Google Chrome 79 update rollout halted after bug wipes out app data

• A bug in WebView is causing data loss for a few apps on Chrome 79.
• Google has paused the rollout of the update; 50% users are already on Chrome 79.
• Google acknowledged the issue and is currently working on resolving it.

Google started rolling out the Chrome 79 update with improved password protection a few days ago for mobile and desktop users. But it has paused it after a bug has surfaced -- which wipes the data in a few apps that use Android’s WebView.

The issue was first spotted by 9to5Google and has also been reported by several users who have been affected by this, on Chromium’s bug tracker page. While Google has paused the update, the tech giant has confirmed that approximately 50% of users are already on Chrome 79.

Users affected by this bug have started posting one-star reviews for the apps on the Play Store, without realizing that the app developers cannot fix it. The app developers, in turn, have been complaining to the Chromium developers.

It has been found that the reason for this bug is that in Chrome 79, the location where the web data is stored was updated. However, the local storage was missed from the list of files migrated, causing data loss.

A Chromium engineer responded to the complaint and assured developers that the company is working on multiple strategies to solve the issue. The engineer also said that they are currently discussing the correct strategy for resolving this issue which will be one of:

a) continue the migration, moving the missed files into their new locations.

b) revert the change by moving migrated files to their old locations.

The engineer also promised to alert developers of the option that has been chosen.

“In the meantime, it would be good to collect a list of affected packages, and details of whether any mitigations have been released to users, and in what versions so that we can test that the re-spin doesn't interact badly with the mitigation,” he said.

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