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Some App icons dark, waiting, will not open or delete

I do not know what to do. I have tried to open the dark waiting icon, but it does not budge. They have been this way for a long time, even after full shut down. I also can't delete them. When I hold the icon to make them squiggly, they do not have an x in the upper right corner. This is only happening to some of my apps but I would love to get rid of the problem. I would appreciate any advice. Thanks.

iPhone 4S, iOS 7.0.3

Posted on Oct 24, 2013 8:36 AM

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Posted on Dec 26, 2013 1:37 PM

Thought I'd answer even though this is old incase someone else gets this.

Rather than re-sync from iTunes, I manages to get it back by going on the AppStore and going to purchases, the apps that were dark had the icon for downloading in progress, but weren't moving. I stopped each one and the changed back to open and are currently working.

Hope this helps someone.

19 replies
Question marked as Best reply

Dec 26, 2013 1:37 PM in response to debbieparry

Thought I'd answer even though this is old incase someone else gets this.

Rather than re-sync from iTunes, I manages to get it back by going on the AppStore and going to purchases, the apps that were dark had the icon for downloading in progress, but weren't moving. I stopped each one and the changed back to open and are currently working.

Hope this helps someone.

Dec 29, 2013 6:09 PM in response to debbieparry

Hey everyone!


It's because the apps are 'refreshing'. I think this is new to iOS 7 because I don't remember it happening before...


If you go into your settings-->general--> and about halfway down the list is BACKGROUND APP REFRESH.


I wish I could include a picture to make it easier but if you go into this setting you will see a list of all the apps that will refresh and also the master switch that turns them all off.. I'm not sure what it's doing when it's refreshing tho, maybe checking for updates or location?


Hope this helps,

Mister

Feb 5, 2014 2:52 AM in response to debbieparry

I have been having an issue with my iPhone 5 32GB with iOS 7, that is essentially the same thing as listed above. I restored my phone back to factory defaults, everything was returned as they were, however... As I began to re-download my apps from the app store, my "Emoji Icon Pack iOS7" for creating smiley faces with text messages had become frozen.


The app has been sitting this way for some time now, and finally tonight I decided to play around and see if I could fix the problem. Turns out that all I needed to do was: Go to the App Store > Find the App that is acting upp > And push the "Download from cloud" link. It has downloaded and I have not had anymore problems!


Seems as though there must have been an interruption of some sort during the initial installation and it had froze at the very beginning of the App downloading. But all seems well now and this may be worth a shot for a few!


Hope this solves the problem for others!

Nov 2, 2017 9:27 PM in response to debbieparry

Dear Debbie,


Yesterday, that problem was present for me as well. I have managed to find a solution for that problem. Go on the App Store and reinstall the app, if you cannot do that - then you unfortunately have to load an iTunes backup from your computer. Other than that, I hope you manage to find a way to solve your problem!


Sincerely,

Nelson

Sep 25, 2015 11:32 AM in response to debbieparry

My apps were dark when I upgraded to a new device. Clicking them made them say "Waiting...", but it didn’t download or restore in any way.


Solution: Open iTunes and go to your app purchases; Download all of your app purchases; Verify your phone sync settings; Sync your phone and the downloaded apps should copy to the iPhone in-place restoring the dark icons.


The underlying problem is that the restore assumes you have the original app in iTunes. Backups store app location on the screen, etc. but not the app itself; Restoring from a backup relies on iTunes’s copies of the apps.

Dec 28, 2015 8:09 AM in response to debbieparry

iOS 9.1

I just ran into this, this morning. Apparantly my phone crashed last night during a background app update. One app was there twice. One darkened icon( which did as this post says) and one good icon for the same app.

Could move the dark icon but nothing else. Didnt work and would not delete.

I tried all these solition ( other than restoring phone) and nothing worked.

FInally tried a soft shut down and restart ( hold the power/sleep button until you get the shut down slider ) then restarted and the bad icon was gone.

Some App icons dark, waiting, will not open or delete

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