The iOS App Store on iPhone Crashes As Soon As I Open It Now

I was having this issue and bit the bullet and connected with support via chat. I’d been using the iPad via touch, but put it on the keyboard so I could type faster. Long story short, I did a CMD-TAB and saw on the App Switcher that a zombie version of the App Store was running (which was why it appeared to immediately crash when. I tried to launch it again). CMD-Q’d that and the issue was solved.

Since I was on with support when I discovered this I asked if there was a way to do this via touch-only. The best we could come up with was swiping left or right with four fingers. Presumably I would have encountered a blank screen when I reached the zombie App Store instance. A swipe up from the bottom of the screen (one finger) would then force-quit the hung app. Note that this is subtly different from swiping up from the bottom with one finger and then releasing when the current screen & past app thumbnails appears. That will also force quit *properly running* apps, but not ones that only partially loaded. The hung app needs to be in the foreground. I’m speculating that the screen will be white because the app is hung. “Behold! I have nothing to say and this is what that looks like!”

The entire second paragraph is speculative because I didn’t have a hung instance to test it on. I know for a fact CMD-TAB/CMD-Q will resolve this issue because it’s how I solved it.

The CMD-TAB/Q did not work for me but I did notice 2 apps that were “zombie” apps so thanks for the tip. I cant believe this just randomly started happening to a lot of our iPads today. I really hope it’s not a security issue.

EDIT: So I fixed mine by trying OP’s solution but that was working so I kept tapping on the App Store icon since I knew it was going to keep crashing and it turns out that if I kept tapping on the screen the App Store would load and I kept tapping my way over to update all of my apps while still tapping the whole time. After all of the updates were finished i quit tapping and it turns out it fixed it. I even quit the app and it opens up normally again. I hope this helps somebody!

Hey there G. C.,

Use this info:

If the App Store itself is not responding, contact Apple Support for your iPhone or for your iPad.

We've found it in If an app on your iPhone or iPad stops responding, closes unexpectedly, or won’t open. This would be the best way to get it reported, and work with Apple to get it resolved.

Cheers!

3/4 of the advice in that article does not apply — it either requires the app to stay open long enough to be manually closed, or the ability to open the App Store, which in this case is the app that’s crashing. Also, I’ve tried restarting and that doesn’t fix it (though I should clarify I’m having this problem on iPad, not iPhone).

Seems like this may be a problem introduced with the latest iOS update, and if so, there may not be an easy fix aside from Apple issuing one themself.

EDIT: If you tap and hold on the App Store icon, you can open a specific tab. The app opens when I specifically bring up Search, but not any of the others, and if I try to switch to them in the app it immediately crashes.