[kelmccesq]

It just started one day a few weeks ago. When I would turn the phone on or restart it, as soon as I swiped the screen the first time, it would say "Unfortunately, TouchWiz Home has stopped." Then I would hit "OK" and the phone would work fine.

Last night I got fed up with this issue and researched the problem. Clear the cache and data for TouchWiz Home, they said. I did that. I lost all my icons, but no change otherwise. Then I cleared the cache partition. Nothing. Then I uninstalled Facebook Messenger. Nada. I even tried booting it without the SD card.

Then I installed Nova Launcher. That's when it started getting interesting. "Unfortunately, Nova Launcher has stopped." So I tried Google Now. "Unfortunately, Google app has stopped." Same for TouchWiz Easy Home.

Bottom line, every time I start the phone, the launcher crashes, but then the phone works fine. Only other thing I've noticed is that no matter how many times I try to put a widget on the screen, it never stays past a power cycle.

And I have no idea why this happened in the first place. The last time the phone updated the security patch was 12/1/15. The last time the phone updated the kernel was 12/14/15. But this started MUCH more recently, only a month or so ago.

I really don't want to factory reset my phone; it took me FOREVER to get it configured right. I'm now looking for ANY ideas.

Android version 5.1.1

[B. Diddy]

Welcome to Android Central! Does this happen in Safe Mode? https://support.t-mobile.com/docs/DOC-10696

[kelmccesq]

Yes, in safe mode as well.

[B. Diddy]

That would make me suspect some problem with the firmware. You could try reinstalling the firmware, either with Smart Switch or with Odin: http://forums.androidcentral.com/amb...interface.html

[kelmccesq]

I tried reinstalling stock firmware with Odin and it bricked my phone. I finally managed to do a factory reset, which fixed the problem, but be warned, the Google Stock ROM for the T-Mobile Galaxy S5 causes the error messages "NDC service has stopped" and "phone service has stopped" and constantly reboots.

[B. Diddy]

Glad you fixed it! Were you using the stock ROM for your exact model number? As far as I know, there's no official ROM from Google themselves, so it's possible you installed a ROM that wasn't intended for your model variant. On the SamMobile.com site, you can probably find the firmware for that exact model number.