Apps Stuck Updating after iOS 9

Today I had same problem with my iPhone 6 and the Skype upgrade, it remained stuck for the whole day, the fix was reboot and upgrade it manually.

I finally found a way to resume an update to a "stuck app" that failed to update via the normal method. My symptom was that I had 17 apps which had an UPDATE icon when viewed from the UPDATES tab of the App Store app. They would not respond to an UPDATE ALL button click and they also wouldn't respond if I clicked on the UPDATE icon to their right. I'm using an iPad Mini3 with IOS 9.1.

Here's what I did.

First I logged out of my iCloud account (Settings -> iTunes & App Store), then logged back in. I assume that caused all pending downloads to go to some other state.

Then, for each icon in my list which was failing to update before, I did the following sequence (it worked for all, one at a time):

1) I tapped the UPDATE button (this showed a completely-filled circle but didn't continue the update)

2) I tapped the completed-circle icon (this presumably stopped the update, returning the icon to UPDATE)

3) I tapped the UPDATE button again (which started the download from the beginning, and ran to completion with a successful update)

HI cs3golfer, thanks, you reminded me what I did one month ago, in fact it worked for some days but then the problem reappeared. I also notice that the problem come together with a slowdown of the App Store that means also icons not showing and very slow downloads. My settings were: aautomatic upgrade of apps only, no password for free apps, password request after 15 minutes.

I turned out the option for automatic app updates, today I found 2 apps to be upgraded and when I started the process manually it asked my Apple ID password, is it a normal request for an upgrade?

Not only do they crap out, but even if you successfully delete the app there remains a blank app icon in Settings that has no reference as to which app it was or how to get rid of it.

Seriously *** Apple?

This worked for me for any app that already had the circle with a square in the middle icon (updating?) A slight caveat was any app that has the Update button next to it still wouldn't update though (I tap update and it immedu reverts back to the same icon). For those I needed to:

- kill the running app

- go back and select Update again

- watch it go to the circle with a square in the middle icon

- select that icon to turn it back to the Update icon

- select the Update icon again

Same issue on all three devinces; 1 iPhone, 2 iPads, all IOS 9.1

Let's hear it for cs3golfer...perhaps you should go work for Apple to help them reverse engineer these updates lately 😝

Likewise finding APPs in update limbo everyday. I turned off auto update for APPs yet it's still happening.

DIfferent APP(s) every time. Today it's a Verizon APP.

Going into manage storage I occasionally find a "null" APP which I must delete with no clue what APP I've just lost.

Cellipse data for updates is turned off.

SInce this is a daily experience it's a royal PITA.

The party line will no doubt be to nuke and restore the device.

MAkes me yearn for my old Startak flip phone.

This problem has been bothering me since the release of iOS 9,

and nd it seems the only solution/workaround is to turn your iOS device off and on again, then go to the App Store, select Updates and select the app that before became unusable by remaining in the "Installing..." Status on your home screen. Now you can install it.

However: I found out that going to Settings and enabling/disabling bold fonts which causes your iPhone/iPad to respring has the same effect like turning it completely off and on again. And it's much less time consuming. So I suggest if you run into that particular problem, you just change your settings for bold text and then re-download the update.

And, in conclusion, this means that there is something wrong with iOS's SpringBoard.

Apple, this is pathetic! Fix it!

Tried to contact APPLE direct but they don't want you do that,I had the same problem as it said I must connect to iTunes but this only worked on the third time, I did this and this update to IOS 9 mixed up my photos which I didn't notice and as I don't have a PC now I can't sort the mixed photos out as they where put on my iPad via the iTunes on my PC,I'mthinking of getting a PC as it will let me do more as iPads are not computers.

I had this problem occur with my Kindle app recently (where the icon was frozen in "Installing" state on my iPad, but was not visible in the list of pending updates on my iPad so I couldn't use my trick above that was successful on my iPhone with a set of other apps). I eventually solved my problem with Kindle by connecting my iPad to my Mac and going into iTunes, then going to the Apps page for the iPad and doing the update of that app from there. Apparently iTunes is able to do the update where the IOS update fails.