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My widgets are blank

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.

Updated October 2026

The full answer

When that file is missing, the widget draws its empty face, and when it cannot be read the face asks you to open Fold’em, rather than inventing a number either way. Opening Fold’em once rewrites the file and reloads the placed widgets. If the empty face persists after that, the first thing to check is whether there is anything to draw yet, because no run is recorded on this phone.

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 Standing with faces read a second file of their own, which iOS keeps closed while the phone is locked.

The file is rewritten when protection starts or ends, when you start, extend or end a Lockdown run, when Fold’em comes to the front, when it goes to the background, and when your circle changes, which covers someone joining or leaving and a name you edit. 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, the widget falls back to its empty face rather than throwing away the draw. If it is unreadable, or written by a version the widget does not understand, the face asks you to Open Fold’em for updates instead. On the Gambling free faces the empty face reads No run recorded, 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 run recorded 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 recorded since.

The Circle 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 Circle 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.

Four widget kinds, ten faces, and the one thing a Lock Screen never says Four kinds of widget. Gambling free counts your time and has six faces: three sizes on the Home Screen and three on the Lock Screen, and the Lock Screen ones never say what the count is for, because a Lock Screen can be seen without unlocking the phone. Circle is one medium face carrying people from your circle, with a key mark on the one who holds your key. SOS is one small face, the pad that opens SOS. Standing with has two faces, medium and large, for the people you support. Every number a face shows comes from the app's own count, and a widget never works one out for itself. FOUR KINDS, TEN FACES Gambling freesix faces 12days Home Screen 12 Lock Screen Circleone face M S J who you can call SOSone face SOS one tap to SOS Standing withtwo faces S Sam R Ravi A Lock Screen face never says what the count is for. Every number a face shows comes from the app's own count.
Four widget kinds, ten faces: seven on the Home Screen and three on the Lock Screen. Gambling free counts your time across six of them; Circle, SOS and Standing with make up the rest.

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 the widgets that read it. 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, then Help, 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 four kinds: Gambling free, Circle, SOS and Standing with.

    Settings, scrolled to its foot: the Help group with Help, Report a problem, a Widget guide row and Contact us, then More, then Account with Manage subscription, Restore purchases and Delete account.

    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 site blocking drops, so a word there would go stale on exactly the faults it claimed to report. No face names what is blocked, the lock screen faces included: they show Your Time, or only the number and its unit, because a lock screen is read without unlocking anything.

Not the answer you came for?

Write to us and a person reads it. We answer within two working days, and we would rather hear the question twice than not at all.

Email support@foldem.app