Gospel Library crashes on load

I'm having an issue on my phone (Verizon, Orbic Joy, RC608L_v1.0.49_BVZPP/jenkins240316, Android 12 kernel 4.19.157-perf+) where the Gospel Library starts, displays the logo about 80% of the time (blue background only about 20% of the time), seems to be attempting to load, then crashes.

When this first started happening, I was able to uninstall/reinstall and the application would work. Sometimes it would work for a day, sometimes a little longer, before exhibiting the same behavior again. Now, nothing I do will allow the program to load properly.

Here are a few of the things I've attempted:

• * Clear cache & data
  * Re-install app
  * Force stop app
  * Power cycle
  * Monitor crashes with Scoop & ADB custom permissions, but no crashes were reported
  * Monitor logs with Logcat & ADB custom permissions
  * Battery saver completely disabled or enabled
  * Start in airplane mode
  * Start with mobile data OFF and WIFI on
  * Start with mobile data only (4GLTE)
  * Start with mobile data and WIFI both enabled
  * Over 8GB of storage space on main device available, all over APPS swiped out of background
  * Developer mode disabled background processes, and back to standard limit
  * I have minimal apps installed
  * Private DNS and custom DNS settings
  * In Developer Mode, tried the System Default graphics driver
  * Turned on "always show crash dialog", but no dialog is shown
  * Various other developer mode options
  * Entered bootloader but no cache partition clearing option present

I contacted the developers, explained my issues, and send a screen recording. Resolution was basically to wait for my phone manufacturer to update my phone (which has now happened twice, but without helping anything), or buy a new phone, but with no explanation of what the problem might be. They're busy, I get it, so I take this to mean: we won't try to fix this.

Does anyone else have the same problem, or know of other things to try?

Thanks for your help.

Do you have any updates for Google system libraries available, like Google Play Services or Chrome / Chrome Webview? Maybe there's a system library missing that Gospel Library is crashing when trying to load.

Thanks for the recommendation sbradshaw. My app updates are always manual, and all my system-related updates (well, all my updates) are current now and regularly watched.

After I posted, my brain started wondering what else I could try, and I decided to look for an APK directly from the Church. Not finding one, I thought I might try my luck with an APK from a secondary source. I found one with the filename "Gospel Library_6.9.0-(690050.1495392)_APKPure.apk" and installed it.

Much to my surprise, the Gospel Library loaded and I was able to browse the Handbook (which, for my calling, is mostly what I need on a regular basis; I've had to resort to the PDF download, which is quite cumbersome). Now I need to see if it continues to work over the next several days. It's not much of a solution, as it is most certainly not the latest version, but it may be something workable for now.

I'll return here and post my findings, in case they're helpful for anyone else. If this does continue to work, I may attempt to find all the APK versions I can locate, and test until I find a version that fails. If it doesn't continue to work, I suppose I'm back where I started more or less.

Forgot to mention another troubleshooting item that didn't work:

• Changed my default browser app from Firefox back to Chrome, and completely cleared/reset Chrome cache and stored files.

Again, this didn't help, but I thought that if the Gospel Library used the default browser somehow it might affect things.

At the bottom of the Gospel Library FAQ page, under "Can I download Gospel Library for Android without Google Play?", there's a link to download an APK. It might be a little more secure than an APK from somewhere else. I'd be curious to know if it works!
https://www.churchofjesuschrist.org/learn/mobile-applications/gospel-library-faq?lang=eng

Excellent! I didn't dig enough to find that. I've downloaded it... I'll go ahead and finish testing the one I have installed, just to be thorough. Normally, it would only run for a day, sometimes a few days, before failing again. When I get past that point, I'll test the APK from the link you shared to see if there is any difference.

Or, do you think I should go ahead and uninstall the one I have and test this one right away, to see if it even loads?

How much free memory do you have? Given the failure pattern, I have to wonder if you're at a critical threshold of free memory.

Edit: I see you say you have 8 GB, but I'd keep an eye on that and see what it's down to when it crashes.

8GB was the free storage space. I have 3GB of RAM total, but am not entirely sure how Android breaks up cached memory, etc, to say exactly how much I have available. I'll look for an app that might tell me more. The developer options screen says on average I use about 73% of my RAM (but again, that may be including cached and shared RAM).

Another note: I did test the developer option to terminate all background tasks (and disallow them), which would free up a maximum amount of RAM. Didn't help the program start when I tested that.

Update: This morning, the installed version (the APKPure version) no longer opens, but exhibits the same behavior as before (attempts to open, displays the logo for a few seconds, then crashes with no message). I've uninstalled it and re-installed the APK that was linked in this thread, from the Church website. That worked/loaded this AM, it remains to be seen if it will continue to work, or if it will behave the same as the others.

I'm not sure what would have changed overnight to cause this issue. I have seen on my wife's Lenovo tablet, a hidden background application designed to "optimize performance" that really just messed things up. I can't recall the name of the app that Lenovo uses, but that would be a vendor-specific issue. I haven't been able to detect anything on this Orbic that would be of that nature, but it's a possibility.

Another remote possibility (it seems to me) is that the fact that I use a non-stock launcher could cause some issue. I use Nova, which is very common. If the Church APK fails, I may attempt to remove that to see if it helps.

I'm still open to any troubleshooting suggestions!

