this is a bug in the OS. For me if something messes up the functionality of my phone, and I cannot recover by re-booting, it's an OS issue. So the lesson learned for this is make sure you turn on backup and it is working.

 

[Karthiknair007]

Me too facing same issue. Both home button & app switch button don't respond. Only back button is alive. Seems like a bug with latest OS. Can't afford to do factory reset as it's not a guaranteed solution.

 

[nikbra]

Hi All !
For me this issue happens for 20 minutes ago. And it happens during installation of this app:
Yammer:
https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.yammer.v1&hl=sv

Maybe it could happen with more apps. The app installed and right after that the phone rebooted and the problem was there

I'm doing a factory reset now. Seems to work. Hope for that

 

[gregatatat]

I just registered to let everyone know that my pixel xl is having the same issue as of today. I had a google support chat which essentially was trying to recreate the issue in safe-mode (buttons didn't work in safe-mode) and trying to update several apps (10) in the play store and was unable to update. it would constantly be in the state of 'download pending'.

the chat support person said he would pass my issue onto a specialist.

as a follow-up, gmail is not updating for me and I constantly hear app notification sounds, but the notification bar is completely blank/empty.

 

[Lilybell2]

This seems like a pretty big issue. I'm not experiencing this problem, but I think it could be beneficial for someone who is experiencing these issues to start a topic in the Google Product forums, specifically in the Pixel User Community section, because this problem does't seem to have been mentioned there: https://productforums.google.com/forum/#!forum/phone-by-googlehttp://

 

[gregatatat]

couldn't agree more. I ended up calling google support as I was getting irritated at the fact that I pretty much had no control over my phone to some extent.

like others in this thread have mentioned, the google support person told me to just to do a factory reset, which I went ahead and did -- and while it works and "fixes" the issue, I explained to the google support person that the people have performed the factory reset, yet the issue still comes back. he said that if they get a large call volume relating to the same issue, that is when I guess they get their technical team involved.

 

[N4Newbie]

There have been issues related to Oreo upgrade with Developer Options enabled - some options apparently cause screen-related problems.

I would suggest ensuring that all developer options have been disabled, then restart the phone and see if problems persist.

 

[Junipo]

In what is the oddest and most unexplainable workaround to a problem, I found a solution that doesn't require a factory reset, in a post on reddit, which cited a post on xda-developers. It worked like a charm for me, no idea why. Here's what to do -- Nova Launcher workaround to pixel home/app/notifications issue:

1. Install Nova launcher. The google play store won't be working for you if you have the above bug, so open chrome, search for Nova Launcher APK, download it, give your system permission to download and install from outside sources if it doesn't already have that permission (you'll get a pop-up if that's the case, just give permissions if that happens)
2. Install Nova launcher.
3. It's likely that you are stuck in Chrome at this point, since your home button doesn't work, and the back button does not exit out of chrome. I had to power off and re-start to get to the next step
4. Opened Nova from app drawer, went through the initialization process
5. hold on an empty part of the screen, find the Activities widget, drag it to an empty place on screen
6. Scroll down to setup wizard, hold to SetupWizardUpgradeActivity, click and go through the activity
   

It's fixed. I didn't want to use the Nova launcher so I switched back to the pixel launcher, and the problem has stayed fixed. My guess here is, the problem is caused by pixel launcher somehow, and you have to slap the pixel launcher back into shape by downloading Nova launcher and threatening to use it

 

[Grant Emsley]

Thank you Junipo. This worked for me!

 

[Jeffaliciousness]

You're a gawd, Junipo. Thank you! I've gone through countless chats and emails with Google's offshore service teams and have referred them to this thread and yet no escalation efforts on their end. You, kind sir, have saved us all from a factory reset. Thanks again.

 

[azwillnj]

This just happened to my sisters phone yesterday. After doing these steps Vizio SmartCast popped up after going through the standard Android setup. She booted into Safe Mode and deleted the SmartCast app and now everything is fine. I would bet money the crap Vizio SmartCast app is the one that screwed this up. When you get the SmartCast remote with one of their TV's its a small Android tablet that runs this app and goes through the same setup on the first boot. I would bet that they messed up something in one of the updates that triggers the flag that it's in setup mode.

How many of you have the SmartCast app installed too?

Alex.

 

[BigFish_JonLim]

In what is the oddest and most unexplainable workaround to a problem, I found a solution that doesn't require a factory reset, in a post on reddit, which cited a post on xda-developers. It worked like a charm for me, no idea why. Here's what to do -- Nova Launcher workaround to pixel home/app/notifications issue:

1. Install Nova launcher. The google play store won't be working for you if you have the above bug, so open chrome, search for Nova Launcher APK, download it, give your system permission to download and install from outside sources if it doesn't already have that permission (you'll get a pop-up if that's the case, just give permissions if that happens)
2. Install Nova launcher.
3. It's likely that you are stuck in Chrome at this point, since your home button doesn't work, and the back button does not exit out of chrome. I had to power off and re-start to get to the next step
4. Opened Nova from app drawer, went through the initialization process
5. hold on an empty part of the screen, find the Activities widget, drag it to an empty place on screen
6. Scroll down to setup wizard, hold to SetupWizardUpgradeActivity, click and go through the activity
   

It's fixed. I didn't want to use the Nova launcher so I switched back to the pixel launcher, and the problem has stayed fixed. My guess here is, the problem is caused by pixel launcher somehow, and you have to slap the pixel launcher back into shape by downloading Nova launcher and threatening to use it

Hi Junipo, I've encountered the same problems as everyone else in this thread, and I registered just to be able to talk to you about your fix. I was able to download Nova, and made it through all the steps, but when I get to the last step and find Setup Wizard (the dropdown tab says Activating cellular service...), I get stuck. Pressing on it seems to exit Nova, while press-holding it just brings a pop up message "Access denied". Any ideas?

 

[JonboBrewgins]

This worked for me too. Simple fix and it only takes about a minute.

Thank you so much.

 

[DavidLimbaugh]

I can not find the SSetupWizardUpgradeActivity option?

I can't find the Setup Wizard on my Pixel XL for Nova???

 

[Icarus3000]

Same issue on my Pixel running latest version of Oreo.

I had signed up for and installed the beta version of Google, so thought that might have been the cause, but seems to be more widespread.

Factory reset fixed the problem, but resetting all my apps was a pain, because the cloud backup doesn't seem to be working for me.

Anyway, no more betas for me

 

[Mansij]

I tried the Nova Launcher option. I am only getting one setting option in when I click on SetupWizard. I don't get the SetupWizardTestActivity.