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Troubleshooting Installs or Updates

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Android

  • Confirm that Signal is supported by your OS.
    Signal Android has a minimum OS requirement of Android 5.0.
  • Check your internet connectivity. 
    For best results, connect to Wi-Fi before downloading.
  • Is Signal showing "Installed" but not "Open"? 
    • If Signal is installed on your phone then the Google Play store page will show "Uninstall" and "Open".
    • If you see "Installed" then it looks like you are signed into a different account for the Google Play store than what is on your phone. Check that you are signed into the correct Google Account for the store. 
  • Do you see an alert of insufficient space on your device?
    You will need to free up some memory on the internal storage of your phone. You may need to uninstall other apps to clear space. A minimum of 50MB is recommended when installing or updating.
  • Is Signal stuck "Installing" or "Downloading?"
    1. Confirm you have enough free memory on your device as listed in the steps above.
    2. Check Google's support center for additional information.
  • Do you see error codes?
    1. Clear cache for Google Play Services app. Go to Android Settings > Apps or Application Manager > ALL > Google Play Services > Clear cache > OK
    2. Check Google's support center for additional information.

 

iOS

Apple controls downloads and installs for all iPhone apps. Check Apple's support center for additional information.

  • Confirm that Signal is supported by your iOS.
    Signal iOS has a minimum iOS and iPadOS requirement of 15
  • What if I can not tap the "Install" button or it is grayed out?
    Try connecting your phone to your computer and complete syncing your apps via iTunes. 
  • What if Signal is stuck on "Installing" or "Waiting" on my phone?
    It looks like you've ran out of free space on you phone. You will need to free up memory and then you can go to the App Store app and finish or restart your app updates. 
  • What if the iTunes store asks for a password or payment? 
    Signal is free to use. This will be happening for any app that you are trying to download and is not unique to Signal. The iTunes store and your settings require you to login to download. 
  • What if the store page only shows "Open" but I'm not on the latest version? 
    It sounds like you have signed in to your iPhone with a different Apple ID than what you used when you originally downloaded Signal. 
    1. Go to the App Store on your iPhone.
    2. Tap your profile picture in the top corner.
    3. Tap Purchased > My Purchases > select the tab Not on this iPhone.
    4. Confirm that Signal is listed in the tab Not on this iPhone. 
    5. To receive updates on this Apple ID, uninstall Signal then install a new version while logged into the correct Apple ID for this phone. Note: Uninstalling Signal will clear your message history.
  • What if my iPad shows a "NetworkManagerError error 409" when trying to link?
    That error indicates that you're trying to link a device that is using an older version of Signal. Note that Signal requires iPadOS 15 or later.

 

Desktop

  • Confirm that Signal is installed on your Android or iOS device.
    Signal Desktop must link with either Signal Android or Signal iOS to be available for messaging.
  • Confirm that Signal Desktop is supported by your OS.
    Signal Desktop has a minimum OS requirement of:
    • Windows 64-bit: 10 and 11
    • macOS 10.15 and above
    • Linux 64-bit distributions supporting APT, like Ubuntu or Debian.
  • What if Signal has not updated on my Mac?
    • If your Mac user is not an admin, you may see an additional prompt limiting you from updating Signal. For non-admin users, search for and open ~/Applications 
       step2findernonadminuserdirectory.png
      Then, move Signal to the user specific Application folder. 
      desktop-mac-move-after.png
    • If your Mac user is an admin, 
      1. Open the terminal, enter id -un to determine your username.
      2. Replace USERNAME with the info from step 1 in the line sudo chown USERNAME ~/Library/Caches/org.whispersystems.signal-desktop.ShipIt/* and enter it into the terminal.
      3. Open Signal Desktop and choose to update through the banner alert.
  • What are other steps to install on Linux?
    • Confirm you have APT.
    • Enter the following three lines into your terminal. 
      1. wget -O- https://updates.signal.org/desktop/apt/keys.asc | gpg --dearmor | sudo tee /usr/share/keyrings/signal-desktop-keyring.gpg > /dev/null
      2. echo "deb [arch=amd64 signed-by=/usr/share/keyrings/signal-desktop-keyring.gpg] https://updates.signal.org/desktop/apt xenial main" | sudo tee -a /etc/apt/sources.list.d/signal-xenial.list > /dev/null
      3. sudo apt update && sudo apt install signal-desktop
    • Some users will need to unset /tmp as noexec.

 

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