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.
Users of recent Samsung phones—Galaxy S20 and S21, Note 20, A50 and A70 series, among others—seem to be the most heavily affected. There are scattered reports of the same problem happening to Pixel, Motorola, and OnePlus phones, though those may be coincidental issues unrelated to the primary problem. Owners of some older Samsung devices, including one J7, are reporting similar issues. The app crashes aren’t limited to any specific subset: applications with more or less any function, from any developer, are crashing repeatedly and without warning.
A few users have reported success with a relatively simple method: uninstalling the latest version of Android System Webview, a small tool that allows apps to render a web page using Chrome without leaving the application. It’s used in a lot of different ways, including secure logins and viewing support documentation. Reddit user /u/WatfordHert detailed their method, which is fairly straightforward.
Online reference: https://www.androidpolice.com/2021/03/22/surprise-app-crashes-are-plaguing-tons-of-android-users-heres-how-to-fix-them/
Android apps like Gmail are crashing and ‘WebView’ is to blame
Install a newer update to clear up any error messages.
This afternoon, a number of Android users (self included) suddenly saw notifications pop up on their devices saying that apps had stopped running. Many of the apps throwing errors suddenly can’t be opened, and they include important ones like Gmail, a number of banking apps, Google Pay and others.
There are reports of the problem on DownDetector, Reddit and Twitter, and Google’s Workspace Cloud Status Dashboard confirms they’re aware of problems with the Gmail app on Android. According to the status message, there will be an update on the issue by 8:05 PM ET (check below for more information).
If you’re having this problem, something that’s worked for many people is to go into the Google Play Store on your device and uninstall the latest update to a system app called “Android System WebView.” It’s the app that provides Chrome-like browser rendering within apps, and according to developers and end users, many of the errors people are seeing indicate the problem resides there.
Uninstalling the updates got my phone to calm down and go back to normal, and it may work for your device. As noted below, Google has confirmed an issue with WebView and is working on a fix now.
Online reference: https://www.engadget.com/android-gmail-stop-running-webview-234125352.html