Official WPCentral app updated with bug fixes

By Sam Sabri
last updated

Last Saturday we had an update for the Official WPCentral app that introduced transparent Live tiles in Windows Phone 8.1, fixed bugs, unlocked all features for trial users and more. But we don’t let Jay rest too much, which is why you’ll find a new update in the Windows Phone Store. Curious as to what’s new? Of course you are, so read on to find what.

In the Windows Phone Store you’ll see the WPCentral app sitting pretty at version 4.4.19.8. Here’s what’s new in this release:

  • Fixed a bug where launching the app from a toast notification did not clear the live tile
  • Handled a critical exception that could occur whilst trying to retrieve ads from the Microsoft advert network
  • Removed a warning message that was showing to trial users regarding the lock screen

This is a relatively fast update because of that second reason above. Some users in certain regions would experience errors with Microsoft’s Ad network. The app would crash, but Jay has fixed that for you all. You won’t find new features in this update, just ironing out some things for you guys to make the app enjoyable.

Looking ahead, last week Jay did tease he’s working on an update for the app that would give it a lot of Windows Phone 8.1 features. Anything specific you’d like to see our app do? Sound off below, but do let us know if this update fixes any recent issues you’ve been having!

Update (Jay Bennett): Unfortunately in the rush to fix the problem some of our friends in certain regions were having with the advertising provider I have missed a key part of my testing and introduced a bug. Right now if you're seeing a crash when you launch the app from a notification please switch the our Custom Flip Tile style rather than the Iconic live tile. I will fix this immediately but it will take a few days to pass certification so won't be until next week. My apologies to all who were using the Iconic live tile!

Download WPCentral from the Windows Phone Store. 

