Troubleshooting

Symptom: You are trying to delete SeniorLauncher from the device, but the "Uninstall" button is greyed out in the Play Store, or the phone keeps returning to the SeniorLauncher home screen.

Cause: As a security measure, Android strictly prevents the deletion of any app that is currently set as the active "Default Home App".

Solution: You must first untether the app from the system. Open the Admin menu (tap the gear icon and enter your PIN). Tap on "Remove as Default Home Screen" under System Permissions and switch it back to the phone's original launcher (such as "One UI Home" or "Pixel Launcher"). Once the phone returns to its standard interface, you can safely uninstall SeniorLauncher like any regular app.

Symptom: You are locked out of the Admin menu because the 4-digit PIN is lost or forgotten.

Cause: To ensure complete security against accidental tampering by the senior user, there is intentionally no "Forgot Password" button inside the app.

Solution: You can bypass the app using Android's native system settings. Swipe down from the very top edge of the screen to open the Android notification shade. Tap the small gear icon (⚙️) to enter the standard Android Settings. Navigate to Apps > Senior Home Screen.

From here, you have two options: Select "Storage" and tap "Clear Data" (this wipes the app's memory, including the PIN, letting you start fresh), or tap "Uninstall" to remove the app entirely.

Symptom: The Volume Guard intermittently fails to enforce the volume, or the Floating Home Button sometimes takes too long to appear after waking the phone.

Cause: Certain phone manufacturers (especially Samsung, Xiaomi, and Huawei) utilize aggressive battery-saving algorithms that force-close background apps to save power.

Solution: Open the SeniorLauncher Admin menu and check the "System Permissions" section. Ensure the checkbox for "Battery optimization: Disabled (Safe)" is active (ticked green). If the phone continues to forcefully put the app to sleep, swipe down the notification shade, tap the gear icon to open Android Settings, go to Apps > Senior Home Screen > Battery, and change the setting to "Unrestricted".

Symptom: When tapping a contact tile for the very first time, a system dialog appears asking for permission to make and manage phone calls.

Cause: To prevent malicious apps from secretly making calls in the background, Android requires active user consent the very first time an app attempts to use the phone dialer (CALL_PHONE). Because our contact buttons are designed to call immediately upon tapping, this security dialog is triggered on the first use.

Solution: Tap "Allow". The app will never ask for this permission again.

Symptom: The weather tile on the home screen remains dark grey and says "Unavailable".

Cause: To protect users from accidentally opening random system apps or the Google Play store, the Weather tile is strictly programmed to only activate if a recognized, safe weather app is installed on the device.

Solution: Please install one of the supported weather apps from Google Play. Once installed, return to the home screen and the tile will immediately become active (blue). Supported apps include: Yr, Storm, Samsung Weather, AccuWeather, The Weather Channel, and Yahoo Weather.

Symptom: The phone is placed on silent, but SeniorLauncher does not automatically raise the volume back up.

Cause: The app lacks the "Do Not Disturb" (DND) or Notification Access permissions required by Android to override system audio profiles.

Solution: SeniorLauncher automatically monitors its required permissions. Simply return to the home screen. If the permission is missing, a prominent warning will appear on the screen guiding you directly to the correct Android settings menu to re-enable "Notification access".