Android apps have been suddenly crashing for many users tonight

Tonight’s scenario: I pick up my phone to show someone something to find that my email app won’t open suddenly. Android says it has closed each time I try to open it. Then I give up and head over to Amazon, just to find it is doing the same thing. Fine–so I open Google Assistant to browse by voice and Google Assistant closes upon opening.

All of these apps are located within internal memory, so it can’t be an SD failure. So the first thing that comes to mind is “uh oh, I wonder if my internal storage is damaged and failing suddenly!”. Not all apps are experiencing this issue. Just about half the apps on the phone. So I start re-installing vital apps filled with things like hundreds of emails and custom settings. Just to find that the app might open the first try and then right back to crashing.

Panic mode, right? Thankfully, I am not the only one experiencing things. Google has run into a slight snafu with a WebView component, causing any app that makes use of it to crash upon open. Well then! Having to re-configure my emails and everything is one thing. However, imagine if I gave up and reset the phone? Imagine the emotions that would be flowing through me at this point. Now consider everyone else out there experiencing the same thing. How many people are resetting their apps or the entire phone right about now? This may result in some angry comments this week by consumers.

Google is aware of the situation and has commented that the company is actively looking to resolve the issue. For the moment, they recommend uninstalling the latest WebView update to fix this. However, if the following steps sound too confusing, you might be better off waiting for the official update to come through once they figure things out.

From Google: Head to settings –> apps –> open the meny in the top right corner –> choose to show system apps –> search for “Android System WebView” –> select “Uninstall updates”.

Those instructions should, hopefully, bring you back up to speed until the proper patch is pushed out as an update (and hopefully, your phone doesn’t try to install the same troubled update again once you’ve uninstalled it).

Update: Google seems to have resolved the situation overnight. Users have been waking up to perfectly functioning apps this morning.