Slack for Android has an annoying bug that ‘freezes’ channels, but a fix is coming

Ben Schoon | May 29 2020 - 7:40 am PT

Slack just gave its mobile apps a huge redesign, but with the Android version of the app, there’s an annoying quirk. With its latest update for Slack on Android, the channels can often “freeze.” It’s pretty frustrating, but at least Slack is both aware of the issue and working on a fix.

For those unaware, Slack groups are split up by various channels. You may have channels for specific teams, tasks, or just random topics. It’s a very organized way to work! However, with the latest Android update, Slack has been “freezing” when trying to update content from channels.

This bug is pretty frustrating for a handful of reasons. Primarily, it’s because Slack has no issue sending notifications, but when you click on it, the channel won’t update with the new messages. This happens outside of notifications, too. In some cases, I’ve also had Slack for Android freeze a majority of messages and just leave the latest message visible.

I put out a tweet on my personal Twitter account asking other users if they had experienced this issue, and later, Slack’s official account replied. The company said that this is a known issue and that they are in the process of fixing it. It’s “hoped” that a fix will be available soon. In the meantime, the only effective fix I’ve found for this issue is to force stop the app.

Thanks for confirming! This is actually a known issue that we're in the process of fixing. Sorry for the inconvenience! We hope to have this working properly again soon. 🌸

— Slack (@SlackHQ) May 29, 2020