How to fix widgets going black/blank

1

The drafts widgets on iPhone often go blank like this:

image
image828×1792 142 KB

This isn’t limited to drafts - it also happens with Notion
Any ideas why this happens and if it can be prevented?

2

If you search in your favourite search engine for this general issue, you get lots of results for people discussing this on a variety of fora.

The things that seem to have worked for people look to be:

  1. Device restart.
  2. OS update.
  3. Device wipe/reset.

This is a bug/glitch. It seems users can fix it but not prevent it.

3

It is an iOS bug. It seems, generally, to be related to a problem the OS has registering app extensions which has been around since iOS 14 launched. Widgets (and also Share sheet items) are implemented in extensions. Both have trouble, especially around the installation of updates, with failing to work properly.

As @sylumer noted, there are workarounds. Rebooting (power off-on) the device is the most reliable, but does not fix it all the time.

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