Do Your Devices Do Glitchy, Strange Things Sometimes?

OneEyedDiva

OneEyedDiva

SF VIP
Location
New Jersey
Yesterday morning, I noticed that all my games were gone from my phones folder that I had them in. Also in that "folder" were the Shazam and Voice recording apps. They remained. I had to locate the games and add them to the folder again. I did not remove them in the first place! I don't know if an update happened or what but I noticed my apps on the main screens were repositioned, indicating that other apps must've been uninstalled or deleted. Sometimes the volume settings for different functions lower or even turn off by themselves. I realize that sometimes I may have accidentally hit the wrong thing...but sometimes that is not the case.

Also, I accidentally turned off the bluetooth on my tablet, now I can't get it to come back on. I tried the quick access feature as well as the one in settings. In settings, bluetooth is "grayed out" meaning no action can be taken for that feature. My tablet is getting up there in age, so maybe that has something to do with it. I rarely used the tablet's bluetooth in the past, so though I may further investigate why this happened I'm not going to worry about it.
 

Ruthanne said:
Do you think you may have a virus on your phone? A friend of mine did. I had some on my computer though that were trojans and would move things of mine around and not allow me to access them.
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I don't think so because I have an antivirus app and VPN that adds protection against malware. My scans show no threats.
 

I don't have anything like that happening on my Android. Sometimes a game installs on the phone I don't want. As soon as I see it, I uninstall it. Sometimes my laptop misbehaves after a big update and I have to search Geek sites to find out how to get it back the way I want it. It's usually a simple step by step fix.

I'm sorry to state a different view on VPNs. When doing sensitive searches, they shield you from your ISP seeing those searches, but they rarely offer any significant protection against malware. I have a VPN, but I don't use it for that reason, and because of the extra data it consumes, I seldom use it anyway.

From Kapersky: "It’s important to remember that VPNs do not work in the same way as comprehensive anti-virus software. While they will protect your IP and encrypt your internet history, but that is as much as they can do. They won’t keep you safe, for instance, if you visit phishing websites or download compromised files." -> KAPERSKY LINK TO QUOTE
 
I have a cheapie (Hyundai) tablet I only use for a few things, but after its first year I noticed that it sometimes "touches itself."

Out of the blue it will return to the home screen, or go back to a previous page, cancel an operation in progress, etc. as if I had touched the screen somewhere.
 
That Lady in PA said:
When things get glitchy, I power them down and start them up again. That usually fixes it.
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I didn't even think to do that in this case, but you're right, it does usually fix the issues. A couple of times recently, my tablet wasn't accepting my pass code to unlock it. So I had to power off. The crazy thing is I had to enter that same pass code for it to power off and it was accepted. 😏

officerripley said:
This kind of thing is so frustrating; I blame all or most of it on updates.
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Updates sure do screw things up sometimes Officer
 
I guess I'm lucky as I don't have glitches very often, can't remember the last time. What does happen ocassionally is I'll swipe differently or accidently wake up my phone as I pull it from my pocket and a screen will pop up that I've never seen before, like a side bar app menu or even a settings page.

I'm sure there's plenty of options I never use on my phone but I don't like when they pop up and surprise me. It's as if my phone is mocking my technological ignorance.
 
OneEyedDiva said:
Yesterday morning, I noticed that all my games were gone from my phones folder that I had them in. Also in that "folder" were the Shazam and Voice recording apps. They remained. I had to locate the games and add them to the folder again. I did not remove them in the first place! I don't know if an update happened or what but I noticed my apps on the main screens were repositioned, indicating that other apps must've been uninstalled or deleted. Sometimes the volume settings for different functions lower or even turn off by themselves. I realize that sometimes I may have accidentally hit the wrong thing...but sometimes that is not the case.

