Nexus 5 stuck in boot screen

Question

My phone is Nexus 5, not rooted, android version 4.4.4

I hated the "swipe up" gesture for google now, bacause I'd sometimes do the gesture by accident.
So I read somewhere that I should disable "Google Search" from apps, to disable the gesture.
But that just messed things up. After disabling, it showed a few errors, so I powered off the device, thinking that a restart would fix things.

Now I'm stuck in a boot loop ( four circles converging into one ).
I read elsewhere that I should hold power + volume down button, and go into Recovery Mode , did that, but it then got stuck in a screen showing "No command".

How do I fix this ?
I'm a newbie in this, so please answer in detail.
Also I have my data backed up, so if I could somehow just reset it, that'd work too.

Answer 1

I recommend trying to toggle with your volume button up or down to when the screen shows "recovery" in red. press the power button once again for selection, your screen would go black and reboot.

See this post for more info.

Hope that helps. Good luck.

Answer 2

Apparently, the 'Google Search' app now contains large parts of the application launcher in Android 4.4.4. Thus, disabling it also stops the launcher and the next reboot leaves you in a catch-22 situation.

With previous versions of Android 4 this wasn't a problem - one could disable 'Google Search' without such drastic side effects. Use-case: make the annoying search bar disappear from the home screen.

The tricky part then is to get into the settings to re-enable the 'Google Search' app.

Booting into the recovery mode does not help. It just reports 'no command'.

But, fortunately, you can still talk with ADB (Android Debug Bridge) to the device (after a normal boot, when the 4 circle animation is playing).

Thus, you can connect your device via USB to your computer. Assuming a Linux system you can enter the adb shell via typing

$ adb shell

in your terminal.

The ADB prompt is something like:

shell@hammerhead:/ $

There you can directly start the settings via:

shell@hammerhead:/ $ am start -n com.android.settings/.Settings
Starting: Intent { cmp=com.android.settings/.Settings }

In the settings you can go to 'applications' there swipe right to the 'disabled' category - where you can find 'Google Search' and you can enable it again.

One can probably install an alternative launcher - and if that works the disabling of the google launcher (aka 'Google Search') should not be a problem.

Answer 3

Okay, same thing happened to me: I disabled the Google search (on Kitkat 4.4.4) because it was draining battery and then my homescreen disappeared. I restarted my phone and it got stuck on the four circles.

Possible solution
As strange as it might sound, once you have the four circles displayed, have someone call you and then the call screen will appear. Answer the call and hit the speaker button, so you can access your phone. When in the call screen, just slide the home button up to access Google Now and perform an update through Google Play (it will offer you to update to a newer version). Once the update is completed you should see the homescreen again.