Fallout Shelter bugs

This page describes and lists any known fixes for known issues and bugs on the iOS and Android game Fallout Shelter.

If you send an explorer outside he won't collect any Items or Caps

Android
This is caused when a player advances the phone's timer ahead. After the amount of time that was jumped ahead passes, the explorers should start encountering creatures and collecting loot again.
 * If a deathclaw attack starts while having a new dweller from the wasteland outside, the "Survive deathclaw attacks with no casulties" objective will not advance.
 * If the phone battery life runs out and the phone turns off while playing Fallout Shelter, the vault that was being accessed will be deleted and all progress destroyed.
 * Occasionally when Mr. Handy is sent to the wasteland when on low health, he duplicates and a copy is in the game permanently.
 * If a Mr. Handy dies when you're zoomed in a room the whole screen is going to stay with a white layer on top.
 * Crippling performance issues and performance leaks with any action. Lag spikes can become unbearable after less than 10 minutes of heavy activity, so bad as to even make quitting the game difficult.
 * Tasks randomly stop counting towards objective completion when returning to the game after a crash or even after a proper exit.
 * Crashes when heavily using the room assignment list. Often the game will crash when using the room assignment list to assign dwellers to rooms.
 * Frequently moving dwellers around causes some major kind of performance leak, along with doing just about everything else. Reset the game frequently.
 * Sometimes deselecting a room or a dweller will not change the interface, the interface will remain until you select and deselect another dweller or room.
 * Objectives cannot be removed each day on Android Lollipop version.
 * The first tutorial that has you building the power plant. After that it tells you to select a dweller to assign to the power plant and the dweller cannot be selected.
 * All dwellers have blacked out faces.
 * Sending out an explorer sometimes results in an absurdly large return time when recalled.
 * During raider attacks if the game crashes, upon reloading the vault is still in "under attack" mode but there is nothing to attack, the raiders are already gone. Resources no longer produce, nothing progresses. The room that was being raided still has dwellers with HP bars ready to fight, but nothing to fight. All other rooms look like they are operating normally but do not produce any resources.(Try quitting the game and coming back through the main menu).
 * When you unequip armor and weaponry from a dweller before they enter the vault the game will crash and, while restarting it crashes when trying to load the vault,
 * When in loading screen after choosing vault number, the game will crash and sends back to phone home screen.
 * The game will eventually get stuck on the "Loading..." screen when loading the Vault.
 * The only known fix is to force stop the game then clear its cache.
 * If this doesn't work, reset the device as well.
 * Occasionally when dwellers are sent to explore, they will end up exploring for an infinite amount of time without accumulating items or experiencing events.
 * Supposedly if they're out for longer than 60 hours, they never get any events or items beyond that.
 * Constant crashes when opening objectives screen. Game restart does not fix the problem.
 * Fix: reddit fix
 * Game crashes on "Please stand by" screen if the cellphone shut down while playing previously.
 * The only known fix currently is to completely reinstall Fallout Shelter, as the crash destroys any existing saves.
 * When assigning Vault Dwellers to a new room or when two couples go to have a baby at the same time (overlapping themselves), occasionally they will become invisible and unable to be selected. To fix this close down the app completely.
 * Another fix that works sometime is to make the invisible dweller go through an elevator by assigning him to a room on a different floor by using the asignment list menu.
 * If the phone's batteries run out after opening a lunchbox and unlocking the cards, the cards will disappear once the game has restarted.
 * In radroach incidents, sometimes the workers will animate as running around uselessly or continuing their work task instead of assisting with exterminating the radroaches if they are unarmed.
 * XP earned while the vault dwellers are exploring the wastes doesn't seem to increase their level.
 * Stimpaks cannot be applied to dwellers.
 * Invisible Corpse - When reviving dwellers there's a chance that an invisible corpse will remain and upset anyone working there. The only known ways to fix this so far is to delete the room and rebuild it or have some other dweller die in the same room and deal with the corpse.
 * Attacked / dead dwellers - it seems that there is a bug during raider attacks where dwellers from other rooms take damage although raiders are not present. The dwellers in the room where raiders are do not shoot.
 * This seem to happen when assigning someone to an empty room raiders are about to leave, they'll look like they're still in that room while actually fighting somewhere else, explaining the dwellers in the room where the raiders nor dweller seem to be shooting and dwellers in another room taking damage (and thus actually damaging the raiders).
 * When opening the mission tab the game closes without notification.
 * Fix: reddit fix
 * Occasionally fires will not be put out, resulting in an inability to collect resources from any other room.
 * When Explorers return, attempting to collect the items results in the failure to collect all the items despite having plenty of storage space for them.
 * When a selected dweller dies from an emergency, the game doesn't deselect them and it is still possible to use a stimpak on them. Despite this, the dweller will still die, maintaining a normal facial expression.
