Last updated: April 4, 2026
The X app (formerly Twitter) crashes in at least four distinct patterns, and each one points to a different problem. A crash that happens immediately when you open the app is not the same problem as a crash that happens only when you scroll to a certain point — and the fix is completely different. Before trying anything, identify which pattern matches what you're experiencing.
This is a session or cache corruption problem. The app is failing to initialize its stored state before the UI even loads.
The app hit a specific piece of content — almost always a video, GIF, or large image — that it can't render. This is a media decoder crash.
The media viewer component is failing. On iPhone this often follows an iOS update; on Android it's frequently a RAM issue or decoder bug.
Your account data — timeline cache, notification queue, or a specific piece of content in your feed — is causing the crash. The app itself isn't broken; it can't handle what's in your account cache.
When X crashes before loading anything, the startup sequence is hitting a corrupted file. This is the most common crash type after an app update that failed partway through.
On Android: Go to Settings > Apps > X > Storage. Tap Clear Cache first — this preserves your login. Reopen. If it still crashes, tap Clear Data (this logs you out) and try again. If the crash persists even after clearing data, the app installation is corrupted. Uninstall completely, then reinstall from Google Play.
On iPhone: iOS doesn't expose a direct cache-clearing option. The equivalent is offloading: Settings > General > iPhone Storage > X > Offload App. This removes the app binary while preserving credentials. Tap Reinstall. If offloading doesn't fix it, do a full delete (hold the icon > Remove App > Delete App) and reinstall from the App Store.
Scroll crashes are caused by a specific tweet in your timeline that the app can't render. The app loads the surrounding tweets fine, but when it tries to load that one — which almost always has a video, animated GIF, or high-resolution image attached — the renderer crashes.
Open X in a browser — either the mobile browser version of x.com or on a desktop. Scroll through your timeline and find the piece of media that's causing the crash. Once you've scrolled past it in the browser, reopen the app — it will usually pick up from further down the timeline and no longer hit the problematic content.
If this crash happens repeatedly with different content rather than just one specific tweet, the underlying issue is your app's media cache getting too large or containing corrupted entries. Clear the app cache on Android, or offload and reinstall on iPhone. This forces X to rebuild the media cache from scratch.
X autoplays videos as you scroll. If your connection drops for a moment just as a video starts loading, the decoder can receive incomplete data and crash. You can reduce these crashes by turning off autoplay: X Settings > Accessibility, display, and languages > Data usage > set Video autoplay to "Never." This means you tap to play videos manually, but eliminates the decoder crash completely.
If the timeline loads fine but the app crashes specifically when you tap on an image to expand it or tap a video to full-screen it, the media viewer is broken — not the main app.
On iPhone after an iOS update: This is a known recurring issue. Apple's iOS updates sometimes change how apps are allowed to use hardware video decoders. X hasn't always updated their app before iOS releases. The fix is usually one of:
On Android: Clear the app cache first. If crashes on media continue, check available RAM — if your phone has less than 500MB free RAM, the media player component can't allocate enough memory to decode the video. Close other apps, clear some storage space, and retry. X is memory-hungry, especially with video.
This is the most confusing pattern because the app technically works — you can see the login screen, enter credentials — but the moment your account data starts loading, it crashes. The bug is in the cached account state, not the app itself.
The procedure: log out first if you can get far enough. If the app crashes before you can tap Settings, force-stop it (Android: Settings > Apps > X > Force Stop), then clear app data. On iPhone, offload and reinstall.
When you log back in, X will load fresh timeline data from the server rather than the corrupted local cache. The crash won't happen again unless the same corruption event reoccurs (e.g., another failed update).
One specific scenario: if someone in your timeline posted something that X's CDN delivered with corrupted metadata, your app may have cached that corrupted entry. Clearing the cache removes it. The post will re-download correctly on the next session.
Crashes in the compose screen are almost always a photo library permission issue. If X doesn't have access to your photo library, tapping the media attachment button causes a crash instead of showing a permission request (this is an X bug — it should show a permission dialog, not crash). Check: iPhone: Settings > Privacy > Photos > X > set to "Selected Photos" or "All Photos." Android: Settings > Apps > X > Permissions > Storage/Photos.
DM crashes in X usually mean the DM inbox has a media attachment that can't be rendered. Accessing DMs through x.com in a browser lets you clear or view the problematic message. Then clear the app cache and reopen — the DM view should load correctly once the problematic cache entry is gone.
Rare but real: opening a profile with a broken header image or banner that X's image decoder can't handle will crash the app. The workaround is viewing that profile in the browser instead of the app until X's servers process the corrupted image correctly.
Twitter / X app crashes immediately on open
Clear cache first: Android: Settings > Apps > X > Storage > Clear Cache. iPhone: Settings > General > iPhone Storage > X > Offload App, then reinstall. If it still crashes after cache clear, do a full uninstall and reinstall to fix a corrupted update.
X crashes when I scroll down the timeline
A specific tweet with media is crashing the renderer. Open x.com in your browser, scroll past the problematic content, then reopen the app. Turn off autoplay (Settings > Data usage > Video autoplay > Never) to prevent future scroll crashes from incomplete video loads.
X app crashes only when tapping images or videos
The media viewer component is failing — often after an iOS or Android update. Check for a pending X update first. Clear app cache. On iPhone, if this started after an iOS update, use x.com in the browser for media until X patches compatibility.
X crashes after I log in but works on the login screen
Your account's local cache is corrupted. Force-stop the app (Android), clear app data, then log in fresh. iPhone: offload and reinstall. The corrupted local state loads immediately on login and crashes the renderer before the timeline appears.