iPhone, iPad Users Frustrated By Endlessly Looping App Store Bug

Frustrated App Store users took to social media this morning to report an annoying bug that prevented them from downloading new apps or app updates.

The bug caused a Terms & Conditions update box to appear when users tapped the Get or Update button in the App Store, according to anecdotal reports on Twitter and Reddit. That isn’t the annoying part, however.

Even if users tapped the Agree button, the dialog box would simply reappear — and will continue reappearing in an endless loop.

Some users also reported receiving multiple duplicate emails informing them of a change in the Apple Media Services terms of use.

It isn’t clear how widespread the issue is, but it does look like it sporadically affected a small percentage of users. Of course, since the App Store user base is so large, a small percentage could still be a significant amount.

Similarly, it’s not known if the issue was tied to a particular region or country. We were unable to reproduce it in California during the writing of this article, but sporadic reports keep rolling in.

The bug did seem to be affecting users, no matter which version of iOS they were running. The endlessly looping dialog box has appeared for users running the latest software, as well as developer and public beta builds of an upcoming version of iOS.

Is There a Fix Coming?

Apple didn’t report any issues with the App Store on its System Status web page, so it’s likely that the problem was tied to a bug that didn’t severely impact the App Store’s availability.

As of the writing of this article, Apple is said to be slowly rolling out a fix for the App Store bug, which suggests that it’s a software problem in the backend of the platform. According to TechCrunch, that fix should finish rolling out within a couple of hours.

Because of that, the best course of action may be to just wait it out — especially since other supposed methods of mitigating the problem don’t appear very reliable.

That means you’ll actually want to get out of the looping dialog box, so just hit Cancel on the popup when it appears. That way, you can at least continue using your phone as normal until the fix reaches your particular device.