Windows Phone 8 1 Store Issue Prevents Users From Searching And Downloading Apps

We’re mainly talking about Windows 10 Mobile these days, but the majority of Windows Phone users are still using Windows Phone 8.1, so we can’t neglect their problems. Recently, a few users complained on Microsoft Forums that Windows Phone 8.1 Store doesn’t work properly anymore, so if you’re also facing this issue these days, we have to tell you that you’re not alone.

Users began to report this problem on Microsoft Answers forums, by telling us the ‘symptoms’:

“While in the Microsoft Store, the search option is non-functional. It will give me suggestions based on what I type, but it will find absolutely nothing. For instance, I type “f” and Facebook comes up. Yet when I touch “Facebook”, I’m told “We couldn’t find a match. Try a different spelling or search term“. This happens for every single thing I enter, whether I use the suggestion or not. It will not find anything.”

Some users are really frustrated about this issue:

“I’ve only had my Nokia Lumina for a week and now want to sell it. I’m having the same problems as you. App store is shocking. Some apps simply don’t display on the screen correctly so I can’t access all the options. Everything’s so long winded. Converting back to android as soon as poss.”

For now, we don’t have any official details about this issue from Microsoft, as the company is yet to acknowledge this problem to the public, but based on a numerous reports all over the internet, the company will probably be forced to provide the solution soon.

Users also don’t get any application in the search results, when they type any possible keyword in the search box. Some of them are telling us that simply rebooting the phone solves the problem, but this is very unlikely to be true, because this problem is most probably server-related.

Besides searching problems, it also looks like some affected phones have problems with downloading apps from the store.

Namely, when you select an app, and hit the install button, an error saying that the “app needs your attention” will show up. Users tried to deal with this issue by trying to download an app multiple times, but that didn’t make any difference. Luckily, this download problem doesn’t appear to be a widespread issue, as not a lot of people are experiencing it, but Microsoft surely needs to investigate this problem, and release a fix as soon as possible.

We also have to mention that Windows 10 Mobile and Windows 10 PC stores are not affected by this issue, or at least we don’t have any report about the similar issues yet. As we also didn’t manage to find the fix by ourselves, the only thing we can do is wait for Microsoft to provide a proper solution.

Is your Windows Phone 8.1 device affected by this problem? Tell us your experience in the comments.

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