Many Android apps have started to crash suddenly in the past few hours, with apps launching the dreaded “keep closing” warning messages when users try to open them. The Twitter and Reddit forums are filled with reports of app crashes. DownDetector is also showing a huge increase in Gmail and Amazon outage reports. The Gmail web interface for the desktop and Google Workspace services are not affected.
As many users soon discovered, the problem was due to a recent update to Android WebView. Android WebView is a component of the system that allows developers to display web pages within their applications. It comes pre-installed on all modern Android devices and is regularly updated through the Play Store with the latest security enhancements and fixes. It appears that a buggy update may have broken the WebView component. Simply uninstalling Android WebView updates fixes the crash issue (via Engadget), as with the vast majority of affected users:
Suddenly, many Android apps started crashing for me tonight, including Amazon Shopping, Gmail. It turns out that the culprit is an update to the Android System Webview. Look for it on the Play Store and click uninstall to fix the problem. #android #hit #Amazon #webview
– Craig Rouse (@craigrouse) March 22, 2021
If you are affected by the problem, open the Play Store, search for Android WebView and uninstall the updates. Alternatively, you can also go to “Applications” or “Applications” in your device’s settings, find the Android WebView application among the system applications and uninstall its latest updates.
A Google spokesman confirmed that the company was aware of the problem and was working to fix it:
We are aware of an issue with WebView that causes some applications on Android to crash. We are currently working to fully validate the scope and a correction is in progress.
According to the most recent update posted to the Google Workspace Status Dashboard, Google was still investigating this issue.
Google did not share any updates on the fix at the time of writing. The responsibility remains with Android users to resolve this issue by uninstalling recent Android WebView updates.