Chrome 79 Android version now "catastrophic" bug: can cause other App data to be emptied

Version 79 of Chrome for Android was launched earlier this week, with new phishing protection and the ability to reorder bookmarks, but WebView issues associated with this version are affecting third-party Android applications and causing user data loss.

It is reported that some applications are not native, but are actually wrappers for web pages. When Google updates Android System WebView through the Play store, developers who build applications in this way will get the latest browser API and functionality. Android WebView is a Chrome-driven system component that allows Android applications to display web content. This component is pre-installed on the device and should be kept up-to-date to ensure that you have the latest security updates and other bug fixes.

On Friday morning, Android developers who relied on WebView and local storage began to encounter a problem that their applications lost data after users updated to WebView version 79. The affected developer's error tracker reflects on Chromium and describes this event as a "disaster" and "major problem".

The problem for users is that the application seems to have been completely reset, similar to the first download, the saved data disappears, and the login is logged out. Given the opacity of the system, most people will blame the problem on the developer.

A member of the Chromium team apologized on Saturday morning and suspended the release of Chrome / WebView, but 50 per cent of the device had been updated before that. Google is addressing the issue with the highest priority (P0), and Google says it is currently "developing a solution to minimize data loss and can be safely deployed."