 * When switching between apps while a vault is on fire upon return the fire cannot be extinguished.
 * Radroach Armageddon - During a radroach infestation, it is possible for the radroaches to be invincible and eventually kill all of the dwellers.
 * Time travel - The core gameplay can be drastically altered by messing with the device's internal clock. Should one set one's clock backwards, all incidents cease unless triggered by the player, and all production rooms gain whatever amount of time that the player went back to added to their next production time. The production rooms can be reset by rushing, allowing a player to collect resources risk-free for as long as the clock has been set behind. This can also be used to manipulate the time Dwellers spend in the Wasteland, but they won't collect anything until the clock has been caught up. The altered time will affect their enemy spawns and loot drops, however, and can also be used to bring them home prematurely by recalling them after setting the clock back and then rolling it forward. Changing the clock or getting to the point in time the clock was changed to originally should fix this highly exploitable bug.
 * If a room is rushed immediately prior to setting the device's clock backwards in time to exploit the time travel bug, upon having set the clock backwards, the failure rate of a rush for the room in question will have skyrocketed. This is likely because the game gauges rush failure rate based partially on the time since the last rush, and it decreases with time. Since the previous rush is read as having been in the future, the failure chance is elevated accordingly.
 * An exploring dweller will occassionally find an item, and subsequently have it not appear within their inventory. The happens randomly but often on the first item found.
 * The game may crash on certain devices, versions of the Android OS and runtime (Dalvik/ART) if Google Play games service is running.
 * The service may be uninstalled as a possible workaround, but it renders add-ons unable to be purchased.
 * If running on a KitKat OS, use Dalvik runtime as a workaround.
 * On a rare occasion an elevator may become indestructible. While attempting to destroy it "the elevator is in use" message shows. This happens even if there are no other rooms or elevators connected to it (apart of its parent one) and no dweller is moving between any rooms/levels.
 * Letting a mole rat attack spread into an empty cul-de-sac room, may result in a crash when the mole rats have nowhere to go. After the crash you can no longer play this vault, as the game continues to register (and briefly display) mole rats in that room, triggering another crash, and so on. No amount of reboots seems to help.
 * This crash is because of a mole rat objective and will stop happening if you can open the game and delete the objective before the crash happens again.
 * A group of raiders attacked at the same time a fire started in one of the production rooms. Bluestacks App player for Android only picked up the fire, the raiders attacked the front door without ever breaking in. Able to collect resources and send dwellers to work in production rooms.
 * Changed one setting in the options (in this case it was the HD zoom out), the game went through a restart process that didn't happen when stopping and starting the app. When it came back up, the raiders at the front door were gone.
 * The game will crash if a character over level 50 is out in the wasteland.
 * This applies to characters that turn level 51 while exploring the wasteland, causing the vault to not load.
 * Randomly the game will reset all of the objectives to 0
 * There may be a relation to the mystery man objective as that is when it has happened to me (clearing progress on all objectives)
 * Occasionally (after 1.3 update) all female dwellers will wear glasses.
 * When you put librarian outfit to dweller with glasses already, you will see double glasses glitch.
 * If you change a dweller's weapon after giving them the command to get out of the vault but change their weapon before they leave the vault. That weapon will be gone.

iOS
yo*Dwellers walk diagonally through walls and ceilings.
 * Upgrading a room doesn't work, if you have the same amount of cash and costs of upgrading. For example, if a room upgrade costs 750 caps and the player has 750 caps, the player would have to wait until they have reached at least 751 caps in order to purchase the upgrade.
 * Using Items from wasteland - When a dweller returns from the wasteland select the Item in the detail screen and hit the collect button.
 * Random crashing - Variable rate by device, game will freeze up and black screen with no discernable pattern; App will not close and can be reopened once the device returns to the home screen. Brief data can be lost in these instances, such as caps gained, objectives removed or completed, and Rooms built. Can also result in the Permanent Pregnancy bug.
 * Permanent crashes - If the Vault is bigger than 20+ civilians, you could maybe never load the Vault again because of permanent crashes at the loading screen of the Vault.
 * Permanent Pregnancy - If the game crashes while naming or after hitting done when naming a baby dweller, The mother may remain pregnant and not leave the pregnant state after rebooting. Another possible cause appears to be deleting or modifying the residence in which the dweller got pregnant, after they've gotten pregnant, although this is not true in all cases.
 * Radroach Armageddon - During a radroach infestation, it is possible for the radroaches to be invincible and eventually kill all of the dwellers.
 * Rush Crash - It is possible for Fallout Shelter to crash when a rush is attempted (in any room, on any device).
 * Event Item Deletion - If a dweller is equipped with rad and stimpaks and is on his/her way to the wasteland but the expedition is canceled by an event such as rad roach infestation, fire or raider attack, the items equipped to the dweller can be lost.
