PadGadget’s iPad Tips: What to Do when an App Crashes

Sitting back on a Sunday afternoon and playing on your Apple iPad seems like the best stay-at-home activity during these self-containment days. As an iPad user, you will already know the way around to its menu structure and the system settings. But what happens when something irritating happens? Like an app crash? Which then seems persistent?

It breaks your mood and disturbs your Sunday afternoon bliss.

Not if you follow these cool tips and tricks to avoid or solve such app crashes on your iPad. Here we go.

Tips to Solve App Crashes on an iPad

Before writing a long negative review on the App Store for an app crash, you should first check ways in which you can solve it. In most cases, the problem can be solved from your end i.e. through some changes or fixes on your iPad’s settings.

Reeling with annoyance over a crash of a game or a media app? Try these tips right now.

Close the App in Multitasking

The first thing to do when an app crashes or a game freezes in the middle is to close it on Multitasking, the task control panel of iPad.

To do this:

• Tap on the Home button twice
• When the Multitasking bar comes up, touch and hold the icon of the app that is crashing
• Touch the close “-” symbol to force shut the app.
• This action will force close the app and may reset the issues that gave rise to the crashing. If the problem persists, try the next tip.

Restart Your iPad

The next troubleshooting method is to reboot your iPad. This will clear up any temporary files or errors in the caching system that may ben hampering the seamless running of the app.

We have found that a lot of people hesitate to restart their iPad (some even don’t do it for months and years) for any specific reason. But in most cases, restarting the system clears most problems as it enables the system to start afresh.

In case you don’t know how to restart your iPad, here are the steps:

• Hold down the Home and Sleep buttons for about 6 seconds. The tablet will switch off
• Then do the same combination for about 3 seconds which will restart the device (the Apple logo will appear)
•  Let your iPad to initialize (about 30 seconds)
• Once the device has rebooted, try running the app in question again. If the problem was minor, it should go away. If it hasn’t, try the third tip.

Uninstall and Reinstall the App

If the above two methods don’t work, then reinstalling the app may solve the issue. In the majority of the cases, this is a great solution for app crashes.

In order to reinstall the crashing app, do this:

• Touch and hold the icon of the problem app on the Home screen. When it wiggles with a cross “x” sign appearing on it, touch it
• The device will ask you for confirmation. Give it.
• If the app was connected to Game Center, you will get another confirmation prompt. Since you are reinstalling the app, you should keep the Game Center settings. Do not give the confirmation
• The app will be uninstalled
• Next, go to the Apple App Store and search for the app
• Install it through the usual process. If it is a paid app, you may or may not be shown the price tag. If you had already bought it, you will most certainly not be charged the second time around
• The app will start downloading and installing
• Try firing open the app

If the problem still does not look like it will go away, you will need technical support from Apple. Contacting your nearest service center is recommended.

If it’s only a certain app that is giving you problems, you can also reach out to the developers. Most people respond to emails quickly, especially if you are a paid user.

However, there is one more way – a final resort of sorts – to self-isolate the issue. That is restoring your iPad to factory settings.

Reset your iPad

This involves restoring your device to its factory settings and mostly involves erasure of all data. 

Therefore, you should do this only if you have all your app and other data backed up and won’t mind going through the tasks of setting things up.

We suggest taking this option only after you have taken the problem to the support folks. If they suggest restoration, then this is how you can do it. Do note that restoring your device will involve factory reset and resyncing of all your data. The latter part can take a long time.

• Go to iTunes after connecting your iPad to your computer.
• Back up your device by going to the Backup option. Choose ‘Back up now’ under ‘Manually Backup and Restore’
• Backing up may take a long time depending upon the storage size and size of data
• After the backup is done, restore it to factory settings. This process can take hours

If the restoring also does not help you, then the final thing to do is to take your iPad to the service center. They will suggest the best course of action.

According to our experience in this field, app crashing is often the issue with the device’s caching or the intervention from some other elements. A proper diagnosis can be made by the developer or an Apple technician.

But if any of these tips have worked for you, do let us know in the comments. So that your fellow readers can also find a quick solution if they are facing the same problem.