Data missing from your Android apps? Latest Chrome update may be to blame (update: fixed).
UPDATE: Dec. 18, 2019, 9:19 a.m. CET Google has released a fix for Chrome on Android. No user data has been lost.
If some of the apps on your Android phone suddenly appear as they were just installed, with your personal data missing, it might be Chrome's fault — however odd that may sound.
9to5Google reported Saturday that the latest version of Google's browser for Android, Chrome 79, is causing the data loss in some applications, prompting Google to halt the rollout of the new Chrome, which had begun last week.
You May Also Like
The culprit for the issue is actually WebView, a part of the Android OS which let other apps display web content. It's not an app that you see; it's preinstalled on Android phones and typically updates automatically in the background, together with Chrome. It's a pretty important part of Android, too: Some apps rely on WebView for parts of their functionality, and some are actually running within WebView.
The bug that's causing the data loss has to do with the way WebView stores local content; it appears that some of the data used by apps which rely on WebView wasn't migrated properly. It doesn't appear that the data is completely gone, but users can't access it at the moment.
According to a comment on Chromium's bug tracking site, Google engineers are currently weighing two possible fixes for the issue. Another comment in the same thread says Chrome 79 has been rolled out to 50 percent of Android devices before the rollout was halted.
It's unclear how many apps and users were affected, but some comments on the bug tracker call the issue a "disaster," saying that "millions and millions" of clients could be affected.
Users can expect a fix that "minimizes the data loss" within five to seven days.
Stan is a Senior Editor at Mashable, where he has worked since 2007. He's got more battery-powered gadgets and band t-shirts than you. He writes about the next groundbreaking thing. Typically, this is a phone, a coin, or a car. His ultimate goal is to know something about everything.
