Mobile phones: Android: recovery from ‘Unfortunately, Google Play Services has stopped’

Self-tutoring about Android mobile phones: the tutor mentions a recovery.

My mobile phone is from 2013 – a Nexus 4. I’ve no plans to change that; I’m comfortable with it.

A few days back I got the pop-up message: ‘Unfortunately, Google Play Services has stopped.’

“That’s not necessarily unfortunate,” I answered inwardly: “I don’t use Google Play (so far as I know).”

I think ‘OK’ was the only way to get rid of the message, so I tapped it: “Problem solved,” I thought.

Maybe not: over the next few hours, then days, the message returned, in increasing numbers. A few days in, I couldn’t even check my texts without closing many of those pop-ups. They were effectively disabling the phone.

I closed all the pop-ups of that message, then closed all the apps that were running, having to close new pop-up messages of ‘Unfortunately, Google Play Services has stopped’ as I did so. Finally I got all the background apps closed. Yet, when I went to check my texts a few hours later, I once again had to close numerous of those pop-ups first.

I looked online: someone mentioned clearing the Google Play cache would perhaps help, because there might be problematic data there. Closing about five pop-up messages per minute, I was able to open the Settings menu, then Apps, then Google Play: from there I cleared the cache. All the while I was closing those ‘Unfortunately, Google Play Services has stopped’ pop-ups. Once I cleared the cache, those pop-up messages stopped.

I think there were three apps that were Google Play Services, just Google Play, or some other connection to it. I cleared the cache of any app whose name included “Google Play.”

So far’s I know, the phone is fine again. Thanks so much to those bulletin board saviours on StackExchange and other such sites who save me at least every other day:)

Source:

android.stackexchange.com

android.stackexchange.com

Jack of Oracle Tutoring by Jack and Diane, Campbell River, BC.

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