At times, iOS apps could get stuck or freeze unexpectedly at the installation screen and you might see the app status as "Installing..." on the Home screen without any further progress. Such an issue could be isolated to the app itself or some corrupted system files due to constant changes made when multiple apps are being installed and uninstalled.
Nevertheless, here is a simple guide to help sort out the issue quickly:
Tap on the app icon
Try tapping on the icon from your device's Home screen to pause or restart the installation if it is getting stalled or unresponsive.
App installation might take longer than expected
Wait for around 10 minutes and let the app installation complete, before you try other troubleshooting steps. Larger files could take longer installation times especially on slower devices with weaker processing power. If the issue persists, proceed to the next step.
Try deleting the app
Just delete the offending app and try re-downloading and reinstalling it from scratch. This should fix the issue in most cases where the downloaded files got corrupted for some reason or installation crashed due to some missing files.
Here is how you can delete the offending app:
- Tap Settings.
- Tap General.
- Tap Storage and iCloud.
- Under the Storage section, tap Manage Storage.
- Scroll through the app list and tap on the app you want to delete.
- Now tap the Delete App button.
Restart the device
If you are unable to delete or uninstall the app, just restart the device and try uninstalling and reinstalling the app. If the files are still missing or you encounter an error message, you need to re-download the app.
If none of the basic steps helped you, here are some advanced methods to fix the issue:
App Store method
- Open the App Store and navigate to the Updated tab
- Go to Purchase History or Updates list and tap on the app that failed to install
- You will be redirected to the app details page. Just tap on the app icon in the top left corner of the screen.
- The app should now appear on the Home screen. Just hit the app icon once and it should start installing.
Note: This fix has been tested by several people and confirmed to be working as suggested on Apple's support forums.
iTunes method
- Plug-in your device to the computer via USB cable and launch iTunes.
- Backup all your data and apps from the iOS device to iTunes library.
- Now download the app you want to install on your computer via the iTunes App Store.
- Finally, sync the data for the app you downloaded from the computer to your iOS device.
Restore method
You could also try the iTunes restore method if none of the above steps helped you to fix the problem. However, such a restore process will erase any installed jailbreak including all associated tweaks and the Cydia app on your device.
Tip: Jailbreak users could try booting into safe mode to ascertain if any particular jailbreak tweak is causing the problem. If the issue is isolated to a specific tweak, you could try uninstalling the offending tweak to resolve the problem instead of restoring the device.
[Source: iDownloadblog]
