iOS Home Screen Widget Flicker in Gallery

My iOS 14 home screen widget intermittently flickers in the widget gallery view. This happens sometimes when I run the widget from the simulator and sometimes happens in production. It seems like the widget is failing to instantiate before any of my code is run. I'm not able to hit any breakpoints. Has anyone seen this before?
  • This is still happening daily, hourly, during Christmas of 2021 all the way moving forward to 2022. Please fix it, it's really annoying!

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This appears to be a bug with iOS 14. After updating, widgets on my phone, including system ones like Weather, keep flickering. Hopefully Apple fixes it soon.
Also is happening to me
The same just started happening to me. I deleted the “colour widget” widget. So far it has stopped flickering since then.
I’m still using the photo and calendar widgets.
It seems like iOS 14 tries to show a cached version of the widget while it initializes an updated version, and if the widget fails to initialize this flickering will occur. I reduced my widget's snapshot logic to use hardcoded values to optimize its launch performance. Seems to have helped a bit, but it's hard to tell if that actually solves the issue.
I’m also having the same issue, I rlly hope apple gets on this fast
I also have the same problem. It seems to happen after app updates. During development I thought this only happens on the simulator, but today sadly some users reported this issue after I released an update.
For me it it also happening on the Home Screen and not only in the widget gallery.

Video of Home Screen Flicker
Video of Widget Gallery Flicker

I'm seeing this as well from my app. It seems to only happen 5% of the time, but more often when I am changing widget configurations and asking for a reload, then it will trigger repeated flashing. I find that it immediately stops if I force quit the "container" app...I'm not sure if this also kills off any widget extension processes?

It is super annoying as when it happens the debugger will disconnect. I also tried viewing console logs, but it seems they also stop when the flashing begins. So I'm at a loss as to whether this is a WidgetKit bug or a bug in my widget.
Anyone notice if the 12.2 beta 2 fixes this issue?


On StackOverflow someone mentions that the issue could have something to do with the use of custom fonts. Maybe this could be a reason. I haven't tried it out by myself yet. --> StackOverlow

Does someone who is using system fonts experience the same "flicker problem"?
Still getting this on iOS 14.0.1. Has to do something with custom fonts, when I use system fonts the flickering goes away.
I experenced the same. I had an App called "Colour Widgets" where i had a time/date widget which also flickered. Once I removed this App no more problems.
I am also facing the same issue and found no solution. gamesapkworld.com

Is there any way to deal with this? My widget flickers for a mini second with really old data, only happens to the small widget when opening the widget screen to add, and after selected it flickers an old view again in the widget preview gallery. Happens the same if using custom font or not