Screen icons and icon groups reset on M9 restart

[LeftyLooper]

Whenever I power off or restart my HTC One M9 on Lollipop 5.0.2 the screen icons reset to an earlier state. It's almost like something has stored the phone state and is restoring that state every time the phone is started or restarted.

It also changes in the icon groups on the apps screen. For example I have 4 BBC apps and I place them all in a group called "BBC". On restart the 4 BBC apps are no longer in a group and the group doesn't exist.

Does anyone have an idea what's going on here and what I'm missing?

Thanks in advance.

LL

 

[daniel-k]

Are these icons by any chance on your home screen in the Sense Home Widget? If so, the contents are changing by design. It thinks that it can foresee which apps you want to see the most. If this is the case, you can have some success by pushing and holding the icon and it will pin it into place. Or you can just remove the widget and put the apps of your choice in the same location.

If this is not the case then I'm as baffled as you are. I've never seen this on my M9.

 

[LeftyLooper]

Thanks for the reply.

This is on the home screen having dragged the app icons out of the app list and arranged them on the home screen. No widget involved. I've just switched from an M7 running Lollipop and didn't have the problem.

LL

 

[Javier P]

That's weird. Do you have any of those apps installed in your SD card?

 

[daniel-k]

If this is happening on the home screen only, you may still have the "Sense Home" widget and not be aware of it. It is essentially a transparent box that will hold eight icons (two rows of four each). This was the default configuration on my M9 when I got it.
It is easy to drag apps in and out of this box, but they will change much like you are describing the next time turn on your machine. The phone is trying to anticipate what you will want based on your location. If you do have this, then there will be a small drop down menu just above and to the left of the box which will say "Home" or "Work" or "Out". If this is it, then you can safely drag to whole box to the trash can and just install your apps on the space that is left. If you discard it, it will still be listed in your widgets in case want it back.

You might also consider installing the "Google Now" launcher or some other launcher.