If Bubble Cloud home screen widgets disappear

January 17, 2019 Leave a comment

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If you are using a 3rd party launcher please check if other widgets work reliably. Some launchers allow you to place widgets, but they don’t fully comply with Android standards.

I usually recommend Nova Launcher, even the free version is very good:

You can download Nova Launcher from the Play Store: https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.teslacoilsw.launcher

If you were able to place a widget, but it later disappears (you get a blank widget), here are a few things you can try (recommended order):

Reboot the phone: often this is enough for the widgets to appear
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Go into the app, and press the “Force redraw all widgets” button:

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If you phone’s operating system was updated recently, try enabling the new option “Autofit to widget size” (Under launcher tweaks)

If bubbles appear, but they appear distorted, please follow these steps.
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If widgets appear correctly, but get distorted or disappear after playing full screen videos on Android 13 / Samsung OneUI 5 phones, it is caused by a bug in the new Samsung launcher. As a workaround you will need to enable the widget size lock:

For details please see these post:
- If bubbles in widgets disappear or get distorted on Samsung devices after watching full screen videos
- Workaround for OneUI 5 bug on updated Samsung phones
Try long pressing the area where the widget is supposed to be, if the resize dots appear, try to resize the widget. If the widget appears after resizing, try to look for an option related to widget updates. Maybe the launcher fails to update the widget.

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Check if the widgets show up in the “Widgets + Folders” list:

If they do, you can long press the blank widgets on your home screens (in the launcher) and drag them to remove them)When the clouds are removed you will be prompted to save the bubbles. Always reply “Save orphan”

This way you will be able to restore them.Finally to restore, simply create new widgets on the home screen, and when you tap to add bubbles, you will be given a list of saved widgets you can restore to them:

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If after restoring the bubble cloud the widget still appears empty

but when editing the cloud you see the outlines of the bubbles (bubble images are missing) i.e.

You can edit the cloud and re-apply the icon pack for the bubble images to be generated again:

(Note: only app icons can be restored this way. Launcher shortcut bubbles, like the “Sound” bubble on the left, will need to be re-assigned to an image manually)
If the “Widgets + Folders” list is empty (did you do a “Clear Data” on Bubble Clouds?) your only chance is if you backed up your widgets. Then you should be able to restore them. You might have saved your widgets when you last switched phones. So they could be in your Google Drive. Please refer to this video on how to backup / restore widgets from Google Drive:
(the restore part starts at 4:00)