Major iOS bug is preventing some apps from launching

By Stephen Warwick
published

iOS 13
iOS 13 (Image credit: Rene Ritchie/iMore)

What you need to know

  • There are reports of a major bug in iOS 13.5.
  • It seems some users are unable to open their apps.
  • There's currently no workaround.

A major bug in iOS 13.5 is preventing users from opening apps.

According to 9to5Mac:

iOS 13.5 was released for all users this week, and it's already causing some problems. According to several reports on social networks, some users cannot open their iPhone and iPad apps as the system shows an unexpected error message.Essentially, when trying to open some apps, iOS shows the following message:This app is no longer shared with you. To use it, you must. buy it from the App Store.

From the error message, users can only go to the App Store or select cancel. The report states that there is no pattern to which apps are affected, but that the error message relates to Apple's iCloud Family Sharing feature. The report further notes:

That doesn't mean, of course, that there's a problem with your iCloud account if you're facing this bug. Most likely, there's some mess going on with Apple servers that are preventing iOS from verifying that you've already purchased an app.

It seems that right now there is no workaround or fix for this, or whether this is a cloud/server-side problem, or whether this is indeed a bug built into iOS 13.5, which would require a patch.

See more

If you've also been experiencing this issue then let us know in the comments or over on Twitter. Apple released iOS 13.5 to the public this week, and this update is particularly notable because it signals the release of Apple's new contact tracing technology, built-in partnership with Google.

Stephen Warwick
Stephen Warwick
News Editor

Stephen Warwick has written about Apple for five years at iMore and previously elsewhere. He covers all of iMore's latest breaking news regarding all of Apple's products and services, both hardware and software. Stephen has interviewed industry experts in a range of fields including finance, litigation, security, and more. He also specializes in curating and reviewing audio hardware and has experience beyond journalism in sound engineering, production, and design.

Before becoming a writer Stephen studied Ancient History at University and also worked at Apple for more than two years. Stephen is also a host on the iMore show, a weekly podcast recorded live that discusses the latest in breaking Apple news, as well as featuring fun trivia about all things Apple. Follow him on Twitter @stephenwarwick9

8 Comments
  • I had this problem last night when trying to use Facebook on my iPad. All I had to do was delete the APP and reinstall it. After the reinstall Facebook worked.
  • Had that with WhatsApp today.. only way round it was to delete the app and reinstall..
  • I had this issue with WhatsApp. Offloading the app and then reinstalling also helps. This preserves your data.
  • While I did not get the screen shown in this article, I have had issues with opening apps. They act like they are launching then they crash. Mine (so far) have been with August Smart Lock, and Ecobee. Same as some others, I deleted the app and reinstalled, seemed to fix it.
  • iOS 13 could well be the worst iOS release for bugs to date. At this point I think the iOS 14 Public Beta will be more stable
  • This happened with the app, “Oh Bother “ (great for those who work from home!). Reinstalled and it worked and still had my data.
  • My wife ran into this w/ the Fitbit app - simple delete - reinstall - no problem :)
  • My son and I both had this issue.