GTA Liberty City Stories iOS crashes

Update: for the ‘Calm Before The Storm’ crash, read our workaround here.

The App Store reviews for GTA Liberty City Stories on iOS are flooded with complaints about the game crashing. For those on older devices, the game will often crash mid-mission, on saving and on trying to open the map.

Unfortunately, the app wasn’t limited to only compatible devices it seems when it was released. Try and play it on an iPad 2 and it’s almost impossible – it’s laggy, buggy and crashes frequently.

The developers are aware of this and now have added the following to the top of the store description:

PLEASE NOTE: This game is officially supported on the following devices: iPhone 5 & 6 Series, iPod Touch 6th gen, iPad 4th gen, iPad Air/Air 2, iPad Mini 2/3/4, and iPad Pro

Fine, but what if you’ve already downloaded it to an older device?

1. You can ask for a refund via iTunes
2. Wait in the hope that the developer is going to update it for older devices which looks highly unlikely given the above
3. Upgrade to a more recent device (ouch)
4. There are workarounds to make it just about playable – see below

Workarounds if it’s frequently crashing

1. Make sure you check the ‘auto sign-in’ box on the Social Club sign-in. This will remove the tedious wait when tapping on ‘skip’ and waiting for the game to load
2. Avoid using the map as this crashes frequently
3. Save the game after every mission. Saving does also cause crashes, but at least your mission progress is generally preserved after the crash, even if you often re-spawn where you finished the last mission.