home, recent, and clock disappearing, not letting me do anything. Note9

[AlVontee]

This happens every hour or so where only the back button appears on the navigation bar and even the clock in the top right corner disappears. When this happens I can't pull the notification shade down and the hard press home button responds with a vibration but doesn't actually do anything. I often need to restart my phone to get it to work again, but even that doesn't always solve it.

This is really odd and incredibly frustrating, what's happening??

Screenshot of the problem:

https://drive.google.com/file/d/16OVgICe3MBEzIxYNc5X4yow-iXmCwSuG/view?usp=drivesdk

Working properly:

https://drive.google.com/file/d/1jkSXYaUTD7FqD8Lz2F2dR4Gi9otJPI3C/view?usp=drivesdk

[AlVontee]

I should also add that sometimes the problem just seems to fix itself with the buttons and clock suddenly appearing again even while I'm using the phone, and other times I need to completely power off my phone and wait a bit.

Note 9 on AT&T

[SamsungKim1]

Does this occur with the device in safe mode?

[AlVontee]

Yes, even in safe mode, only the back button works

https://drive.google.com/file/d/1SkqCotA7YQQvuAHMUaZYEtIqe7WJqKIS/view?usp=drivesdk

[SamsungKim1]

Can I have your full model code, baseband version, and carrier information?

[AlVontee]

Model Number
SM-N960U

Baseband Version
N960USQS1ARI5

AT&T

[SamsungKim1]

I know that it is not ideal, but I recommend doing a factory reset. Please make sure to back up all of your data prior to doing so.

[userbcMKA9DSlI]

by any chance u use "good lock"?? if so, then uninstall.

[AlVontee · Accepted solution]

after much trial and error, I finally solved the problem

I noticed running the device maintenance ram cleaner always fixed it immediately; I narrowed it down to 'Android Setup' running in the background; and stopping the process always made things go back to normal.

I disabled the system app and Bam! no problems since.

When you first take the phone out the box, the setup screen only has the back button and doesn't  display the time in the corner (the exact problem I was facing).

The Android Setup process must have been running in the background and doing its thing for some odd reason; thought I might share to help anyone else this might happen to.

[userbcMKA9DSlI]

what system app did u disable? I can't seem to find an app called system..... please provide step by step guide. Thank you so much~!