Some Google Pixel Users Are Having Their Widgets Deleted After Updating To Android 17

For better or worse, widgets have become a ubiquitous part of the Android ecosystem, often landing on your phone's home screen whether you want them or not. What started as relatively unobtrusive weather or date widgets has expanded to include everything from breaking news to live updates on your stock portfolio. Some apps have gone so far as to offer rewards for adding their widget to your landing screen: Duolingo, for instance, will grant XP bonuses or extra energy for more daily lessons if you give up a big square of real estate to its widget.

Unfortunately for those who have come to rely on widgets as part of their daily routine, the Android 17 update seems to have broken them. Though 17 comes with a number of cool updates, including some that should be added to iOS 27 and a fun gaming feature for foldables, it's also having a bit of a rough landing. As spotted by some users on Reddit, installing the update causes some widgets to vanish with no option to re-add them. The issue seems to affect any app that uses managed profile boundaries. No official word on a fix has been forthcoming, but luckily, there are some workarounds to, at least temporarily, remedy the situation.

UPDATE | On Thursday evening, not long after this article was published, we received an email with the following quote from a Google spokesperson: "We are aware of this bug affecting Work Profile users, and a fix will be rolled out in a software update soon."

The issue dates back to the Android 17 beta, as indicated by the presence of a bug report on the Google Issue Tracker from back on February 26th of this year. A number of reports indicate that the issue seems to stem from Work Profile, Android's virtual container that lets you sequester work apps from your personal apps to ensure privacy (and that no data leaks in either direction). Another Reddit user ran into the issue when using an app called Island, which lets you isolate apps for privacy purposes; others encountered it using Microsoft InTune, which, amongst other things, lets you create a discrete work profile.

A number of workarounds have been suggested in the various threads on the issue. Disabling Work Profile seems to bring back the widgets for most users, though re-enabling it causes them to vanish again. An InTune user noted that "Android Enterprise > Templates > Device Restrictions setting for 'Allow widgets from work profile apps' from 'Enabled' to 'Not configured' resolves the issue." Some have found temporary success on the Work Profile side by rebooting their phones after restoring a profile. Until Google issues a patch, these kinds of workarounds may be the only option.