Kill a frozen / stuck app on my iPhone or iPad?

The Facebook app on my IPhone is frozen and won't do anything! What can I do to fix this problem?

Dave's Answer:

While most of the apps in iOS, whether for the iPhone or iPad, are pretty stable and work every time, some occasionally die and quit or, worse, get "stuck" doing something and end up frozen, seeming forcing you to restart your device to get it to work again.

This is, obviously, a huge drag and if you're in the middle of a game, video or even a chat, the last thing you want to do is have to restart your device and lose everything.

Fortunately, there's a better solution if you're running the latest version of iOS on your device (4.0 or higher): going to the multitasking feature and killing that app, then just restarting it without affecting anything else.

Let me illustrate by using the example you shared of Facebook freezing up...

Here we are in Facebook and things just suddenly.... freeze up.

The trick here is to switch to another app (well, technically you don't really need to because you can also do this once you're at the top window, so you can accomplish it either way). Jump out of Facebook by simply tapping once on the home button below the screen on the face of the iPhone or iPad:

I'll jump into the iPod app because it's easy and convenient:

Now from here, a double-tap on the home button brings up the multitask manager, which shows which apps are running on your phone along the bottom:

As we might expect, the Facebook app is the most recent app running in the background (the iPod app is still technically in the "foreground" on the iOS device, in case you're wondering. it's the reason we had to switch to a different app before we could kill the Facebook app). Good. Tap and hold on the Facebook icon, and after a few seconds...

That's it. Now tap on the red "-" to the top left of the Facebook icon. That'll kill the app and move everything else over one slot:

Now tap once on the Home button to get back to the iPod app, then tap again to get to the home screen. One more tap on Facebook and it'll start up from scratch:

This time it should work fine without any freezes or hiccups.

Note that this technique also works just fine with Apple iPads too...

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Comments (21) · Add Comment

I've seen the list appear when you "double-tap" the home button, but I always thought it was simply a list of most-recent-used apps. Thanks for pointing out the "extra" feature available. (I've had an app lock up, and thought I had to start running other apps until it unloaded the locked one.)

Posted by: Ken B at February 10, 2011 8:58 AM

This worked perfectly, and it's relatively simple and easy to remember - thank you heaps for that =)

Posted by: Catherine at February 11, 2011 10:20 PM

Ditto what Catherine said. I NEVER would have figured out how to do this on my own. Thank you!!

Kim in Canada

Posted by: Kim at February 14, 2011 6:38 PM

Very cool. Worked perfectly and I learned something new. THANK YOU

Posted by: Kelly at March 21, 2011 1:49 PM

awesome tip! just got the phone, was waiting years for it to come to verizon and that was the only glitch in the matrix, thanks again

Posted by: C. at April 27, 2011 11:40 PM

That was very helpful! Thank you.

Posted by: Lisa at June 27, 2011 8:49 AM

Just worked like a charm unblocking the frozen FacBook app on an iPad 2.

Posted by: Davinken at August 24, 2011 9:13 PM

Thank you so much, Dave. I just put my iPad through the steps outlined above, and Bingo -- all fixed.

Posted by: Lin Bell at November 18, 2011 10:29 AM

thank you for your help!!! An answer on your website helped me with my new ipad2.

Posted by: Debra at November 18, 2011 4:27 PM

Nice job! Simple, well explained, and the pictures guaranteed that even an idiot like me could follow along. Thanks a bunch.

Posted by: Mark at December 2, 2011 9:45 AM

Thanks for the tip, Dave. My yahoo app froze and your simple instructions helped solve it. Very helpful!

Posted by: Christine at January 8, 2012 12:34 AM

Thank you so much for your help! Your pics helped & problem solved within 1 minute! So grateful

Posted by: Tamar at January 12, 2012 5:03 AM

This information fixed my problem with the photo app sticking on a photo.
Thank you sooooo much, everyone else wanted to be paid, even Apple.
Thanks again,
Tom

Posted by: TOM at January 19, 2012 11:33 AM

Thanks for you help! Worked perfectly!

Posted by: Kevin at January 21, 2012 10:33 AM

If we tab on "-" and kill the app, how can we tap once more on facebook app?

Posted by: Bamboo at January 22, 2012 11:49 PM

I tried it & it didn't work for me! The FB app is still frozen & I can't log out or back in. I can from my computer though.

Posted by: Denise at January 26, 2012 8:13 PM

Hey thanks so much. Not usually very good at reading manuals or following tech directions but was driven by need to communicate given am on yacht w just my I phone and had a frozen FB page. All working again:)

Posted by: Mandy at February 21, 2012 1:05 PM

thank you SOOOOOOOOOOO much, it worked perfect and i would have NEVER figured that out on my own!!

Posted by: chinamommy at March 13, 2012 4:32 PM

Spent over 2 hours to solve this, should have come to this site in the first place, worked straight away..... thank you SO MUCH!

Posted by: Jane at March 16, 2012 3:45 PM

Not in facebook so can't use your instruction
Guide or six apps frozen they keep downloading singly thenstopping and going on to another without completion
With kindle for instance it was an update now it's frozen and I can't get into my books
The others are either updates or new and are frozen hope you can help Rgds Noel

Posted by: Noel at March 19, 2012 10:17 PM

Thanks -- that worked perfectly!

Posted by: Margali at April 21, 2012 1:22 PM

I do have a lot to say, and questions of my own for that matter, but first I'd like to say thank you for all your efforts on this Web site by buying you a cup of coffee!

I do have a comment, now that you mention it!