Consider any security apps that might interfere with GL's ability to reach church servers. I'm thinking GL may not always reach out to the servers on startup, but it would if it's been awhile since the last sync.

Another idea: On launch, the app opens to where you were last time it was closed. Maybe the app opens fine if you were on Home or in a content chapter, but crashes if you were in a certain section of the app, like the bookmarks screen, or Settings, or in a study plan, or something else?

sbradshaw wrote: Tue Jun 04, 2024 11:54 am On launch, the app opens to where you were last time it was closed.

It does? Mine always opens to the Home page, even if I was elsewhere. Android GL 6.9.0-(etc.)

Mine opened up where I was last reading.

I left the app last night on the home screen, with no screens loaded.
I have no special security applications installed, and it fails to load whether using the cell network, home wifi, church wifi, and with custom DNS or not.

Same results this morning with the official build. The application crashes. I did test a few other things though:

1. Tested launching from the home screen (Nova) -- failed
2. Tested launching from App Manager app (muntashirakon.github.io/AppManager/en/) which allows you to view activities and launch specific activities -- failed
3. Tested launching from adb -- failed with the following output:
4. Tested switching back to system default home screen and launching from there -- failed

I'll continue goofing around with adb, but at this point I'm out of ideas again. If I find anything, or complete any other meaningful tests, I'll post the results here, otherwise I'll hope that someone else can come up with some more ideas. Thank you!

Another idea: On launch, the app opens to where you were last time it was closed. Maybe the app opens fine if you were on Home or in a content chapter, but crashes if you were in a certain section of the app, like the bookmarks screen, or Settings, or in a study plan, or something else?

When this first started happening, I thought it might be related to the state I was leaving the program in. I tried logged in / logged out, multiple screens open / one screen, no screens, etc. Nothing seemed to matter.

I'm still at a loss as to why this seems to happen after a period of non-use. The application worked fine all day yesterday, I used it several times.

As a note, I've also tried rebooting the phone, including this morning, but that doesn't change anything. The adb info is interesting, as it it seems to indicate that there is no particular failure that is presenting itself, the application just finishes trying to load and then doesn't load.

Here's a funny and interesting thing:

Using App Manager (mentioned previously), I'm able to launch the .ux.annotations.links.LinksActivity activity. This is usually called from within the Library app when you want to link text. From there, I can search from anything in the library (tested "handbook") and browse through the content as if I were going to link it. I'm able to see/read the content (text and images) just fine, in the link popup dialog.

It's not much, but it does let me read in the handbook

None of the other listed activities (there are 6 launchable activities in total) will launch to anything interactive. I also attempted to launch the service .media.library.MediaLibraryService, but that results in a popup "Gospel Library isn't responded" dialog, then "Gospel Library keeps stopping".

For the curious, here's an unlisted video / screen recording, demonstrating the crash and activity launch described above:

https://youtu.be/Y1G_O79RsbY

Are you able to replicate the "next day" crashing behavior by fully closing Gospel Library (swiping it out of the recent apps view), then opening it again? Android will close or pause apps in the background after a period of inactivity to free up memory, which is similar in some ways to fully closing and reopening the app. If you can't reproduce it that way, I think russellhltn's idea that it might have to do with the periodic syncing and content updating in the background (which happens every 12 or 24 hours) is likely.

There's an App Instance ID in Settings > About > ( i ) that the developers can use to search crash logs – maybe that would allow them to find a stack trace with some clues. Unfortunately, you can't get to Settings while the app is in a bad state; and, the App Instance ID changes when the app is deleted and reinstalled.

For next steps, I'd recommend deleting and reinstalling the app, and while it's working, get the App Instance ID. Then when it starts crashing again, you can send your App Instance ID to the support email (listed at the bottom of Gospel Library Support), along with a link to this forum thread for context. The team that triages feedback can then escalate it to a developer to search for crash logs under that App Instance ID. There's no guarantee that the crash logs will tell us anything useful, but they might!

For next steps, I'd recommend deleting and reinstalling the app, and while it's working, get the App Instance ID. Then when it starts crashing again, you can send your App Instance ID to the support email (listed at the bottom of Gospel Library Support), along with a link to this forum thread for context.

Thanks for this suggestion sbradshaw! I've got my current running/working (after re-install) App Instance ID of 80169462-5608-4217-9db9-6d8c5eeac46 which I will send to the development team (with this thread URL) tomorrow if/when the application stops working again tomorrow.

Concerning leaving it running: I have attempted to leave it in the background, and swipe it out, and force quit; none seem to impact how it responds the next day. At this point, I'm just pleased that it is working after re-install using the APK file. It had gotten to the point where even re-installing from the play store did nothing to help. In this state, I can at least re-install it Sunday morning and use it for my meetings :/

The GL app was crashing again this morning. I've sent an email to the Android team as suggested, with this thread and my appID. I'll continue to post any updates that are relevant. Thanks for your help and suggestions.

Quick update:

The developers are looking at this a little more, but it remains to be seen if the problem is too specific to my phone or not. For the sake of the thread, I'll note that I've also tried the following:

• Re-enable all disabled apps and update everything (no effect)

• Remove all third-party keyboard applications and use default GBoard included with phone (no effect)

I remain open to testing any ideas anyone may have, thanks!