Google’s Pixel smartphone users have started complaining about seeing app crashes on their devices. The app crashes seem to affect Google’s own preinstalled apps such as Gmail, Messages, Chrome and even random third-party apps. At the moment, there seems to be no defined solution to this app crashing issue in sight. Some users believe that this is a bad Android System WebView update that’s affecting both new, recent and old Pixel smartphones. Regardless of the solutions, this issue does seem to be spreading gradually.
First reported by 9to5Google, issues regarding app crashes seem to be popping up in the r/GooglePixel subreddit on Reddit. There are a number of threads complaining about the crashes and while a majority of commenters appear to be having the same problem, the solution for most varies from individual to individual with some reports of the issue getting resolved by itself.
Most of the users complaining about the same online own a Pixel 6 or a Pixel 7 series devices. This would include devices like the Pixel 6, Pixel 6 Pro, Pixel 7 and the Pixel 7 Pro. While this issue seems to be spreading gradually, it does seem to affect all Pixel smartphone users. While there are also comments on some threads about both Pixel 6 and Pixel 7 smartphone owners not being impacted by the crashes, the most recent comment mentions a Pixel 5 model seemingly affected by the same issue.
While the apps take just five seconds to crash after being launched, the solutions found across threads seem to vary. So, there seems to be no defined solution for the same.
Most users claim that a restart does not seem to help. Some state that the issue is down to carrier services, advising others to uninstall updates for the service if possible. Others have posted success after a factory reset, while some claim that even a factory reset does not solve the issue.
Many state that this could be a bad Android System WebView update. WebView is a tool which basically lets a user access the chrome browser in an app to display information from a webpage without leaving the app. Since a lot of apps utilise this, it’s no wonder that a bad update could lead to numerous crashes.
As reported by some users in the same threads, uninstalling the latest Android System WebView update has resolved the problem for a few. In previous instances which appeared to affect Samsung’s Galaxy smartphones, Google had to issue an update for the same to solve the problem of repeated app crashes.