QR: WPC

Sam Sabri
Sam Sabri
205 Comments
  • Seems faster...
  • seems better, especially when "we don’t let Jay rest too much"!
  • These comments deserve a ban hammer.
  • Jay seems faster lol
  • Side note but I thought we were supposed to have an update to the music hub this week?
  • Week's not over yet.
  • Seems more stable
  • I have notice WPCENTRAL app does not always update the live tile if there is new articles or in the notification center
  • Same for me
  • The apps at Version 4.4.19.7
  • We use the last number to differentiate between Windows Phone 7 and 8 :)
  • Ohk Jay
  • Yeah seriously i was so bugged cause of the reason 2, sent around 5 bug mails and had it uninstalled for 3 days... Missed it so much :/
  • I love these fast updates! :D
  • Fixed a bug where launching the app from a toast notification did not clear the live tile I had noticed this bug for a while and was about to report it to Jay. good to see that its fixed. :)
  • He has telepathy of sorts.
  • Thanks Jay, I love this app! I saw the live tile bug earlier today and thought it would be fixed soon. Turns out it was fixed much sooner than I though! :)   Edit: Oh, I'd like to see a 'Mark as Read' feature, so we could keep track of what we read here. Thanks a lot!
  • this +720
  • @Jay-I have 2 problems, 1)The images loaded onto the WPCentral forums are not opening in the app.... It says "show in browser"..... 2)The text in the articles and forums look small on my 620, even after zooming. It is a tremendous strain on my eyes. What to do? Using Lumia 620 with 8.1
  • It would be cool if polls could be done within the app and not have to go through the browser.
  • Yup.
  • Totally agree +920
  • Pls.
  • +920
    +1520
  • +920
  • +2520
  • +822
  • Cortana integration :D
  • Open Cortana and say wpcentral nom nom nom.
  • "YUM! windows phone goodness"
  • There is. Heck, there was voice support with 8.0...
  • You guys rock!
  • Seems..... Slower
  • Noooooo!lol
  • Is there any way you can incorporate Cortana? Or something that can read articles out loud?
  • +520
  • The whole article?? Or just the headline?
  • The whole article, like the Weave app does.
  • The whole article would be nice. You could as articles to a list and then have then read to you later when you have time, such as in the car. This has been possible since 8.0, it doesn't need Cortana.
  • Perhaps being able to add Windows Phone etc to your interests and have Cortana alert you to new headlines as they arrive?
  • Love this idea to add WP to interests in Cortana and the idea of Cortana integration. Also the app refuses to take my fb log in credentials. I have to hit register which takes me out of the app into a browser and the I can hit the log in with fb button... Can this be fixed?
  • Nice update. Thanks Jay
  • I love that my phone updates apps by itself!
  • +1520
  • Unless you're playing a game when the phone decides it's updates time.
  • Sync which articles are new between the different apps and the website if you are logged in.
  • +920
  • Omg +5,000 this would be amazing. Or at least sync with the Windows 8 app. Syncing with the website doesn't seem possible, but what do I know.
  • All fairly difficult unfortunately but we'll start brainstorming
  • @Jay-I have 2 problems,
    1)The images loaded onto the WPCentral forums are not opening in the app.... It says "show in browser".....
    2)The text in the articles and forums look small on my 620, even after zooming. It is a tremendous strain on my eyes.
    What to do? Using Lumia 620 with 8.1
  • I don't have a solution for the forums font size yet, but there is a setting to use larger fonts in comments and articles which you can turn on in the app's settings screen. There is also a built in zoom feature in Windows Phone that you can enable in your phone settings and double tap with two fingers to activate. As for the other issue, I am aware and am trying to find a fix for it, not an easy thing to solve unfortunately due to the fact our forums require you to be logged in but I can't retrieve the images with directly submitting the user's authenticated cookies anymore.
  • Thanks for the response! The double to zoom doesn't work very well....I was wondering if you could enable larger fonts in the articles, forums as well as the comments section.I would be extremely grateful.
  • I like this idea as well. I'll be at the computer catching up on WPCentral in the app and then look down at my phone and see the same article I just read marked as unread. I hate having unread notifications or otherwise on my phone!
  • A little OCD maybe? :-)
  • Continue being awesome guys.
  • I like Cortana integration as much as the next person but I'd it can't literally be useful don't use it just to be gimmicky. So many people want Cortana for the sake of having Cortana.
  • If that next person is me t them you don't like it a lot. It may come in handy for some stuff in the US but in Portugal it's close to useless.
  • Super, thanks Jay :)
  • I too would like to have articles read aloud and possibly the comments Read as well
  • Thanks Jay!! Haven't tested yet but can't wait to be able to clear notifications in action center and it clears live tile as well. Awesome fast update! +1 Cortana
  • I'm guessing you misread the changelog. You still need to launch the app to clear the notifications.
  • Yea you're right! Oops. Hope they can make it like email and have it clear live tile after clearing action center
  • Unfortunately, that is not possible for WP 8.1. It is a limitation of the OS and turned out to be a lot of work to allow for 3rd party apps. There was not enough time to have this done before 8.1 was due for shipping. Only first party apps can clear the live tile badge count after clearing a notification.
  • Ah really? I was going to dive into the SDK to work out how we can do that this weekend. I was expecting there to be some kind of background agent you could define that would run a method to clear your live tile, disappointing if there's not
  • Any way the tile can flip over to show any secondary information or whatever else?
  • It already does that... Look under settings and configure the live tile
  • Oops. My bad. Had kept the iconic tile instead of the other one. Thanks
  • You guys forgot the issue I mentioned where the Xbox music icon appears when opening the store through this app.
  • That's not something we can control. We are using the same method to launch apps, if the wrong icon comes up that's Microsoft's OS issue in WP8.1
  • Thanks for the update.
