Android 5.0 Lollipop App Switcher 'Random Card' Bug Affecting Some Users

By Ketan Pratap | Updated: 18 November 2014 13:44 IST

Within a week of Google releasing the Android 5.0 Lollipop OTA update for its older Nexus devices (namely, the Nexus 4, Nexus 5, Nexus 7 (2012 and 2013), and Nexus 10), multiple bugs found in the latest Android build have been reported by users.

Now, a new bug seems to have affected some Android 5.0 Lollipop users, who are facing a problem with the app switcher. A user named Jose Alvarez Nunez has posted a YouTube video showing the app switcher issue in his Nexus 5. The bug is reported to cause the app switcher to show random cards even a user clears all recent apps.

Nunez also shared the video on Google+, writing, "Other bug in Lollipop, in this case with the recent apps! It's easy to run into the problem, which is that many of the processes of the apps stay in the background when you close all visible recent apps, but then these processes appear one by one." He also notes that the bug was happening on a stock Nexus 5 smartphone.

In the shared video, Nunez clears all the recent app cards from the app switcher but every time he presses the app switcher - a random card pops up. Interestingly, the card that pops up will not be necessarily the one user actually used recently. One of the cards that showed up in the video also had distorted resolution.

Android Police notes, "It appears to happen only when you've got a lot of cards. Just three or four doesn't trigger the bug." The publication also claims that the app switcher issue is affecting multiple Android 5.0 Lollipop devices including the Nexus 5 and Moto X (Gen 2).

It adds, "Because of the way Lollipop's recent apps list just keeps growing and doesn't clear itself with a reboot, most users might not see this."

The app switcher bug is reportedly only occurs when there are multiple recent cards that are cleared from the app switcher, and will not show up when there are just three or four cards. Notably, we were not able to reproduce the bug on stock Android 5.0 Lollipop-based Nexus 5.

Prior to this, we'd heard about a Wi-Fi bug that was reported to be affecting some users, and on Monday multiple reports claimed that Android 5.0 Lollipop removed the very useful 'silent mode' from phones. Some Nexus 7 (2013) tablet users on Monday were reporting issues in playing any video on the device after updating to the latest version of Android.

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