Spontaneously losing app shortcuts from your homescreens?

[#1]

I am running 2.3.4 LT15i and a couple of times when I have swapped SIM cards to use a different number I have, my Arc booted up without any app shortcuts which I had personalised on my home screens.

As far as I can tell they are all apps that I have stored on the SD card. But I can access the SD card just fine.

I don't use any loaders and I power down the handset in the correct way.

Anybody else come across this problem or maybe find a solution for it?

It's a real pain in the ass, having to go re-shortcut my 5 pages of homescreen with the apps I want to have on them.

Thanks.

[#2]

Hmm, I suspect that this might have something to do with connecting my Arc to a laptop and the SD card being automatically connected to the hard drive of the laptop...

This is very a connect my Arc to a computer without it screwing up my homescreen shortcuts.

[Sam]

Are the application shortcuts that go missing for applications that are installed on the memory card?

[#4]

Yeah, as far as I can tell.

[Markus1]

Apps on the SD card won't be available in the phone if the SD card is not mounted. If you e.g. connect the phone to your computer your SD card will be unmounted resulting in your apps disappearing.

[#6]

I get that but what I am querying is that should unmounting the SD card result in the app shortcuts disappearing permanently from my home screens? They don't come back when I remount the SD card, leaving me with the situation shown in the screenshot I uploaded, above.

[Markus1]

Just did some testing and my app shortcuts did not disappear at all as I thought they would. I could however not open them. When I tried to I got a message saying "not available".

I'm running 4.0.2.A.0.42 in my Xperia ray. Are you running the same software in your arc?

[#8]

4.0.2.A.0.42 on LT15i, Android 2.3.4

Thanks for your help on this Markus.

[Markus1 · Accepted solution]

Hmm, strange I must say.

Not sure where to go next and I don't know if this makes any difference but have you:

-Unlocked the boot loader? (http://unlockbootloader.sonyericsson.com/)

-Activated USB debugging? (Settings > Applications > Development)

-Tried to connect the phone to a different computer?

One thing you can consider trying is to reset the home screen, add a few shortcuts again and then connect the phone to see if it happens again.

You do this at Settings > Applications > Manage applications > Sony Ericsson Home > Clear data.

[Jawadkhalid89]

I also had had experienced then menu dearrangement and loss of homescreen shortcuts permanently when i just connect my phone to my computer... but this happened before when my usb debugging was off but now i don't have this problem....