Samsung Galaxy phones are quite popular all over the world, and have with us quite a range in prices and features of the Galaxy phones. Given their popularity and wide usage, you would think that common bugs would be fixed but it happens not be so, with a common problem cropping up in a lot of these phones – that of screen overlay. The screen overlay settings sometimes prevent you using some apps, and we will discuss in this article why this happens and how to avoid it in a few simple steps.
The interesting thing is that the issue was fixed in some phones last year, but the screen overlay settings remain the Samsung Galaxy S8 and in case you are running into trouble opening some apps (displaying the screen overlay error message), here’s how you can fix the problem for good.
Make sure first what screen overlay is, the feature of it lets one app overlay on the other apps. The most common example for the user is perhaps the Facebook chat bubble that persists on top of the other apps, even as you move from app to app and you can move around the chat bubble at will. Other apps can do this in a host of different ways. These apps need security permissions to overlay, and this is important. For example, imagine an unknown app that puts buttons on top of buttons to get you to click something that you have not agreed to. So you see why screen overlay is so sensitive to the security aspect of your phone.
Sometimes, you would have to enable the screen overlay settings so an app like Facebook Messenger works properly but more often than not you will have to disable the same settings so the foreground app works well. The screen overlay settings let you do this in an app-by-app manner so that you can manage security permissions to unsecure apps while enjoying the best of features of other apps at the same time.
How To Turn Screen Overlay On Or Off
The first step, of course, is to launch the Settings on your phone (go to App drawer and click/tap on Settings). Then scroll down and click on Apps. Tap on the Overflow button on the top right corner and then on Special Access. Click the apps which appears on the top. Now, you may wonder why the term Screen Overlay is not used, but this is one of the many ways in which the issue has been made confusing for the uninitiated user. Now, You need to find the app through which you are getting issue and then click on the toggle to turn the overlay option off for that particular app which is causing problem. If you wish to turn it on again, tap the toggle again to turn it on.
When you want to use an app that comes on top (like the Facebook Messenger app), you have a decent idea which app’s screen overlay to turn on. However, when you are facing issues accessing some primary app, you will have to play hit and trial with other apps to find out what app is causing all this trouble. You need to Turn off screen overlay one after one for apps and then you need to go back and check if the app works. Once you find the problematic app, disable the screen overlay with the toggle.
The bad thing is, the security concerns do not permit a full-on fix to the problem and every time your access to an app is blocked by screen overlays by other apps, you will have to use the method described here to fix it.
