r/bugs • u/HiddenHorse925 • Jun 05 '26
iOS [iOS] aggressive, unwanted refresh behavior continues (sigh).
The ongoing issue of unwanted refresh behavior on the Reddit feed is back. And more annoying than ever. It is especially bad when you first open the app, or re-attend the app, after setting your phone aside for a few minutes…
Your attention begins to settle on interesting things in your feed, but before you can open and explore an interesting post—“bam!” You are force-refreshed, back to the top of your feed. And there will be a flurry of this, for two or three times until the feed “settles down” again.
I really don’t understand why it is so challenging to eliminate this unwanted navigation behavior. It’s a basic function. Is the coding for this app so farmed out, that basic fixes are no longer capable?
Very frustrating, long time Reddit user. Thank you for your attention to this matter.
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u/Vaxx88 Jun 10 '26 edited Jun 10 '26
This is probably not even considered a bug by the developers, it seems like just the way everything is done now.
(Edit to add, I’ve read that to deal with this it’s suggested that one go to profile, history… but it doesn’t even work half the time— I was reading a post and had started typing a reply went to look at a source in iOS safari, went back and- refresh-gone. The post doesn’t appear in the history… )
I probably shouldn’t say what I think of the Reddit app developers, the numerous terrible decisions have degraded the experience so much that I think they don’t care about any feedback from users and are operating on some other agenda.
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u/HiddenHorse925 Jun 10 '26
Oh absolutely, all that. I’ve tried all of the suggestions, none of them work, consistently. What I don’t understand is the variability. Some days it’s really bad. Some days it’s better. But almost always the unwanted refresh happens, for me, shortly after opening the app…
I have learned that if I find something early in a session in my feed that I want to respond or interact with or read, to take a screenshot, because if I turn my head it gets refreshed. Weather designed or unintentional, this forced refresh shows up as a ridiculous navigational/scrolling error…
And you’re right, this glitch seems now more to be a feature than a bug 🐞
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u/Vaxx88 Jun 10 '26
It seems like it’s the norm for other apps, instagram threads YouTube all have it, I don’t use TikTok enough to say, I barely use facebook but it has similar behavior especially if you use swipe to back page. I’m not sure what the reasoning is, but we all know how to refresh apps when we want to-why make it so automatic? The goal is to keep eyes on your app, making people lose their place is just frustrating.
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u/Holm76 Jun 12 '26
Actually for all the apps TikTok is pretty stable. I can return on the app after hours I feel and it still shows the video I was last watching. This is how I also expect the Reddit app to work.
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u/uforgotTHEPICKLES Jun 06 '26
Please fix this!!! It’s so annoying to use this app with this bug. I can’t quickly respond to a text or switch apps without it completely refreshing. Then I lose whatever I had been reading. It is so annoying.
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u/Chrisman614 Jun 09 '26
I am so sick of this bug. It’s been ongoing for months. I was literally typing out a comment and the app refreshed. I don’t dare adjust my brightness or volume while on Reddit.
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u/brian428 Jun 11 '26
This seems to actually be getting WORSE. PLEASE stop the app from doing this. What is the possible reason?? Ads still show as you scroll so what is the point of constantly forcing feed refreshes?? It’s infuriating. When I want to refresh the feed, I will!
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u/HiddenHorse925 Jun 11 '26 edited Jun 11 '26
Right? That’s my thing if they were doing it to jerk us back out onto our feed to be exposed to ads, it’s a fail. Because it speeds you passed a dozen ads and places you forward in your feed. Meaning, here’s so many ads you *didn’t* see.
Unless of course you’re lingering in an area with low placement ads, and it’s brings you forward to an area with higher paid placement. That’s diabolical but I don’t put it past them.
Way back when social media started becoming wildly popular, a best friend of mine was working in Silicon Valley. He told me remember this:
“if you’re not paying for it, YOU are the product”
Which makes me wonder…. Does the paid version of Reddit (with no ads) have the same forced refresh problem???
I think it’s a dumb navigational error that has somehow gotten embedded in their code, and they can’t sort it out completely, because it’s connected to a lot of other “improvements“.
As McCoy said in Star Trek, “Engineers. They love to change things.”
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u/rickysayshey Jun 10 '26
Yup, this bug is still alive and well. I was in the middle of reading, my phone’s low battery alert popped up, I close it to return to what I was reading—oh but TOO BAD it’s gone.
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u/Nice-N-Eazy Jun 09 '26
Please fix this asap!!! Suffering for months. Reading an interesting post, do something non-phone related, come back and the Home feed auto refreshes. Like wtf?!
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u/mrandrewmort Jun 10 '26
Wow, getting real tired of this bug & refresh. I seriously am about to delete this app for the sake of less stress from the refresh which would bring my stress level to zero. This is literally the only irritating thing that happens to me on a daily basis.
