UKC

A gap has appeared in the app drawer of my Android phone. THere's an empty grid space in amongst the installed apps. Nothing happens if I tap there, but if I press and hold on the gap it behaves like an app in that I can drag a shadow on to the Home screen - and I can drag the invisible "app" from there into the trashcan to free up that space on the Home screen again.

I've run Malwarebytes and AVG antivirus and they've not flagged up anything that might cause this.

Has anyone seen anything like this before?

In reply to Martin W:

have you opened your apps pages and clicked menu and checked to see if there is a "show hidden apps" in the list?

In reply to Martin W:

If it was me, I would not hesitate to do a Factory Reset and start from scratch.

I always opt for the 'Nuke' option when confronted with unknown issues that my compromise my on-line security/safety.

In reply to Martin W:

Go to the app list. Hold on the space as though you want to drag it to the main screen, two options should appear at the top, uninstall and app info. Drag it to the app info and you'll find out what it is.

Chances are it's something you have installed that has lost its icon in an update. A phone restart would fix it. You might also find it through listing all installed apps in alphabetical order and look for what is between the two either side.

The absence of a name and an icon does sound a bit suspicious.

In reply to grumpybearpantsclimbinggoat: No "show hidden apps" option.

In reply to Philip:


Nope, only thing that appears at the top is "Add to Home screen".


Nope. I've restarted. I've even gone in to recovery and wiped the cache and the dalvik cache, then restarted. It's still there.


If I order the app drawer alphabetically, it's the first app on the grid. I think that's because it doesn't have a name.

I've tried ordering the app drawer by "Most used" and it shows up just before an app that I know I last used on 18th June. However, if I re-order the app drawer by "Recently installed" it shows up after an app that I know I installed just last week. Put those two thing together and it doesn't make sense.

It's all very odd.

In reply to Martin W:

I think some security and messaging services have 'invisible' icons and names. Some security apps also have 'partner apps' that block uninstallation and which are, by default un-named and invisible.

I haven't used them personally, so can't advise on how to identify them.

Sounds a bit dubious.

Well I got rid of it, but it was a tortuous process. I restored a system backup (nandroid) made about a month ago, then recovered data for apps that keep it locally from the latest Titanium backup (which runs every night). E-mail & contacts restored automatically from the cloud. I then had to carefully update every outdated app, checking the app drawer each time to see if the ghost reappeared. It never did. I still don't have any explanation for what actually caused it in the first place. Quite frustrating, and very boring!