Some apps on my new iPhone 17 keep crashing and fail to update

Perhaps a long shot:

Do you have a 3rd party VPN installed, even if you are not using it? If so, delete the VPN profile in Settings/General/VPN & Device Management/VPN, then restart your device. Don't just turn it off; delete the profile. Updates sometimes "break" VPN, and it needs to be removed. If that fixes it, you can try reinstalling VPN, but probably shouldn't.

viana128 wrote:

I do not have an active 3rd party VPN. That setting is off. My work things are on my phone but that isn’t via VPN. Thanks for the reply.

Turning one off is not likely to solve a VPN problem. They have to be removed to test.

Sorry, I was working on my last post asking about the VPN when you replied that you had one turned off. There is a reason why that was the first thing asked by 2 of us and would also explain why the problem is localized to only your devices where I suspect you also used that same VPN.

viana128 wrote:

I’m not using a VPN. My work stuff is on my phone under the Device Management part. I essentially have to have this stuff on my phone.

Your device is under the control of the MDM, which most likely includes their own VPN. There is little you can do about it, other than get your own device for personal use and dedicate that one to business use. You can try contacting their IT department or at least give them the feedback, but they really have no incentive for your personal use of your device as long as their own concerns are addressed, which is the reason why they are requiring the MDM.

Neither Verizon or Apple will be able to solve that problem, unless you are able to remove the MDM. That would be the most obvious thing you could do to test if allowed by your employer.

I had the same issue and this was the fix for me, iPhone 14 on 26.6. I had to sign out of my media and purchases, hard reset, reconnect to media and purchases, delete an app, then redownload that app. After I did that, all apps started working again. Might have needed to re-establish the App Store credentials.

1. Settings > Media & Purchases > Sign-Out
2. Volume Up, Volume Down, Power (Hard Reset)
3. Settings > Media & Purchases > Sign-In
4. Delete an app (I did Spotify)
5. Reinstall app

Hope this works for you all.

viana128 wrote:

My issue began before the iOS update. This problem for me began mid June. I started with my service provider trying to get a diagnosis, and after every attempt at something new, a replacement iPhone 15, and then an upgrade to the iPhone 17, I’m still having the same problem. I’ve chatted with Apple support and eventually had a call with Senior Tech. They said themselves it’s a software issue related to apple and supposedly their engineers are aware and working to get a fix.

So maybe it is a 3rd party problem, but why all a sudden is the question. And it’s not specific to one type of app. I’m all over the place with apps that crash on my phone but operate perfectly fine on my iPad. I literally just had an issue where I couldn’t download or update anything from the AppStore last night. Why is that happening is what’s unknown given the fact that up until June, I never experienced anything of this nature with an iPhone.

It’s great all things are working great for you, but that’s not the experience for everyone who’s responded. I began this thread because I’d reach out to Apple and Verizon without any resolve for myself, hoping others previously dealt with this and got an answer that I wasn’t aware of.

No one here can explain why this is happening to you or any other posters. But it stands to reason that out of the more than 1.5 Billion devices out there, some users are bound to have some issues. Again, if this was a huge issue, this forum would be bubbling over with people complaining, but it's not. I understand that doesn't help you, but again, we aren't Apple.

You need to bring this to Apple's attention. We can't see your or anyone else's iPhone to see if there is a common thread between users who are having an issue.

EDIT: I reread the thread and it was determined you have MDM from your employer on your phone. That is likely your issue. MDM most assuredly includes a VPN, which is known to cause issues. What did your employers IT support do to help you?

viana128 wrote:

I’m not using a VPN. My work stuff is on my phone under the Device Management part. I essentially have to have this stuff on my phone.

I have storage. Pay for 1TB per month.

The updates do not work when I manually attempt to update them. This doesn’t happen all the time, but it’s noticeable when it doesn’t act right.

all the apps I’m saying don’t work on my iPhone work fine on my iPad.

I also update my system to the latest iOS last night.

Ive spoken with Verizon tech people and Apple’s tech people. They all tell me to do the generic stuff that I’ve already done like resetting all settings, network settings, my phone in general. So far, I just receive responses that don’t come to a resolve.

You need to speak with the IT folks at your company. Mobile Device Management Software almost always has a VPN as part of their software. This is surely what was causing the issue with your previous iPhone and is now the issue with your current iPhone. In essence, your employer is managing your phone, not you. Your issues are not an Apple issue, nor a Verizon issue.

Lawrence Fitch said......

delete the VPN profile in Settings/General/VPN & Device Management/VPN, then restart your device. Don't just turn it off; delete the profile

According to your reply you said the "setting is off". Did you delete the profile?

• Are you using a VPN?
• Is your storage close to full
• When you say they do not update, do you mean it is not possible to manually update or when Automatic Updates is turned on, you see updates available from a few days ago that have not been updated yet. The latter is normal as updates are not performed on demand when pushed out and occur only under certain conditions. If everyones devices updated their apps at the same time, it would place a larger demand on servers slowing access to all, so they are spread out.

I use the Netflix, Hulu and Walmart app regularly with their latest versions and none of them crash on iOS 26.5.2, and I have not had any of those crash on iOS 26.6 that was installed yesterday.

Since you are experiencing this on 3 different devices and I haven't seen anything about crashes with those particular apps, it would appear something specific on your device, which is why I asked about a VPN.

The wife and I are having the same issues, both iPhone 17 - apps "open" but immediately get hidden, only 3rd party apps. Update all apps via the app store did work, but then didn't when I tried it again. The last fix I had was to uninstall just one app (Strava), reinstall it and they all worked afterwards. There's evidently a common issue here, and I hope Apple get it sorted as it's causing problems.

Disagree - it has happened several times with multiple apps- all 3rd party apps in fact, on both mine and my wife's iPhone 17, both running latest iOS 26.6 but it happened before we did that upgrade. I chose Strava randomly from all of the apps that were not loading and it worked. Prior to reinstalling Strava no 3rd party apps loaded at all, but did once I'd done this. I notice someone else on this thread did the same thing. I also had success with "update all" via the app store when it happened previously, but that didn't work for me this morning.

Each post on this thread is saying the same thing, everyone has the same issues with ALL 3rd party apps.

I'd pretty much conclusively say it is an Apple problem.

So, for me last night, Strava, along with EVERY third-party app I have, wouldn't open. I offloaded an app I barely use (not Strava), redownloaded it, and every app opened.

Care to explain how that might be Strava's fault?

What I did to fix this problem is to restore my iPhone from a backup prior to the problem exist. Hope this works for everyone.

Have you asked Apple for help? This is a user to user forum that is not intended for users to communicate with Apple.

Contact Apple for support and service - Apple Support