PSA: Chrome For iOS Update Crashes On Jailbroken Devices

Yesterday, Google released an update to its Chrome web browser for most of the major platforms, including Windows, Linux, iOS, and Android. However, it appears that a lot of users have been experiencing crashing issues with the new update on iOS, including many of our readers, as well as myself. It turns out that the update doesn't quite work well on jailbroken iDevices.According to Jay Freeman (a.k.a. Saurik, who operates the Cydia jailbreak store), the latest Chrome update for iOS adds "untested jailbreak-specific code," and the only way to fix the crashing issue is to enable "send crash reports" in Settings. However, that's not exactly possible when the app keeps crashing on its users.

Then again, you can change the setting by digging deep into your iOS device's file system by navigating to Library/Application Support/Google/Chrome/Local State and changing the "reporting_enabled" option to "true." Jailbreakers can use iFile or any other file explorer jailbreak app to get access to this setting. However, you do so at your own risk.

Google says they'll be releasing an incremental update to fix this issue, but there's currently no timeline as to when it will be released. Google also says that if you're not comfortable with digging into the file system, you can uninstall and reinstall Chrome and then enable crash reporting, but there's the chance you may lose data if you don't use sync. However, some SlashGear readers have mentioned that reinstalling didn't work for them, so your mileage may vary.