Apps, Camera, Cortana won't load. What should I do?

[Windows Central Question]

Apps, Camera, Cortana won't load

Sunday afternoon I was watching a video on my Nokia Lumia 1020 running Windows Phone 8.1, using IE, and my phone just locked up. No sound, the screen wouldn't scroll, couldn't lock it, couldn't do a soft reset, nothing. So I did a hard reset, this isn't the first time I've had to do a hard reset. I've heard that my content would be deleted, however every time I did it, my content was never deleted. This time none of my content was deleted, so no problem there.

Where the problem lies, is in the apps. I can tap on Facebook, Twitter, One Drive, Office and pretty much all my apps and nothing will happen, it senses when I tap but nothing happens. The Camera and Cortana will start to load but will crash almost instantly. If I uninstall and reinstall apps they'll work. Settings, IE, Photos, Messaging and Phone is about the only thing that will work.

Any help is appreciated, Thanks.

 

[Ed Boland]

Re: Apps, Camera, Cortana won't load

If your content was still on your phone, you didn't do a hard reset. Go to settings/about and scroll down to the bottom and click on "reset my phone". It will warn you that doing this will remove all data from your phone. Click yes/ok and the phone will reset, you'll see the spinning gears for a few minutes and eventually will restart fresh and give you the option to sign into your Microsoft account and retrieve a backup, or start fresh.

 

[Dhorsley]

Re: Apps, Camera, Cortana won't load

I'm the guest that posted the question. I would do that but I can't get my phone to connect to my PC to back up and the back up fails if I try to over WiFi, I assume its because OneDrive doesn't work.. It's frustrating me because I need this phone for work and I can't afford to lose the content.

 

[Ed Boland]

Re: Apps, Camera, Cortana won't load

It may be the only way to resolve the issues you're having though. What type of content do you have that you don't want to lose? Are you sure you're not able to see the phone in file explorer when connected to a PC with the USB cable?

 

[Dhorsley]

Re: Apps, Camera, Cortana won't load

That's the conclusion I've come to, its rather frustrating. The content I don't want to lose is mostly photos but contacts, Office files and all sorts of stuff as well.. Yes, I've tried connecting it. but to no avail, my computer will not recognize it, I've tried multiple cables as well. My phone has always been tough to connect to a PC.