Why are my apps not working on my Android phone?

Discover the reasons why your apps are not working on your Android phone and learn effective solutions to fix this common issue.There are several factors that can contribute to your apps not working properly on your Android phone. Below are some of the most common reasons:

Why are my apps not working on my Android phone;What To Do?

Method 1: Force close the application

Even if the application closes automatically after an error occurs, this does not mean that it has completely stopped working. It is quite possible that it is “hanging” in the background as a process, so you should try to forcefully disable it. Most often, it is enough to reboot the device, but there is another solution:

  1. Launch the standard “Settings” and go to the “Applications” section , then to “Application Management” to display a list of installed programs.
  2. Select the problematic software from the list. In the new window, click the “Stop” button and confirm the action.
  3. After this, all processes related to this application and running in the background will be closed. After forced shutdown, try to run the program again. If nothing happens and it continues to not respond, then the problem may be due to incorrect settings or other errors, which we will discuss below.

Method 2: Clearing the cache

Sometimes it makes sense to clear the cache and unnecessary data that may be the reason why the application has stopped responding. This option is suitable if everything was fine with the software before. In this case, a few simple steps using system capabilities are enough.

Do the same as in the previous Method (via “Settings” go to the list of installed programs, then select the desired application), but in Step 2 select “Memory usage” . It remains to click on the “Clear cache” item so that all temporary data is deleted.

You can also delete the data by selecting the appropriate function and confirming the action. In this case, all application settings will be reset to what they were originally. This will probably help solve the problem, since the error that caused the program not to respond may also be reset.

Method 3: Update the application

Sometimes a simple update of a problematic application can help. This will definitely work if the error is on the developer’s side – then the update will most likely include a fix for the bug.

The update most often occurs through the application store from which the program was downloaded. Using Google Play Market as an example , we will analyze how to act in this situation:

  1. Launch Google Play and tap on the avatar icon in the upper right corner, then select the “Manage apps and device” section .
  2. Go to the “Management” tab and activate the “Updates available” filter .
  3. Below you will see the programs for which updates are available in Google Play. Find the problematic software in the list, check it in the checkbox, then select the update function (the rounded arrow icon on the top panel).

You can also update an unresponsive app from the description page in the store by selecting the appropriate button. Using the additional menu that opens by clicking on the vertical three dots, you can enable the automatic update function so that you don’t have to check and download updates manually in the future.

Method 4: Reinstalling the software

There was probably an error during installation/previous update that caused the app to become unresponsive when trying to launch. If updating again does not fix the situation, you can try reinstalling after deleting the old version of the app.

It should be noted that if you downloaded software from a third-party source, for example as an APK file, the problem may be in the installation file itself. This is especially true for software that has been modified or hacked. Try downloading the file again (this will work if the file was damaged during download) or look for another source.

Method 5: Installing OS updates

You may be experiencing an issue where the app is not responding due to an unstable operating system or poor software compatibility. If a new version of Android is available, you can try installing it – it is likely that it will be able to fix the situation.

As a rule, you can find the section with information about the OS version and its updates in the section “About phone” / “About device” in the standard “Settings” of Android. But you can also use third-party solutions to search and install updates. We wrote about how to update Android earlier in a separate guide.