New S24 Ultra setup and apps deleted after OS upgrade

[HighwayBob]

New Samsung user here. S24 Ultra.

I just setup the phone and ran Smart Switch and transferred everything over from my old phone - a Pixel 6a.

After I verified everything was there I checked for OS updates and saw a new Android version available - I have no idea if it was just a monthly security patch and I don't know how to equate one UI versions to actual Android versions. I don't know why Samsung doesn't just use standard OS version numbers - but that's another topic

After rebooting the S24 as part of the upgrade I found that all of my transferred apps had disappeared.

I contacted Samsung "support" via online chat and they were completely useless - they just read from scripts and can't even write English correctly - as bad as Amazon and Google in that regard.

I ran Smart Switch again to transfer just the apps but that wasn't my concern - I want to know WHY this happened.

I need to ship the old phone back as part of a trade-in and if this happens again Smart Switch will be useless to me.

Any ideas on this? Not a good introduction to the Samsung world.

 

[Village_Idiot]

Samsung does use the standard Android OS version numbers. OneUI is not the OS, it is the launcher/GUI that is baked into the OS. The S24 Ultra shipped with Android 14/OneUI 6.1.

How many apps were installed on your old phone? If you ran the February update while those apps were installing, it's possible, that those apps didn't complete installing when you ran the update. So when you rebooted it, they were not actually installed. Which or how many apps didn't transfer?

 

[mustang7757]

One UI -is Samsung User Interface and when you see 5.0UI /6.0UI/6.1 it's just the version of Samsung Interface.


It's possible that they weren't fully installed during software update, should always postpone the update untill everything transferred over completely, do back up on PC with smart switch as you can make multiple and restore at anytime

 

[joeldf]

Yeah, the Android and One UI version numbers are two separate things. One doesn't override the other. Samsung just pushes the One UI thing, marketing-wise, because that's their baby.

Before One UI, it was called Samsung Experience, and before that, TouchWiz. My old S8 started with Experience over Android 7, then got 8. 9 was the first with the newly christened "One UI".

The Android version is easy to find out too. "Settings" > "About Phone" > "Software Information" . So, it's not like they hide it.

 

[HighwayBob]

SmartSwitch was finished and the apps were installed. ALL of them disappeared after the reboot. I had confirmed a handful were working prior to the reboot by starting them up I don't know how many it was in total but probably at least 3 dozen.

The phone is telling me there is a new update to install now. Does Samsung usually make their monthly security patches available this early in the month?? I do not wish to reboot to install at this point until I have an idea about what may have happened.

 

[HighwayBob]

It's possible that they weren't fully installed during software update, should always postpone the update untill everything transferred over completely, do back up on PC with smart switch as you can make multiple and restore at anytime

Backup with SmartSwitch?? I don't recall seeing any way to do this. I'll take a look now.

I've been using Pixels for a number of years. Before that I had Motorolas. I've never had an issue with transferring to a new device - apps associated with my Google account automatically install after the device was setup. This is the only time I've experienced having to use an app to transfer my configuration to a new device.

Damn, Pixel-to-Pixel device switches are amazingly easy. It's too bad this functionality doesn't apply to all Android devices.

 

[joeldf]

The phone is telling me there is a new update to install now. Does Samsung usually make their monthly security patches available this early in the month??

The March update was released yesterday. To the entire S24 line.

And, yes, that is unusually early for Samsung.