MS To Do frequent crashing.

Hello everyone,

this issue was a nasty one. However, I might have a workaround, not fixing the bug, but eliminating the cause.

First, check if the following characteristics apply for your situation:

AFFECTED SYSTEMS AND HARDWARE

ToDo on iOS and iPadOS, all running on latest versions.

STEPS TO REPRODUCE

start up To Do, wait, crash occurs after 30-120 seconds

BEHAVIOR

There is an immediate generation of heat on the affected device after starting To Do that culminates in a crash of the app.

And now the possible solution:

1. Delete To Do app and its data from all of your iOS/iPadOS devices
2. Now, do some house cleaning in your data
   1. Log into your Microsoft account on the web and navigate to your To Do web application
   2. Delete all completed tasks (depending on how long and how viciously you have been using To Do, that may be a few thousand).
   3. If you are using M365 and Planner, go to the Planner web application and delete all plans that you don't use anymore. Also, delete all completed tasks in plans that are still active.
3. Restart your devices and reinstall ToDo. It should only synchronize your active tasks (either from To Do or Planner)

If you still got crash problems, delete plans from Planner that are particularly old (in that case it's best to create new plans and migrate active tasks there). I am recommending this, because I started having problems with To Do after I started using Planner again after a couple of years. I had some derelict plans in there, which were not syncing properly anymore.

POSSIBLE CAUSE:

I noticed that To Do began generating an unusual amount of heat right after startup. This might be a sign of some sort of indexing operation, which may cause a memory leak if it's badly implemented. Upon a memory leak the app crashes or it's terminated by iOS or iPadOS, respectively. So in order to reduce the load on the badly implemented indexing operation, I deleted everything I don't need anymore.

Note that deleting obsolete tasks without reinstalling the app does not necessarily work. Even that data is deleted on the server, there seems to be mess remaining in the application cache causing the app to crash over and over again. So it's imperative to clean the data on the server and delete the app from your target devices (iPhones and iPads) to get a clean slate.

CLOSING WORDS:

It took me about 2 weeks to figure this out, but up to now, To Do has not crahed for 4 days in a row. It's still a bit early to celebrate, but the indication is good.

I hope this helps any other To Do users that are having crash issues, too.

Cheers,

Robert

This seems to have done the trick for me - when I uninstalled I also removed it from the icloud account completely so it forced a completely fresh install from the app store - seems to be a different version as the settings options have changed on the new one it installed which is odd since it should have auto updated to any new versions.

Fingers crossed it lasts.

i have the same issue, has anyone found the solution? guru seems to have gone quiet looking through the thread

If you uninstall the app will you lose all your tasks? I am having a similar issue with it crashing on my iPhone

I am experiencing similar challenges with the To Do app that is loaded on my iphone 8. I like the app a lot, find it very useful app & use it daily. I have 137 tasks set up & deleting the existing app and reloading the app again along with re-entering the 137 tasks would be a real pain. Not sure that reloading the app again & all the tasks will actually eliminate all the challenges that To Do seems to be experiencing...

If you uninstall the app will you lose all your tasks? I am having a similar issue with it crashing on my iPhone

I am experiencing similar challenges with the To Do app that is loaded on my iphone 8. I like the app a lot, find it very useful app & use it daily. I have 137 tasks set up & deleting the existing app and reloading the app again along with re-entering the 137 tasks would be a real pain. Not sure that reloading the app again & all the tasks will actually eliminate all the challenges that To Do seems to be experiencing...

I’m also having crashes on iPhone and iPad. Devices are brand new. Once they crash and reopened then they are usable usually. Threads have said to delete the app and data. Really?? I have 588 tasks that I go through the year doing. Do they expect me to re enter all of them including all the notes I have in them? Not here. I’m going to try another app. I read that others are better and there’s no one at Microsoft that is interested in updating this app to work right. It hasn’t been updated in years. They don’t care I guess. Any suggestions on other apps?

Thanks for the idea! It’s a real shame that nobody at Microsoft gives a hoot about this product – really puzzling.

Question: I think I am inferring from your instructions that I’m only cleaning out all of my completed tasks. (I’ve been using a long time, so I’m sure there are thousands.) That means I wouldn’t be losing all of my planned/upcoming/repeating tasks ? They will download from the cloud once I’m done and install a completely fresh copy of the app? Do I have that correct?