Unable to tap and hold on home screen

[Taetae78]

My dad has the Samsung A54 5G. It was working perfectly until a software update was installed on April 16th. He said it was a UI update. It caused all the app notifications to be blocked and he had to manually go to each app to allow permissions. The one thing I haven't been able to fix for him his changing the standard home screen icons back to default. We're unable to "tap and hold" on the home screen to bring up the widgets and themes. We tried going to themes in settings to change the icons back to default but it didn't work. Please help!

[realaud]

That was probably the ugliest home screen I ever saw.  It sounds like that's an app that people who set up phones for non-tech savvy people to install to avoid being called for every little problem when they move or remove an icon.  The fact that you couldn't change anything on the screen would bear that out.  Even Android's easy mode isn't that restrictive.

[Taetae78]

🤣🤣 right ! This is my first time using the Samsung Community! Yall were super helpful!

[ImpossibleBox]

Huh reading the Google store reviews (tons of 1stars unknown install & struggle to remove) sounds suspicious getting installed without notice or installed instead of other app installations/updates. Ppls mentioning app data deletion/tampering, excessive ads, extremely difficult to remove, and turning & keeping on location. Hopefully just tech illiterate people that are wrong/forgetful than actual malware.

Does your father's phone come branded from a mobile network carrier (ie sprint, t-mobile, Verizon)? Used from someone else? Workplace provided phone?

Oh and mentions of QR code scanner installing this, I see it's another one of their apps;
Do you have that or any of their other apps by any chance? (Bible homescreen, zodiac launcher, scan qr code, weather now launcher, inbox homescreen )

And is there anything listed under device admin apps other than find my phone? Or anything under installed accessibility apps besides live transcribe & link to windows? (device admin & accessibility have special permissions most apps shouldn't have or need) (And also qr code reader built into most phone camera app nowadays)

[Iamchaos13]

Yea, I have the same phone, the security update was just a few days ago. I've had no issues.

[userTHIBAwxJaQ]

I have the same issue.