2015 Sony Bravia Apps Row

by MisterCremaster

TLDR: My apps row is missing apps, and its only ONE row, where it used to be two. What can I do?
I have a 2015 Sony Bravia Android TV and I hadn't factory reset it in a long time. I had turned off the SonyShelf and tuned the recommendations, but other than that, hadn't sideloaded or done anything special.

I was super annoyed that 'Hey google, turn off the tv" didn't work (like it does on ALL my other non-Android TV TVs) and had read posts on here that involved doing a factory reset among some other steps. Ultimately, that functionality still didn't work, but now I can't get my TV back to the state it was once in.

I used to have two app rows, and that row contained all my apps. Now its only showing some weird subset of apps, and is only one row. Going to settings > home screen> app row doesn't give me an option to add apps or add a row. Anyone experienced this? Solution to fix?

(FWIW, I fixed the "hey google turn off the tv" by plugging in a Chromecast ultra and telling it to turn that off... which is lame, but works)

Model: Bravia 4k 2015 (XBR-65X850C)
Version: 7.0
Android security patch level: May 1, 2019
Kernel version: 3.10.70, root@BuildHost79 #1, Thu may 23 17:54:31 JST 2019
Build: SVP4KDTV15_UC-user 7.0 NRD91N.S35 5.435 release-keys

MisterCremaster

I think part of the problem is a lot of the apps (Hulu, Netflix, Prime) now seem to be bundled in, and not downloaded from the android store...

MisterCremaster

The two row thing I figured out... once you reach a certain amount of apps it will make two rows... So now all thats left is figuring out why only certain apps are showing up. Its NOT that they are just built in apps or not, since Disney+ and Plex aren't in the row and I know I downloaded those from the store.

MisterCremaster

SOLVED! Of course I think of a solution to solve this right after posting.

Settings -> Apps -> SonyShelf
Force Stop, Clear all data, disable notifications.

I believe that the UI is being told to NOT show an app more than once on the screen. So if it was in the SonyShelf (featuerd apps), it would not be in your app bar. This is obviously shitty, since you cant re-org the featured apps. I'd tried this once before w/o clearing the data and it didn't work.