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Troubleshooting

My widgets are blank

Updated September 2026

A Fold'em widget reads one small file the app writes into the space the two of them share, and it works out nothing for itself. When that file is missing or cannot be read, the widget draws its empty face and says so rather than inventing a number. Opening Fold'em once rewrites the file and reloads every placed widget. If the empty face persists after that, the usual reason is that there is nothing to draw yet, because no term is running.

What a widget actually reads

A widget on iOS is a separate small program from the app, and it cannot ask the app a question while it draws. So Fold'em does the opposite: the app writes a compact file into the container the app and its widgets share, and every face is drawn from that file alone. The widget signs in to nothing, calls nothing over the network and derives no figure of its own. Where the app and a widget could disagree about a number, they cannot, because there is only one place the number comes from.

The file is rewritten when the lock is armed, armed again or ended, when Fold'em comes to the front, when it goes to the background, and when your circle changes, which covers a rename, a photo, and someone joining or leaving. That is the whole of it. Anything that happens while the app has not been opened is not in the file yet.

A blank face is a statement

If the file is missing, unreadable, or written by a version the widget does not understand, the widget falls back to its empty face rather than throwing away the draw. The run face reads Nothing armed yet, and that is all it says: nothing on an empty face encourages you, scolds you or fills the space with a number that has no start. The same rule governs the ring. A deadline on its own cannot fill one, so with no anchor the face draws no ring and no zero rather than a fraction it made up.

Which means the first question is not what is wrong with the widget, but whether there is a run to draw. A phone with no term running has an honest empty face and there is nothing to fix.

Why the count still moves between rewrites

The run does not sit still waiting for you to open the app. When the widget asks for a timeline, it is given the current reading plus one entry at each of the run's own boundaries, timed to the anchor's own time of day rather than to midnight, so the count rolls over at the same instant the app would roll it. With no anchor there are no boundaries at all, so the face checks back once a day in case a run has been armed since.

The support face and the seats

The circle half is written more carefully than the rest, and the reason is worth knowing. On a cold launch the app's own circle is not settled yet, and a writer that baked what it saw at that moment would blank the support widget and then confidently reload it with the blank. So an unsettled circle is written as nothing known this pass, and the seats already on the widget are kept. A genuinely empty circle is written as empty and does clear it.

Three widget kinds, nine faces, and the one thing a lock screen never says Three kinds of widget. Run has seven faces. Its home screen faces name the category you sealed and show the day count; its lock screen faces show only the word HELD and the count, and never name the category, because a home screen needs an unlock to be seen and a lock screen does not. Support is one medium face carrying your circle, with a call and a message. Panic is one small face: the SOS pad, which opens the hub. Every number a face shows comes from the app's own count, and a widget never works one out for itself. THREE KINDS, NINE FACES Runseven faces SPORTSBOOKS 12days HELD 12days SPORTSBOOKSon the home screen SPORTSBOOKSnever on a lock screen Supportone face A B Call Message Panicone face SOS Every number a face shows comes from the app's own count.
Three widget kinds, nine faces. The Run widget's home faces name the category; its three lock screen faces say only HELD and the count. Support is one face for your circle, Panic is one face for the SOS pad.

If a face is blank or stale

  1. Open Fold'em, then go back

    Bringing the app to the front rewrites the file and asks iOS to reload every placed widget. This is the fix for almost every stale face, and it is the only one that is entirely in your hands: when iOS actually redraws is Apple's decision, not the app's.

  2. Judge it on the home screen, never in the gallery

    The widget gallery keeps its own cached pictures of each face, and those pictures survive the app being reinstalled. A gallery preview that looks blank or out of date is not evidence about your widget. Place the widget and look at the placed one.

  3. Add it again from Apple's guide

    Settings carries a Widget guide row that opens Apple's own instructions for adding a widget, because Apple maintains those and Fold'em maintains nothing in front of them. Fold'em offers three widgets: the run, your support circle, and the panic pad.

    Fold'em Settings with the Preferences group and the Help group, which carries Help, Talk to someone and a Widget guide row.

    Settings, the Help group

What this does not do

A widget enforces nothing. Removing one, or every one, blocks nothing extra and releases nothing: the shields are held by Screen Time and a DNS setting, and the file a widget reads is a picture of the state, never the state itself. A widget cannot show a status word for the shields either, and that is deliberate rather than missing: nothing that rewrites the file fires when Screen Time is turned off or the web shield drops, so a word there would go stale on exactly the faults it claimed to report. The three lock screen faces also never name what is blocked, only that something is held, because a lock screen is read without unlocking anything and a home screen is not.

Still stuck? Email support@foldem.app and we answer within two working days.