Pokemon Go has taken the United States by storm (or virally, whichever you prefer). Whatever the term, there are now over 22 million people (in the US alone) who play Pokemon Go on a daily basis - a quite astonishing number. But glitches like freezing PokeBalls make Pokemon Go more difficult for users. With this sort of active following, it should come as no surprise that a few glitches here and there have happened to turn up. Servers have limited capacity, particularly in cases where the game manufacturers didn’t anticipate such colossal growth in the US and worldwide. One of the most common and frustrating glitches occurs when players throw a PokeBall. Too often, the PokeBall bounces to and fro, with the Pokemon inside, and then just stops. Such is the frustration with this freezing Pokeball glitch that some players have actually quit playing the game. Here, though, we’d like to offer some hope. There is something you can do and some strategies to adopt with this particular glitch. Some users have actually had positive experiences with the frozen Poke Ball glitch, experiences we’ll outline over the course of this guide. We’ll also go through some of the things you can do to take advantage of the glitch, rather than letting the glitch just ruin your experience.

What is the Pokemon Go Freezing Pokeball Glitch?

At the outset, we should say that no player should quit Pokemon Go as a result of glitches. Let’s be honest, glitches are part and parcel of successful online games, and Pokemon Go is no exception. Battle through and, before you know it, the problem will be resolved. So what is this darn glitch that has everyone up in arms? The glitch occurs when some people throw a PokeBall at their target Pokemon. While the PokeBall bounces forward and back, the ball suddenly freezes – meaning the game often has to be restarted. The frozen Poke Ball glitch often means that you lose the Pokemon you were trying to catch as well. We’d ask trainers to take a more cautious approach. First, we need to understand that some people have had positive experiences with this glitch, in that they’ve actually captured the Pokemon even though the game freezes. So why the difference? It appears to depend on when exactly the game freezes. When the game freezes at an earlier point, the player is less likely to have captured the Pokemon, and when the game freezes at a slightly later point, the player is more likely to have captured the Pokemon.

Wait out the Pokeball freeze before restarting

The frustrating thing about this glitch is that there is no fixed rule. Some trainers have captured the Pokemon at the later stage but did not manage to capture the Pokemon in the game. However, this leads us to our advice to our players to wait it out before restarting the game. Keep focused on the white PokeBall in the top-left corner of the screen. This PokeBall spins when the game is loading. In other words, wait until this white PokeBall disappears before restarting the game. True, you might not actually have captured the Pokemon, but you have a greater chance of doing so if you wait for the loading sign to disappear. Some players have had great success, and it limits the potential damage that this annoying glitch can cause. Some other players have noticed that the Pokemon they wished to capture when the glitch occurs actually returns to the same spot where they encountered it. In other words, you should go back to the same area to try and re-catch the Pokemon where possible. Again, though, we have to be clear these aren’t 100 percent solutions. They are solutions that many people have had success with, but not everyone. Below, we’re going to outline another solution that users have found useful. This next solution is unusual in that it involves turning off the Internet in order to catch a Pokemon that was captured online. Nonetheless, it has proved effective for many people and so it’d be remiss of us not to share it with you here.

How to Fix the Pokemon Go Freezing PokeBall Glitch

A solution has circulated throughout the online world about how players can overcome the freezing glitch. It’s a solution that has worked for a great deal of people, but has yet to prove effective for all players of Pokemon Go. The frozen PokeBall glitch solution is actually quite simple. It involves being quick and being smart. First, players should immediately close the Pokemon Go app when the game freezes. They should then go to settings and change the mobile’s status to airplane mode and restart the app. Unusual, right? We’re not quite sure why airplane mode is effective, but apparently, it is! With airplane mode activated, enter the Pokemon Go app, and you’ll see a notification, 'no Internet connectivity'. At this point, go back into your settings and turn off airplane mode. Go back into the Pokemon Go app with full Internet connectivity and you should, hopefully, have successfully captured the Pokemon.

Steps to Stop the Freezing PokeBall Glitch in Pokemon Go

  • When the game crashes, immediately close Pokemon Go.
  • Turn on airplane mode.
  • Enter Pokemon Go and see the notification ‘no Internet connectivity.'
  • Turn off airplane mode.
  • Return to Pokemon Go and you should have captured the Pokemon.

Again, it’s worth emphasizing that this solution hasn’t worked for everyone. Even still, many people have spoken up to say it has worked for them. But this isn’t the only solution that has imbued the internet as other solutions have also reared their head. The following solution is only effective for users with iPhone 6 (apologies to those with older models). Trainers who experience the glitch should go to settings and then to cellular data options. There, trainers should deactivate "enable LTE". This is intended to make Pokemon Go run smoother. It’s not intended to be a complete fix. Nonetheless, many people have reported significantly fewer glitches as a result of using this technique. Give it a shot and see if it works for you. However, the full issue with the freezing glitch won’t be resolved until action is taken by the game developers. They need to resolve not only this bug but every other bug that has afflicted Pokemon Go to date. We can only anticipate that more such bugs are likely to emerge as Pokemon Go becomes ever more popular. How the game manufacturers respond to this inevitable growth is yet to be seen, but we hope they’ll have learned from this freezing experience. Only time will tell.