Apps with changed icon color won't launch

[Yquas]

Some apps like "Tasks.org", "Simple Contacts" or "Simple Calendar" give users the ability to change the color of the app's icon in settings. Pie launcher can only launch these apps if their icon color is kept on the default color, or else it will only play the launch animation but won't launch the app, forcing one to launch these apps in some other way.

[markusfisch]

Thanks a lot for reporting! 👍 I wasn't aware of this bug.

[markusfisch]

Hm, somehow I cannot reproduce this bug 🤔 I tried Tasks.org, changed the launcher icon color in the settings and was able to launch the app as before. I could not try Simple Contacts or Calendar as the feature is behind a pay wall there.

Can you please confirm that Tasks.org does not work on your device with a different icon color?

[chesio]

I have multiple Fossify Apps (fork of Simple Apps) installed and have custom color set to every one of them and I can launch the apps without problem (from pie menu and from apps menu as well...)

[Yquas]

Okay, if it works for both of you then the problem could be my device - it runs MIUI 11 / Android 10.

I get both "Tasks.org" and "Simple Mobile Tools" from F-Droid. After seeing your comments I also tested "Fossify Apps" from both the Play Store and from F-Droid but they all behave in exactly the same way: On the default icon color all apps launch, when changed to a non-default color only the launch animation plays, and when changed back to the default color all apps launch again.

Is there any way for me to give you some kind of technical bug report? I don't know what else would help when you can't reproduce the bug.

[markusfisch]

Well, you could check the device logs when this is happening with logcat, if you have the adb command line tool (from the Android SDK, then read here how to check the logs) or Android Studio installed (then follow this guide). Hopefully there's an error message when launching an affected app fails.

Then, if you like, and if you're curious enough, you could also clone this repository and build and run the app from source on your device with Android Studio. It's really quite easy to do. Check this YouTube guide for example. The app is built and installed in a debug version so it can be easily installed beside the production app.

Then, this code snippet launches apps in Pie Launcher. You could remove the try/catch block to see (in the logs) if there are any exceptions (which would crash the app).