Galaxy Tab A 7 (Nook version) reset itself?

[openroad94]

Last night I accidentally left a game open on my tablet which prevents going to lock screen, and eventually the battery drained. This has happened plenty of times during the life of the tablet, doesn't seem abnormal. Today upon restart, home screen had gone to original default, all data from apps was wiped, and while it seems all my sideloaded books are still on the tablet, there's no "link" to them to show in my Nook library. There's an odd number of books that ARE showing, I only have perhaps 2 actual B&N purchases, then there's a few of my sideloaded ebooks showing, like 30 out of hundreds. It doesn't feel like a full factory reset because the apps are all still there, just with no data, and my password was still the same.

Does anyone know what causes this? It's very rare for me to download new apps or make any major updates, I think the Android version is the same as when I bought it. I have no idea what happened and it's really frustrating. When I've been searching for this, I've mostly gotten results about this happening to people's phones and losing ALL data including apps (and even having to set up their account/language again), or sometimes happening early into ownership so they might have a faulty device. While this was a tablet I've had since mid-2017 & I lost app data but not the apps themselves, and not my actual books but the ability to quickly "see" the books, if that makes sense.

 

[webworkings]

First go into your settings and see if the OS was updated. If it was, then it may have caused the issue. However it is likely it wouldn't have updated without notifying you.

If you find nothing that way then try starting up the tablet in "Safe Mode" and see if it will show your stuff. While you can't use a lot of apps in there, you can see if things show normally. Should they actually show fine in there, then you likely have a bad app, virus, malware, etc., on the tablet that is the cause. You would need to find and remove the problem then to resolve it.

To get into "Safe Mode" please do the following.

1. First turn off the tablet.

2. Next press and hold "Power" until you see the manufacturers logo on the screen, then release the power button.

3. "Quickly" press "Volume Down" and hold it for few seconds until you see the message "Safe mode: ON" or something similar.

4. If you wanted disable it, simply repeat the steps above, and you should see "Safe Mode: OFF" rather than on.

 

[openroad94]

Thank you! I actually got this same advice from Samsung support before I came here. I wasn't sure what was supposed to happen when I entered Safe Mode, if there was a chance everything was supposed to suddenly reappear in the right places....but that didn't happen. Screens still not customized, my Overdrive bookshelf (for my city library) empty, the other sideloaded ebooks still only showing if I browse files, but not linked to my Nook library. So it looked the same in Safe Mode as it did with this puzzling reset.

It's only on Android 5.1.1, so if it updated it was definitely not a recent update! I bought this in mid-2017 but I think it was released in 2016, and it's possible the Nook tablets weren't on the most current OS anyway so that's why I didn't think it had actually updated. It also says that last time it checked for updates was in November, but this just randomly happened a couple days ago. I don't think I've updated any apps in months.

Another confusing thing that I realized makes it not like a true factory reset: my password still worked, and my Wi-Fi was still connected. It's just so strange.

 

[webworkings]

Well, a it depends on which reset you choose. If you choose the option to save your personal data, it really doesn't reset everything. Personally I would never use that option as it doesn't fix much. However a full one, a.k.a. a "Hard Reset", wipes all personal data and sets the phone back to its original state when gotten.

If it is that old of an OS, then it is likely something else updated. You should be able to tell by checking out the recent updates (if through google play).