Home screen won't lock in portrait mode

[Android Central Question]

Samsung J7 home screen suddenly rotates to landscape. I have portrait mode only toggle switch on. Why?? And how do I fix it?? Thanks

 

[B. Diddy]

Welcome to Android Central! Does it only rotate to landscape for certain apps? Some apps will force landscape because they don't work in portrait.

 

[GFJen]

Welcome to Android Central! Does it only rotate to landscape for certain apps? Some apps will force landscape because they don't work in portrait.

I'm talking just about the home screen.

 

[B. Diddy]

Are you using a 3rd party launcher, or the original Samsung launcher?

 

[GFJen]

Original

 

[B. Diddy]

That seems odd. Does it persist in Safe Mode? https://support.t-mobile.com/docs/DOC-30290

 

[GFJen]

I tried your suggestion and now my phone is stuck in "Downloading...Do not turn off target" I removed the battery and it didn't help. :'(

 

[GFJen]

So I pressed enough buttons in some mysterious order and got it to reboot, after getting the dead android guy. Now the home screen portrait mode is working!! Go figure. Thanks

 

[B. Diddy]

I tried your suggestion and now my phone is stuck in "Downloading...Do not turn off target" I removed the battery and it didn't help. :'(

Glad it's working! This screen you got to is probably because you were pressing Power and Vol Down at the same time, instead of separately.

 

[GFJen]

Update: it did it again. It seems it's not the actual home screen landscape mode. It's rotating but is not realigning so half of the screen is black. It did this after I was in my camera app (standard original app) in landscape, took a pic, opened it in the camera app and deleted it. Closed the app and went back to the home screen. So maybe there's a glitch somewhere with the camera app and portrait mode settings??

 

[B. Diddy]

Go back into Safe Mode. If the problem goes away, I'd still suspect some app you installed as the culprit. You'd have to uninstall apps one by one until the problem goes away.