 * Invisible Corpse - When reviving dwellers there's a chance that an invisible corpse will remain and upset anyone working there. The only known way to fix this so far is to delete the room and rebuild it.
 * Undraggable Pregnant - When attempting to move a newly pregnant dweller back to her job she sometimes becomes selectable but undraggable. A restart will fixes this, also dragging other dweller in the living room until the pregnant one is kicked out.
 * Clothing bug - After shelter a random survivor his original outfit is going to continue in his body instead of changing to a vault jumpsuit. This can be verified when going to change her or his outfit appears the name of the clothing with an number in the end, example: Casual01.
 * Post Incident Sound bug - After the final attack, the game audio continues with the alarm ringing and the sound of roaches and shots (if every dweller where armed) even if life in the vault is completely normal.
 * Objective Reset - Objectives will sometimes reset back to zero, usually overnight. This happens frequently with the longer ones, such as "Explore the Wasteland for 14 hours," "Collect 2300 Power," or "Deliver 16 babies."
 * Dwellers not appearing in collection - When you get rare or legendary dwellers, they don't appear at the collection, though it works properly with weapons and clothes. It can't be solved by restarting and will stay like that for all the shelter life, even if you get all possible dweller cards.
 * Dwellers change outfit in wasteland randomly - Dwellers sent to explore the Wasteland will sometimes change their outfit, seemingly random. Problem is the original outfit will no longer be available.
 * Confirmed on outfit change. Change will happen if the dweller finds another outfit of the same rarity level. Outfit change will only happen once i.e. the dweller will change from his/her original outfit but will not change again. Example: previously sent out 4 dwellers wearing the Drag Racer (Rare) outfit. In one instance, one dweller found a Scribe Robe (Rare) and another found a Sturdy Vault Suit (Rare). Both dweller changed their original outfit to the outfit found. Possible bug to be determined: Whether the changes are due to the 4 dwellers being 2 sets of twins.
 * Additional note: The original outfit will be available in the inventory and will not be lost.
 * Dwellers can become invisible - Unknown cause but closing the game and reloading it bring them back.
 * Dwellers no longer move unless you double click on their room.
 * Have two bald dwellers - dwellers are only considered bald when babies. When they grow up the number of bald dwellers obtained for the objective goes back to zero. Out of 30 pregnancies with bald fathers only 2 children were also bald (half were female, so 15 male children) but not at the same time. Children take three hours to grow up but pregnancies take 6 hours to finish so this objective is almost impossible to complete unless you make too many female dwellers pregnant.
 * If a pregnant dweller becomes undraggable it seems her pregnancy timer doesn't count down until the game is restarted.
 * If there are two deathclaws left and the first one is killed while entering the next room, the other one will return to the previous room and kill all the surviving dwellers before proceeding to the next room.
 * Tampering with the device's time while the app is active may freeze all the events in the game. You will no longer have random incidents (fire, pests, raiders) except for deathclaws, and when rushing rooms only radroach infestations and fires happen, resulting in the incident of not being able to complete certain objectives such as "Survive ten mole rat attacks without any casualties". You will also not get any Daily Report rewards anymore. The resources will no longer run down over time. The explorer will no longer gather any loot from the wasteland, and there will be no dialogue except for the moment the expedition starts. There is talk of being able to repair this glitch by editing the game's time stamp, but depending on the amount of time you jumped, you will have to wait that long before the vault returns to normal. For example, if you set the time forward three days, you will have to wait this long before you vault life properly "resumes". You will probably know when the vault returns to normal, because you'll start receiving a daily performance report again. Also, if you set the device forward in time to skip an objective, then set the time back to normal, you'll know it's back to normal when you actually have the ability to skip an objective again.
 * Game freezes and crashes out when a number of dwellers return at once from exploring. Frame rate starts to drop then game freezes all together. Currently have 5 trying to return.
 * The Game Center achievements do not always count progression, and will sometimes complete upon logging in later. Other times they remain frozen and incomplete.
 * Letting a mole rat attack spread into an empty cul-de-sac room, may result in a crash when the mole rats have nowhere to go. After the crash you can no longer play this vault, as the game continues to register (and briefly display) mole rats in that room, triggering another crash, and so on. No amount of reboots seems to help.
 * Raider attacks- During a raid, dwellers in a separate (random) room away from the raiders will gradually lose health and die (if not quickly noticed and treated with stimpaks).
 * Some Legendary weapons (Lone Wanderer, Lincoln's Repeater) will disappear when equipped to a dweller inside the vault after a period of time and be replaced by a random weapon. The replacement weapon can be unequipped and sent to the vault inventory where it can be re-equipped by any other dweller. There is no increase or decrease in the total numbers of weapons in the vault. The Legendary weapon is gone unless acquired again.