Also, I accidentally turned off the bluetooth on my tablet, now I can't get it to come back on. I tried the quick access feature as well as the one in settings. In settings, bluetooth is "grayed out" meaning no action can be taken for that feature. My tablet is getting up there in age, so maybe that has something to do with it. I rarely used the tablet's bluetooth in the past, so though I may further investigate why this happened I'm not going to worry about it.
Click to expand...
You're not alone. Android sent out an update about a week ago and it completely modified my phone. The icons all moved around, some of the icons changed, and the screen colors all changed. I really don't understand why they (Android?) think this is okay. I'm now on software version 15.
 
My Sony RX100 III camera is SUPPOSED to delete images from its memory once the images are downloaded to my computer. The chance of that actually happening seems to be 50/50.

I thought the memory card had become glitchy or the camera battery weak after years of use. So I replaced both. No functional improvement :(
 
It happened again just this morning—I lost sound on my tablet. After trying several fixes without success, I decided to restart it, which normally just requires holding down the power button. But this time, pressing the button unexpectedly launched the AI app instead. I tinkered with it for a bit, then looked up how to power down the device. Turns out, the latest update changed the shutdown process: now, I have to hold both the power and volume buttons simultaneously for five seconds. Definitely frustrating.
 
Ruthanne said:
Do you think you may have a virus on your phone? A friend of mine did. I had some on my computer though that were trojans and would move things of mine around and not allow me to access them.
Click to expand...
Ruthanne, the games were completely missing from my home screen a couple of days after I posted this. I asked Gemini (Android's AI) and he explained why this happens and how to fix it. Apparently it is not an uncommon issue. Here is a search page with articles and videos on how to fix the issue. There was no mention of viruses being the cause.
why are games mising from my home screen on android - Bing

@MACKTEXAS You wrote: "I'm sorry to state a different view on VPNs. When doing sensitive searches, they shield you from your ISP seeing those searches, but they rarely offer any significant protection against malware."
First of all, no need to be sorry for stating your opinion. I have Nord VPN Threat Protection enabled. Here is the claim.

20250609_020332.jpg

@hawkdon Did that happen a couple of days ago or has that always been the case? A couple of days ago, even though SF is bookmarked and was always accessible via its icon on my tablet, I got the message that I didn't have permission to access the site, or something like that. I didn't have that problem on my desktop. That issue lasted for a few hours, now I can now access SF as normal on my tablet.
 
OneEyedDiva said:
@MACKTEXAS You wrote: "I'm sorry to state a different view on VPNs. When doing sensitive searches, they shield you from your ISP seeing those searches, but they rarely offer any significant protection against malware."
First of all, no need to be sorry for stating your opinion. I have Nord VPN Threat Protection enabled. Here is the claim.

View attachment 429064

@hawkdon Did that happen a couple of days ago or has that always been the case? A couple of days ago, even though SF is bookmarked and was always accessible via its icon on my tablet, I got the message that I didn't have permission to access the site, or something like that. I didn't have that problem on my desktop. That issue lasted for a few hours, now I can now access SF as normal on my tablet.
Click to expand...
Thanks for your feedback. The level of safety you're comfortable with is ultimately your personal decision. But just to clarify, I didn't state an opinion; I referenced Kapersky. Here's more information from ZDNet which states "VPNs don't protect you from malware", and there are others.
vpn.jpg
 
One time I had a medical appointment and left my phone in my car. I came out a while later to find several increasingly disturbed calls from my sister.

Apparently my phone had taken it on itself to call my sister (who lived in another state) THREE times. When she answered, all she could hear was what sounded like someone muttering. She was positively sure that I had had a stroke or was in an accident or something and couldn't talk. She was calling everyone she knew to go over to my house and break down my door to make sure I wasn't lying dead on the floor. Her next call was going to be to the police.

I took the phone to the phone store where they swore that something like that COULD NOT HAPPEN, NO WAY! OK, apparently it didn't happen. According to them. But it did, so there's that.

I swear devices can be "possessed".....I really do. Gremlins, or evil spirits, or something. I mean, they make movies about it, don't they?
 
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