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Here's how to fix constant app crashes in Android 12 beta
It's an issue and a solution that might seem familiar
Getting to play with Android betas is one of the best things about owning a Pixel phone. But they are, you know, betas, so weird and frustrating stuff is more or less guaranteed to happen at some point. Case in point: many users have been experiencing constant crashes for major apps over the last week or so.
Here's how to fix those mysterious Android WebView crashes
Download it from the Play Store or APK Mirror now
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If you're experiencing a bunch of apps suddenly crashing on your recent Samsung phone, you're not alone. This afternoon US time, reports from dozens, then hundreds of users on the Samsung subreddit started coming in, complaining of apps crashing on their phones, constantly and seemingly at random. It's causing some major headaches. You can quickly fix the problem by disabling the Android System WebView app, or updating it via the Play Store or APK Mirror.
Chrome 84 is exhibiting stability issues for some people on Android. Whenever they close their last incognito tab, the browser freezes and eventually displays the dreaded "Chrome isn't responding" dialog. The bug seems to bog down the whole interface, as neither home nor back buttons/gestures work while you wait for the popup to appear. Other people even report that Chrome just freezes out of the blue for them, with no incognito tabs involved.
Google thinks it has solved the mystery of the cursed bootlooping wallpaper
Color space isn't the culprit — luminance is
Over the last week, a photo has been making the rounds at venues like Reddit and Twitter. It's an attractive mountain lake with the sun rising (or setting) through the dense clouds. Perfect for a phone's wallpaper, right? Not unless you like bootloops. Certain aspects of the image trigger an inescapable, repeating crash in Android's system UI, and most recent Android phones are likely susceptible, including Samsung phones and Google's Pixels. Thankfully, both Samsung and Google are aware of the issue and looking into a fix.
Chrome has been freezing and crashing on OnePlus phones for months
No word from Google or OnePlus on a fix
Chrome on Android has been a bit more crash-happy over the past few months. There were reports of WebView (the Chrome-based engine that powers web content inside apps) having problems last year, and Google has acknowledged Chrome 83 crashes on select Asus devices. OnePlus phone owners have also had to deal with buggy Chrome behavior, as the app has been freezing and crashing on some OnePlus devices for the past several months.
Chrome 83 started rolling out to desktop and mobile platforms earlier this week, and while there were quite a few new features, it seems some bugs also slipped in undetected. The new update has been crashing on some Asus-made phones and tablets, but Google says a fix is on the way.
WebView, the component of Android that renders web pages inside apps (like login screens), is updated through the Play Store. This means that security issues are less of a concern, but it also means bugs can crop up outside of system upgrades. Case in point: an annoying bug is causing web pages inside apps to freeze and crash.
Following a recent update to the Zenfone 6, some owners have been reporting system stability problems including frequent crashes/restarts, network connectivity problems, and bootloops. According to a recent statement issued by an ASUS representative on the company's ZenTalk forums (spotted by PiunikaWeb), the issue is a hardware fault in affected devices which is triggered by the update.
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- A fixed version of the Messages 4.7.052 beta (with seemingly the same build number as before) is rolling out now, and we have tested and can confirm that it doesn't crash at start like the previous version being distributed. If you want to get in on the action a bit early, don't see the update available, or you missed your window for the beta signups, you can also download it over at APK Mirror.
Earlier this week, Google opened a public beta program for its Messages app. I guess we shouldn't be too surprised since this is Google we're talking about here, but the very first Messages beta (v4.7) is instantly crashing on start for most.
For years, Google Maps users begged the navigation service to borrow the incident reporting feature from its peer down the virtual hallway, Waze. But it wasn't until last November that we got a sneak peek at the new option, then a month later, it popped up for many more users. It didn't work at first, was briefly removed, then returned in a functional state. The Maps team isn't content with just crash and speed trap reports, it has recently added a new type of incidents: slowdowns.
Google Maps' incident reporting feature has been a long-time coming. After the company bought Waze in 2013, everyone thought Google Maps would get its popular crowdsourced reporting feature in no-time, but years have passed it's only a few months ago that we started seeing hints of it in our teardowns of Maps. The first real signs started showing up in the app after that, with users spotting confirmation prompts for reported incidents and, recently, a button to report crashes and speed traps. Now, the latter is showing up for many under a new look, but it doesn't work at all.
There's a message that's making the rounds on WhatsApp that mysteriously causes the app to crash if you dare to tap on the black dot within. You may have already come across it and wondered how just tapping on a single emoji can cause an app to freeze and become unresponsive. The answer, unsurprisingly, is that it can't.
If you've been having trouble with your Netgear Orbi mesh network, and you have a Pixel or Pixel 2, then your phone might be to blame. Or, at least, the software on it. There are many reports of spontaneous access point reboots, crashes, and intermittent connection issues for those using mesh network access points with devices running Android Oreo.
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If there's one thing sure to ruin your day, it's a crashing smartphone. Even worse if the bug proves so bad that your phone eventually insists you do a factory reset, losing data in the process. This is exactly the situation that has befallen a number of Nexus and Pixel owners in recent days, and it's all to do with an adaptive icon bug that was discovered by the developer of third-party Facebook wrapper called Swipe.
Picture the scene: you're near your monthly data allowance and you want to check your usage to see what you should turn off to avoid some astronomical overuse charges. We've all been there. But imagine when you get there your settings app decides to give up the ghost, over and over again. That's been the situation for Artem the last couple of days, as you can see from the tweet below.
Google Play Music rolled out a new version of its app several hours ago that seems to bring a big bug in tow: many users are reporting that the app is crashing on launch so they can't listen to their music or use it at all.
At least since December, the Play Store on Android TV has had a particularly annoying issue. When selecting one of several app categories, including 'Action Games' and 'News,' the entire Play Store crashes. Now the issue appears to be finally fixed.
Updates get us excited, especially when they involve making the leap to the latest version of Android. But for some Nexus 5 users, the transition has come at the expense of their camera. Following the release of Android 5.1, they've been unable to reliably activate the camera without getting hit by crashes.