Hangouts app is hidden or missing, can't make shortcut???

[david3772]

An hour or two into this, I remain perplexed!

My wife and I have Galaxy S3's on Verizon. This morning, I updated my phone to Hangouts 2.0 and turned on SMS. I started sending texts to people with emoji, goofing around and enjoying myself. (Sometimes, it's the little things.) Some of those texts were to my wife, and she wanted to do the same with her phone. She updated her Hangouts app, opened it from the update completed screen, and was able to use the app. All was well.

But this is where it gets a little weird. She did something else on her phone, then wanted to send another text via Hangouts. There was no Hangouts shortcut on her screen. No problem, she thought: long-press on the home screen and add a shortcut. But Hangouts does not appear among her apps. Not under Hangouts, not under Google Hangouts, nowhere. It's listed among my apps on my phone, but not on hers. Again, we have the same phone, same network. Puzzling. She could open Hangouts by finding the app in Settings>Manage Applications, but that's a nuisance. We tried powering her phone off and on a couple of times, still no Hangouts app. We can't uninstall the app, but we rolled back the updates so Hangouts was gone and Talk was back. But even Talk doesn't appear among her apps. Tried powering down again, no change.

So we can get the new Hangouts app on her phone (and it seems fun), but we can't get a shortcut to make it useful. I was able to put the shortcut on her lockscreen, which helped, but we should be able to put it on her home screen - which I was able to do on my phone. And why isn't Hangouts listed among her apps like on my phone?

Is anyone else having this issue? Does anyone have any thoughts or suggestions?

Thanks,
David

 

[GSDer]

Perhaps one of two things happened - she changed the Apps drawer view to 'Downloaded applications' or she accidentally hid the Hangouts app.

While in the Apps drawer, press the Menu button and select 'Show hidden applications' and make sure Hangouts isn't checked.

Sent from my rooted, debloated, deodexed Sinclair ZX-80 running CM 10.2 using Tapatalk 4

 

[david3772]

Awesome! Thank you GSDer, you have restored matrimonial harmony!

I had checked to make sure we were on all apps and not just downloaded apps in the app drawer, but your second suggestion was right on the money. Somehow she had hidden the Google Hangouts/Talk app. We unchecked the hide app checkbox, and the Hangouts app now appears just where you expect it to.

Again, many thanks.
David

 

[Victoria Larssen]

i have the same problem, before the last android system update i hid some application with the hide/show apps.. but after that update that choice disspeard. So i can`t se the hidden apps at all, not in the home screen and not in the downloaded so i cant make a shortcut for Hangouts, and its to havy to go to play and open the app all the time or wait for somone to send me a message. How can i make a shourtcut?? i have the s4

 

[GSDer]

before the last android system update i hid some application with the hide/show apps.. but after that update that choice disspeard

The Show/Hide menu choices disappeared? Are you scrolling down to the bottom of that list?

At worst you could uninstall the apps and then reinstall them and they should show up in your Apps drawer.

 

[Bill_RSA]

I found the Icon sorted under T for Talk and not under Google or Hangouts

Rgds
Bill

 

[Andrew Dagwell]

Thank you from me too! Great advice! I was having a devil of a time finding it and with your help was able to put a Hangouts icon on my screen. I never had one even before any updating. I always had to go into Google+ and then choose it from the drop down menu. Not anymore. AWESOME!!

 

[Stian Haugseth Thaen]

Found another working solution if you still have no icon.

My friend could only access or start the app threw Google play, was no icon what's so ever, but he could receive notifications....

We tried uninstalling and reinstalling, checking settings...nothing worked.

Solution:
Find the app in settings -> apps -> all apps.
Force stop -> disable app.
Yes to uninstall updated.

Close settings, then into Google play -> update hangouts...and PRESTO...a working solution.


If you do not like Hangouts, but would like to use the phones own SMS app, you can use Trillian as an alternative Talk app (I personally use Trillian on all devices I have, instead of several independent programs hogging up system resources and bundles of icons...just ...one...app..).

 

[rgarcia0808]

Many thanks Stian Haugseth for your help... your solution really worked for me.

Regards,
Raul

 

[Seamusg45]

Thanks, your suggestion worked for me. That being said, it tastes of 'mess around until it works'. I guess I have to thank you again for doing all the messing around. I never thought of 'force stop' because Hangouts was not shown as running. I could have understood if it was running that I had to stop it and then download and install another version.

Well, another wrinkle in my arse. I will add this to my list of things to try when confronted with strange and wonderful behavior of an app.

Cheers -jim-

 

[Wenmil]

An hour or two into this, I remain perplexed!

My wife and I have Galaxy S3's on Verizon. This morning, I updated my phone to Hangouts 2.0 and turned on SMS. I started sending texts to people with emoji, goofing around and enjoying myself. (Sometimes, it's the little things.) Some of those texts were to my wife, and she wanted to do the same with her phone. She updated her Hangouts app, opened it from the update completed screen, and was able to use the app. All was well.

But this is where it gets a little weird. She did something else on her phone, then wanted to send another text via Hangouts. There was no Hangouts shortcut on her screen. No problem, she thought: long-press on the home screen and add a shortcut. But Hangouts does not appear among her apps. Not under Hangouts, not under Google Hangouts, nowhere. It's listed among my apps on my phone, but not on hers. Again, we have the same phone, same network. Puzzling. She could open Hangouts by finding the app in Settings>Manage Applications, but that's a nuisance. We tried powering her phone off and on a couple of times, still no Hangouts app. We can't uninstall the app, but we rolled back the updates so Hangouts was gone and Talk was back. But even Talk doesn't appear among her apps. Tried powering down again, no change.

So we can get the new Hangouts app on her phone (and it seems fun), but we can't get a shortcut to make it useful. I was able to put the shortcut on her lockscreen, which helped, but we should be able to put it on her home screen - which I was able to do on my phone. And why isn't Hangouts listed among her apps like on my phone?

Is anyone else having this issue? Does anyone have any thoughts or suggestions?

Thanks,
David

 

[Wenmil]

I have asamsung Galaxy 6. I haven't been getting my shortcut for a month or so.... after reading your message I believe that the icon has been missing since I had the new hangout updated. Not sure why I can't get the icon either. The way I can only get it is to go to my Play Store and type in hangout and then have to hit open. It is kind of a hassle. So I usually don't use Hangout. I want to use it because of the video chatting