Google Maps has become a pretty vital part of many of our lives. We use it to get to new places, or even to explore the cities we’ve called home for years. Google has even continued to enhance the app with new AI-powered features that make navigation even easier. For others, it’s an important part of their commute using public transit, and for a small amount of people that rely on it for that method, a new bug in Google Maps has made it difficult to get the directions they need.
According to multiple comments on a Reddit post on Friday (via Android Police), many Google Maps users on Android have been experiencing issues with the app crashing whenever they look for transit directions on their device. There doesn’t appear to be any particular device or version of the app that is causing this issue specifically, as far as I can tell, and I wasn’t able to replicate the bug on any of the three Android devices that I tested it on.
Google Maps bug only affects public transit
The good news, at least for most Google Maps users, is that the bug doesn’t seem to affect any other navigation modes. Despite the bug being reported by users in the U.S., the U.K., and even Germany, it doesn’t appear to be an especially widespread issue. However, users on both Pixel and Samsung devices have experienced the bug, and there doesn’t look to be any known solution for it at the moment.
No amount of clearing the cache or resetting your device seems to make a difference, and even if you’re running the latest update of the app, there’s no way to know if you’re safe from the bug unless you try searching for transit directions yourself. And since Google Maps has made it even easier to find public transit options, this bug nerfs one of the best features of the app.
It also appears that some Google Maps users are reporting issues with the app on Downdetector, too, and it has even made an appearance on the Google Maps forums, which should hopefully mean Google is working on a solution already.
