If apps are crashing on your Android phone, here’s how to fix it

Android users have been reporting problems with apps crashing spontaneously over the last few days.

Problems surfaced on Monday afternoon with popular apps like Gmail that would fail to load on Samsung Galaxy and Pixel devices.

‘We apologize for the inconvenience and thank you for your patience and continued support,’ Google said on its Gmail status dashboard.

‘Please rest assured that system reliability is a top priority at Google, and we are making continuous improvements to make our systems better.’

The problem appeared to originate in Android System WebView, a system component that lets Android apps display web content.

Hi! Thanks for bringing this to our attention. Please remove the Webview Update and then restart the phone. Here are the steps: Go settings > apps > tap the three dots in the top right corner > show system apps > search for Android System WebView > select Uninstall updates. ^Nina

— Samsung Support US (@SamsungSupport) March 22, 2021

Google says it has now issued an updated version of WebView that can be manually installed to resolve the problem.

How to stop apps crashing on your Android phone

Follow these steps to install the update and solve the problem:

• Open the Play Store app on your phone
• Search for ‘Android System Webview’
• Select the ‘Update option
• Repeat the process for Google Chrome

In some cases, people found that simply uninstalling WebView would solve the problem. Thankfully, that’s no longer needed as the latest update should fix the issue.

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