Recent update brought back Google on home screen

[inejwstine]

I saw that there was a system update this morning, so I downloaded and installed it. After completion, my home screen had been completely reset. All of my widgets and app shortcuts are gone. What’s worse, the Google search bar that I used to have on previous Android devices is now at the bottom of the home screen, and I can’t get rid of it.

It kind of looks like the new update installed a fresh stock Android OS in place of what teracube had before. Is there a way to get my old home screen back (including the widgets and app shortcuts, etc), and is there a way to get rid of the Google search bar? Thanks.

Attached screenshots:

Update message from this morning, prior to installing the phone:

Home screen after updating:

Update version info after updating:

[Saijin_Naib]

Hmm… It seems like your customized/alternative launcher was replaced as the active launcher by the system-default QuickStep, which is built into Android and can’t be disabled (and Google requires Google branding/widgets like the Google Search bar to be non-removable).

You can check in your Settings for other Launchers under Default Apps and switch it back.

For me, I use Microsoft Launcher, for instance, so when that default gets reset, I’m back on QuickStep without any of my widgets and the Google Search Bar on my screen, as well.

[inejwstine]

Interesting. I was not aware of this setting. When I look it up now though, it seems Quick Step is my only option.

[Saijin_Naib]

I’m not aware of us shipping a QuickStep launcher without the Google search bar, so I’m not certain what you could have been running before that lacked it and had your customizations.

Have you noticed anything else reset to defaults, or otherwise changed from the “state” you had it in before the upgrade, or is this the only issue you’ve noted?

[inejwstine]

I just had what I assume was the standard Terracube operating system before. The one that it came with when I bought it from the terracube store.

I’m not aware of any other settings that got set back to default. All my data appears to be present. However I have noticed that my battery drains much more quickly ever since the update, and I don’t know why that would be. (See my reply in this forum topic: Battery drain after recent update - #6 by Jay_Greig)

[Saijin_Naib]

I’ve upstreamed this and we’re looking into it.

[Saijin_Naib]

The team stated that they needed to fully reset the Home Screen settings of QuickStep and enforce defaults for this build upgrade, so what you experienced is the expected behavior.

I would recommend looking into alternative launchers if you’d like more flexibility (and less Google branding), as well as the ability to backup/restore your launcher customizations.

I’m quite fond of Microsoft Launcher myself, but I’ve also used Simple Launcher by Simple Mobile Tools.

Another alternative would be a backup an re-flash back to Android 10 using SPFlash.