(Update: fix coming) Skype flaw causes crash on Android, iOS & Windows

Update, June 3, 11:04 EST: Skype is moving swiftly to squash this bug. The team announced that updated versions of Skype including a fix for the issues are now available for all platforms.

Original post, June 3, 9:06 EST

Last week, a flaw in iOS revealed that sending a specific string in a text message would cause the iOS messaging app to completely crash and today, it’s been revealed that Skype also has a flaw that can cause the Skype app on iOS, Android and Windows to completely crash.

While it took a specific string to crash iOS devices, putting Skype out of action is far too easy; simply sending the message “http://:” without the quotes will cause the Skype app to crash. While Skype for Mac appears to be immune from the issue, Skype users on iOS, Windows or Android – such as Galaxy S6 users where Skype is preloaded onto the handset – are all affected in different ways by this flaw:

• Android: this only affects you if you are the recipient of the message
• iOS: this only affects you if you are the recipient of the message
• Windows: app crashes if you’re the sender and completely dies if you’re the recipient of the message

As noted by VentureBeat, the bug causes mobile apps to fall into endless crash loops and if you’re on a Windows desktop, sending the message crashes the app but receiving it puts it into an endless crash loop as well.

Simply deleting the message doesn’t fix the issue as it reappears when Skype downloads your chat history from the server again. Interestingly however, signing in with an account that already has the characters in the chat history doesn’t crash the iOS and Android applications.

[related_videos align=”left” type=”custom” videos=”593276,609917,613279,613277″] If you’re affected by this issue, the first thing to do is to ask the sender to delete the message. Then you need to install an older version of Skype and you’ll be able to use it again. On Windows, it’s simple enough to revert back to an older version but on iOS and Android, you’re stuck.

However, Skype has admitted to VentureBeat that it is aware of the issue and it is working on a fix – it’s just a question of how long before its fixed. By comparison, it was several days ago that news of the iPhone bug was revealed but the company still hasn’t issued a fix so it remains to be seen just how complicated it is to fix this issue.

Has this Skype flaw affected you? Did the fix work or is your app still crashing? Let us know your views in the comments below guys!