NHS COVID-19 Exposure Notification
A team of researchers from Guy's & St Thomas' NHS Foundation Trust and King's College London describes how a 59-year-old man eventually beat his infection after more than 13 months in a new study published in the journal Clinical Infectious Diseases. (Photo: Markus Winkler/Unsplash)

A temporary fix was recently issued to deal with the annoying 'blue screen' error that hounded users of the NHS COVID-19 Exposure Notification App.

Several users recently complained about experiencing a 'blue screen' glitch on the NHS COVID-19 Exposure Notification App that causes it to suddenly stop loading. The error on the contact-tracing app made it impossible for users to check for updates or enter results. Reports indicate that many of these errors appeared over the weekend, with some users saying their app was stuck on the loading screen. The NHS immediately advised users to apply a temporary fix using a workaround.

"If your NHS Covid-19 app is stuck on the blue loading screen when you open it, there are two ways you can try and fix it," The NHS Test and Trace, on the question and answer section of its website, stated. The health agency said that for COVID-19 Exposure Notification App users who are experiencing the 'blue screen' error, they can try checking their iOS devices first if it upgraded to the latest iOS version before trying out the workaround.

   

For the workaround, the NHS advises COVID-19 Exposure Notification App users who experience the 'blue screen' error to first close the app, and then tap their iPhone's Settings. They should then select General and Reset. After this, users need to tap on the Reset Location and Privacy, after which they can try launching the app once more.

The NHS COVID-19 Exposure Notification App 'blue screen' error was a hot topic on some social media platforms. This was before the workaround advice issued by the health agency. One user even compared the notification app's 'blue screen' bug to Microsoft Windows' infamous 'blue screen of death." The anomaly signals there is an error on the system, causing it to just freeze or shut down without warning.

Before the NHS issued the workaround, users inundated the reviews page on the App Store with complaints about the 'blue screen' error on their COVID-19 Exposure Notification App. Many of them also left one-star ratings over the weekend after the app suddenly stopped working on their devices. There were also reports that the COVID-19 Notification App, which has been downloaded over 19 million times, is also having all sorts of bugs aside from the 'blue screen' error. Some users say that they started having problems with the app when they upgraded to the new iPhone 12. Those who bought the new devices and who tried to restore from a recent backup received a notification saying "unfortunately, you cannot run this app." Users then would have to manually change their Settings by choosing "exposure notifications" to toggle the "share exposure information."