Home > Lifestyle

What to Do When App Icons Disappear on Roku Home Screen

By Crystal Crowder
Roku loading on a Roku TV.

Usually, app icons show up with no issues on your Roku’s home screen. But, app icons disappearing on Roku has become a common issue. While Roku’s admitted there’s a problem, the company hasn’t issued a fix. You do have several ways to fix it yourself, though.

What Causes Roku App Icons to Disappear

This issue appears in multiple ways. You may see a camera icon in place of the app icon, the app missing completely, a blank square, or even a flickering app icon. The causes vary, but the most common causes include:

  • Loading glitch when Roku launches
  • Problems with a system update
  • Issues with an app update (most likely cause if it’s the same app(s) having the issue)
  • System or app update currently in progress
  • Older Roku device that’s not compatible with an app

Select the Blank Icon to See if It Loads

In most cases, when an app icon disappears on Roku, it’s a simple glitch during startup. Your app is still there, but the image itself didn’t load correctly.

Use your remote to hover over the icon. If the app name appears, select the app to load it. Let it stay loaded for a few minutes and exit the app.

It should reappear as usual on the home screen.

The downside I often have is another app icon disappears. So, it feels like a bad game of musical chairs.

Restart Your Roku

If you run into the issue of more app icons disappearing as soon as you get a missing one to load, the easiest fix is to restart your Roku. Simply turning your TV off isn’t enough, especially since your Roku often remains in standby mode. You need to perform a full restart.

You have several methods to do this:

  • Unplug the power cable from your Roku device. Wait 10-30 seconds before plugging it back in. If you have an older device, wait up to two minutes.
  • Use the secret remote button combo – Press Home five times -> Up arrow -> Rewind twice -> Fast forward twice. This doesn’t work on all Roku devices. It also doesn’t work with the mobile app remote, even though it can control your Roku.
  • Use the Settings menu – From the Roku home screen, go to Settings -> System -> Power -> System Restart. Depending on your model, you may just see System Restart instead of the Power submenu. Make sure the Fast TV start (in the Power menu) option isn’t on or it won’t fully restart. The option is only available on certain Roku models.
Restarting Roku from the menu.

Try Loading Another Menu

A strangely odd fix for app icons disappearing on Roku is navigating to another menu. In theory, it works because the Roku home screen refreshes each time you reload it.

From the home screen, scroll to the left with all the various menu options. Scroll down to another option, such as What to Watch or Search. What you choose really doesn’t matter.

Scroll to the right to interact with the new screen/menu. Then, press Home on your remote.

This should refresh the Roku home screen and let your app icons appear normally.

Check for System Updates

Your Roku is supposed to update automatically. In my case, it usually happens in the middle of browsing Netflix. But, sometimes, your Roku doesn’t update.

From the home screen, go to Settings -> System -> Software Update. It usually only takes a minute or two to check. If an update is available, it’ll install and your Roku restarts.

Perform a software update on Roku.

Check for App Updates

Many users don’t realize their apps update regularly as well. Once again, these updates don’t always happen like they should, so you need to give them a little push.

Navigate to your app icon, even if it’s just a blank placeholder. Press the asterisk (*) button on your remote and select Check for updates.

Checking for app updates on Roku.

If an update is available, you might notice the app icon flicker as it updates. Then, it should reappear normally if this is the issue.

Remove and Reinstall App

I’ve only had to do this a few times. In this case, when you navigate to the blank icon, the name doesn’t appear. Or, if the name does appear, but the icon refuses to reappear after trying everything else, reinstalling is your best option.

If the app is still installed (name shows, but app icon disappears on Roku), press the asterisk (*) button on your remote and select Remove app. Restart your Roku when you’re done.

Then, go to the Search menu on the left side to search for and install the app again. You may need to log back in to your account on that app.

If the app is just gone, search for it and reinstall it.

Factory Reset Your Roku

Only do this as a last resort. I’ve personally never had to resort to this solution as all the other options have worked to restore my app icons.

If app icons disappearing on Roku happens constantly and it occurs with numerous icons, a factory reset may be needed. Take pictures of your home screen to help guide you on what to reinstall. Usually, your Roku account saves your apps to reinstall them for you, but this doesn’t always work correctly.

Go to the home screen and go to Settings -> System -> Advanced system settings -> Factory reset. Enter the code it shows on the screen.

Factory reset Roku.

Once your Roku restarts, the home screen looks exactly like it did when you bought it. Login to your Roku account. Then, reinstall and reorganize your apps if they don’t automatically load.

If your app icon issue devolves into your Roku not responding at all, try these fixes to turn it on again. And, if you’ve recently gotten a new Roku remote that’s missing a pairing button, here’s now to pair it.

Subscribe to our newsletter!

Our latest tutorials delivered straight to your inbox

Crystal Crowder Avatar
Crystal Crowder
Crystal Crowder has spent over 15 years working in the tech industry, first as an IT technician and then as a writer. She works to help teach others how to get the most from their devices, systems, and apps. She stays on top of the latest trends and is always finding solutions to common tech problems.

Read next

In 2016, archaeologists dated two rings of snapped stalagmites in France’s Bruniquel Cave to 176,500 years ago, evidence that Neanderthals had walked 336 metres into darkness with fire and built architecture deep underground long before modern humans reached Europe
Otto von Bismarck was 74 when Germany adopted the world’s first national old-age social insurance program in 1889, setting the pension age at 70 after years of fighting socialists with bans, laws, and a promise few workers would live long enough to use
When cosmonaut Valeri Polyakov stepped out of his Soyuz capsule in March 1995 after 437 consecutive days aboard Mir, doctors recorded him at several centimetres above his pre-flight height, and his spine had become so unaccustomed to gravity that the recovery team carried him to a chair rather than risk the compression of letting him walk.
A contemplative scene with two scientists in a vintage laboratory setting.
When Harvard astronomer Cecilia Payne submitted her 1925 doctoral thesis arguing that the Sun was made almost entirely of hydrogen, the field’s senior figure Henry Norris Russell talked her into adding a line calling the result ‘almost certainly not real,’ and then published the same conclusion himself four years later to widespread acclaim.
When Edme Mariotte stared at marks on a wall in the 1660s, one mark vanished inside a six-degree hole where the optic nerve leaves the eye and the brain has been filling in wallpaper, sky, and faces ever since
When seismic waves from the Chicxulub impact reached what is now North Dakota roughly ten minutes after the asteroid struck, they appear to have triggered a ten-metre standing wave in an inland river that flung fish onto the bank and buried them under glass beads still falling from the sky.
When survivors near Lake Nyos woke on the morning of 22 August 1986, the cattle were dead in the fields, the birds had fallen out of the trees, and 1,746 of their neighbours were lying where they had stood the night before, with no fire, no flood, and no wound to explain it.
In 1959, a Soviet research team in Novosibirsk began breeding silver foxes for nothing but tameness, and within forty generations the animals had floppy ears, curled tails, piebald coats, and a bark, traits no one had selected for but which appeared on their own once fear was removed.