After Lollipop - Recent Apps and Home button sometimes don't work

[abehil]

I'm an unhappy victim of the great Lollipop Update. Now without warning the Recent Apps button and the Home button just stop responding periodically. Like I'll be in a phone call and want to take a picture or look something up and pressing Home or Recent Apps does nothing. If I restart the phone then they work as expected even when in a call. Eventually though, they just stop working. Help! It's making me hate my phone.

I've been reading about others having bad luck with Lollipop. So I thought I'd just go back to 4.4.4 because everything worked then. So far, I've downloaded Kies3 and done a complete backup. I decided to try a factory reset to see if that would make Lollipop behave. Nope. Within 20 minutes the buttons stopped again. It's not always in calls, it's just that I can't restart the phone when in a call to make it work and that is not usable.

So, before I go regrade back to 4.4.4 - does anyone know why the buttons just quit every so often and maybe how to fix it?

Thanks.

 

[Nabil Azarou]

Try booting your phone in safe mode see if the problem persist.

Posted via Samsung Galaxy S5

 

[abehil]

Thanks for the tip. It does still happen in safe mode. Just before the buttons quit working I started the NPR One app to but it failed to play anything so then I tried the NPR news app which worked. Then a bit later the home and app buttons stopped working. Reboot and everything works again but eventually they will lock up again.

I am going to remove both the NPR apps and see if they might be the cause.

Any insights welcome.

 

[threekings]

Just updated to lollipop on my TELUS S5. Same issue. Home and recent buttons do not work at all.
No recent apps installed or changes - except OS update!
Trying Safe mode...

 

[cab1122]

Same here. Ive tried safe mode, boot and clear cache, hard resets. I even brought mine in to a Samsung service center and they flashed it for me, without success. Only thing that works is a factory data reset, but then stops responding all of a sudden. I dont see any pattern with opening and installing anything. It has to be a process that starts at some point, but I can't figure it out.

 

[abehil]

Now another odd behavior. In the phone dialing screen there is a bluetooth indicator that should indicate when the bluetooth is active with a blue stripe. That no longer shows the blue stripe when bluetooth is active so I can't tell when it is or not.

I'm pretty much done with Lollipop. I'm going to follow the instructions on going back to the previous version of android.

 

[oscarthepenguin]

Me tooooooo. I downloaded the lollipop update, and my phone kept recycling on and off. I finally had to get a brand new phone reissued from Verizon. Now I have the Samsung update trying to update my phone. I cannot turn is off. When will this lollipop update be fixed. I really would like to update my phone but I am afraid because I don't wanted to crash again.

 

[Andrew Langs]

I think I may have found a cause. When I setup my exchange/activesync account my home button stops working. If I remove my exchange account - my home button starts working. So I suspect an security policy may be conflicting for some reason. I did not have this issue with Kitkat and my exchange account. Not sure if anyone else having this issue has setup exchange/activesync on their s5 running lollipop.

 

[cab1122]

SUCCESS!! That fixed my problem completely. Thank you for catching that. I was able to find a work around by downloading the Outlook App, not the web app, full Outlook. It activated another security client, but it did not mess with my home button.

 

[Arvin K]

Hi, I have the same issue. If I enable the stock email app with an active sync account, the home and recent app buttons don't work. As a work around I deleted the active/sync account for the stock client and installed "nine" email client and now the home and recent app buttons work.

Hopefully, google will come up with a hot fix soon so we can all go back to the stock email client.

At least this let's me function for now since this is obviously a Lolipop issue. Also, I did a complete factory/reset and that didn't help so it's for sure something to do with the stock email client and an active/sync account.

Hope this helps!

 

[abehil]

I have gone back to KitKat and also rooted my phone (first time for that).

Hey Google: I didn't sign up to be part of your Lollipop "wide beta". I used to think only Microsoft did that to it's customers. Boo!

 

[Pat Rich]

I have the same issue. I have called my company's IT department they referred me to Samsung. I hope they can get a resolution soon!

 

[Andrew Langs]

And it is official... i just finished an online chat with Samsung Canada - confirmed issues with activesync. Their answer was to remove the email account - which i said was not a solution. They said they are working with Google on an update. I did point out we have HTC phones that got the update and did not have this problem. I just hope it doesn't take them as long as to release the patch as it did to release lollipop.​

 

[thahim]

Can you please tell me how to do this iam having the home button issue as well on my lollipop note 3.

I think I may have found a cause. When I setup my exchange/activesync account my home button stops working. If I remove my exchange account - my home button starts working. So I suspect an security policy may be conflicting for some reason. I did not have this issue with Kitkat and my exchange account. Not sure if anyone else having this issue has setup exchange/activesync on their s5 running lollipop.

SUCCESS!! That fixed my problem completely. Thank you for catching that. I was able to find a work around by downloading the Outlook App, not the web app, full Outlook. It activated another security client, but it did not mess with my home button.

Sent from my SM-N9005 using Tapatalk

 

[Hariharan Velu]

MY MOTO G2 not display home button and recent app button. Need help....rebooted mobile many times. not work? pls dont suggest reset option. thank in advance

 

[Ryan Todd1]

Yes, that seems to be the issue for me too. As long as Active Sync isn't being used for email all is OK. It is a security policy on the Exchange server for sure. Other than that...I have NO issues with Lollipop.

 

[Arvin K]

To be clear the problem only occurs when using Active Sync with the stock email app. I've tried both Nine & Mail Wise and both work fine. Mail Wise is free so it's a good alternative until Samsung & Google fixes the issue on the most popular Android phone in North America.

 

[ajaybear]

Lollipop 5.1 should solve your issue

 

[Marco Janssen]

I have this issue too. But even after disabling exchange sync (removing all mail apps which supports that protocol) it is still happening.

 

[Fuerzabruta]

Hello, i've a Samsung note 4 with the same problem, i've read your posts and deleted all the account on the app Mail classic, and transfered the 3 mail account i have in the app Mail Wise. But i still don't have the home and recent button working, what i miss to do ?
Regards,
Fuerzabruta