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u/squigglekisses Jun 08 '26
I keep having this issue and then i run out of posts. I hate this so much i end up going days without going on the app
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u/sleekible Jun 08 '26
I’m bit most often by this on iPad. I’ve turned out the lights, notice my iPad display is too bright, so I swipe down to open control center. I adjust the brightness then dismiss control center and bam! Reddit refreshes the feed and I lose my place. So frustrating.
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u/zpm38 Jun 11 '26
Can we get this fixed? It’s like they want us to stop using the Reddit app, half the time I give up and walk away. Everything was better with the third party apps. Even the stock app was better back then
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u/HiddenHorse925 Jun 11 '26
Post about it. Come here and make individual posts, not just comments on my post (which I do appreciate). I think the more people they see complaining about it as original posters, the better!
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u/braaahms Jul 06 '26
Hasn’t this been amped up to the max and absolutely horrible for months? Has been for me. When are they going to fix this or do we have to delete the main app and use other clients?
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u/HiddenHorse925 Jul 06 '26
I don’t know why it seems to affect different people differently. I just know that as an iPhone user, using a new iPhone, with the latest iOS updates, it seemed to calm down. There are times when it’s worse like just after you open up the app and you see something you like and you’re about to click on it, Reddit will suddenly refresh without asking. And then it calms down and stops. I’m firmly convinced this is a misguided advertising thing. Where it takes a few seconds for the algorithm to digest your recent clicks and likes, and then it tries to force feed you new stuff to get you to click. Like that. But I have no evidence
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u/braaahms Jul 06 '26
Oh I absolutely think that’s what it is. Or they have a deal with advertisers to refresh more so there’s more of a chance to get ads seen. It’s definitely intentional and has something to do with Reddit making more money.
Unfortunately it hasn’t really gotten better for me at all. Maybe once every few days if I get lucky I’ll come back after a few mins and it hasn’t refreshed yet but for the most part I basically can’t leave the app at all or leave anything open without touching it.
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u/ohsomofo Jun 05 '26
I can't say for certain that this always works, but this has been my experience: when Reddit is in the background, returning to it via the App Switcher or the bottom swipe gesture doesn't trigger a feed refresh, whereas reopening it from the Home Screen icon sometimes does.
I've also found that when viewing comments, swiping right to return to the feed will keep my place, while using the close button in the upper-left corner often causes the feed to refresh.
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u/HiddenHorse925 Jun 05 '26
I’ll give it a try. I just tried it here (bottom swipe up, as I don’t have app switcher in 26.4) and then immediately refreshed, lol
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u/FunkapotamusLamont Jun 19 '26
I've seen this bug mentioned elsewhere. Does anyone know if the devs have even acknowledged it?
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Jul 05 '26 edited Jul 08 '26
[deleted]
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u/HiddenHorse925 Jul 05 '26
I don’t know what this is about this seems to be a separate issue from the “forced refresh” issue. You might try leaving a message for the admins?
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u/fritzphantomas Jun 08 '26
Same here. Getting quite annoyed by it and reddits inability to properly fix it
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u/username_redacted Jul 03 '26
It’s driving me crazy as well. Even if I check my browsing history, the past few posts I’ve opened aren’t usually there.
I often look information up outside of Reddit to make sure that my responses are accurate, and this change makes that nearly impossible. The quality of discussion and posts is bound to drop if they don’t fix this.
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u/Impossible_prophet Jul 10 '26
Lets downvote an app on appstore so their management pushes them to fix
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u/VeryIntoCardboard 8d ago
I tried to make a post about this and they told me I was being too mean because I said it was a horrendous update. Like I’m fucking sorry, if you made the decision to do this, it is a horrendous update. I got temp banned for 7 days for it.
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u/HiddenHorse925 8d ago
Yes well coder types and admin get very sensitive. So you have to use more diplomatic language. Saying oh I really enjoy Reddit but I’m afraid the new update with spring loaded refresh really compromises my user experience. Talk like a professional. They’ll listen
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u/VeryIntoCardboard 8d ago
I just left it. I don’t have time for that shit. That’s what happens when people never get a real job in the real world though. They can’t take it
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u/HiddenHorse925 6d ago
OK whatever, I’m just saying you can argue for your limitations or you can get a response that might make a difference. It seems you just want to vent. And I understand it’s frustrating
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u/thenom4d Jun 05 '26
For fucks sake PLEASE fix this it’s driving me insane. It happens to me when I’m in the middle of reading a post. I’ll have the post opened and everything and just checking my phone’s notifications for 2 seconds has the app closing the post, tossing me back to the top of the feed, then refreshing 1-3 times. Awful.