  • there's a bug that sometimes the wide live tile would show distorted titles for articles. i don't know if I am the only one who experienced that.
  • Me too
  • Same here
  • Yup. I've had that for a while now
  • Distorted how?
  • Gr8.
  • Maybe a new interface. This interface has stayed long enough in my opinion.
  • I'm using 720, in wide tile the font size is very small, its very difficult to read , pls fix this
  • Hey friends!, The YouTube web version has redesigned today, it looks like the YouTube Android version.
  • Looks the same to me
  • Well, check again tomorrow or in some hours
  • Does clearing the notification center reset the unread article counter on the live tile now?
  • It's like, you didn't even bother to read our changes listed above. That's, well, that's amazing.
  • I believe he asked if clearing the notification center reset the counter, The changes listed above say launching now resets the counter but does not address simply clearing.
  • It's like, you didn't even bother to read his comment about something slightly different than mentioned in the article. That's, well, that's incredibly unprofessional.
  • Dan,  I read the article, but the app changes listed didn't exactly mention the situation that I was referring to. I guess I'll just check back tomorrow when new articles are posted to see if clearing the notification center will clear the counter on the live tile.
  • If you open the app from the notification yes it will clear. But just swiping the notifications away won't work just yet. Looking into that with a proper 8.1 update as stated in the article :)
  • Thank you for the response, Jay. I look forward to each and every update that you provide to this fantastic app.
  • Unfortunately it's looking like this might not be possible. I'm hearing that Microsoft don't provide a way for third party apps to hook into the "swipe notifications away" event so we could clear the tile
  • Unfortunately, only 1st party apps have this ability at this time.
  • The app keeps crashing when I open any notification from the notification centre. Please check. I have already submitted a debug mail.
  • Please see the update on this article, I've addressed that issue here :)
  • Same here! Please fix.
  • Again, please see the update on this article, the fix for this issue has been submitted we're just waiting for Microsoft to certify it :)
  • Jay Your awesome. This is one of the best applications I have ever used in my life.
  • I spend way too much time on this app. I must be the most informed WP owner any of my friends know.
  • After 8.1 I unknowingly had a week off, this must mean that I am comfortable with 8.1 and now I'm spending the same amount of time as before on here, strange how my priorities lay :P
  • Thanks Jay! As Dan would say, you're the cats meow.
  • Thanks for the quick update :-)
    I am one of the few users whose app crashed frequently on slower networks. Happy to see that it's fixed :-D
  • Just got the 1520 3 weeks ago and I have pretty jerky and sticky scrolling on the main news page. Was not expecting this on a powerhouse device like this. Anybody having this issue?
  • Try changing to low resolution images in settings...it was an issue before and caused the app to jerk and crash a lot..not sure if it is now...
  • Tried it-a little better. Still should be on high quality and be completely smooth scrolling. I'm talking about when you flick fast and let screen go it's just jerky..
  • Yeah this happened when the writers switched to much higher resolution images, I'm working with the server guys to get new compressed versions that will hopefully fix this
  • Thanks for the reply Jay. Like I said it's not much better using low res either..wait and see..
  • Can we please fix the quotes in the forums? When someone replies to multiple quotes, it groups them all together and I can barely tell what someone is replying to.
  • Jay, dust thou even hoist, brethren?
  • Nope, I'm a fairly curvy, pale computer scientist. Always have been always will be ;)
  • Awesome :)
  • I would love the ability to have articles read to you. I drive alot so that would be huge. I know I'm not alone. Thanks in advance!
  • Share Task behaves differently in WP 8.1, investigate why the article name isn't being passed with article when doing a social share
  • But it's still showing lock screen error
  • I would love the agility to no receive specific type of content. For me, I always skip the "deals" type.
  • And/Or set deals to country location. I do not need to see the USA deals in Australia. Would be great to give a comment a like or a disagree. Also would be nice to see the time in the top corner.
  • But then we couldn't bitch about those US only deals :)
  • This app. is number one and listed at the top of my app Live tiles. A must must must have app. for all WP user
  • But how i can login to the apps woth my Microsoft Account?
  • I just reset my phone. Back up and running and this is the first app I installed. Btw when you do a reset, you have the option of using your previous backup that's dated the day you reset. Or start fresh. I choose to start fresh. Notification is present after reset. I haven't check for an update. Pretty cool.
  • Does anyone have the image bring used as the wallpaper in the post?
  • The link has been posted in the comments of every post Sam has written since he started using WP8.1 but here it is once again... http://i.imgur.com/1hSjN4a.jpg
  • Something is up with my live tile. When it flips, it shows the title of the most recent article lined up in the left side of the tile starting at the top and going to the bottom but it only shows room for a word or 2. Thought it was odd.
  • I would like to see more sub-levels in the comments section of the app. Now you have the OP post and all comments to any post in that "thread", no matter weather they are a reply to the OP or not, is on the same "level" which makes it hard to see which reply that belongs to which previous post. That makes it a bit hard to follow the flow in some threads sometimes. Otherwise I think that this is a great app and I use it several times a day. I hope I made sense. :)
  • Yes, we've been asking for this since day one. It could even just have the username of who replied or any other form of identifying who the replays is from.
  • It's quite difficult to do this visually on Windows Phone simply because there's less screen space available (particularly in portrait mode). But I will have a think to see what we can do
  • We want a features request page for this app.
  • Still the live tile notifications are not clearing..
  • Only 1st party apps have this ability. It is a limitation of WP 8.1
  • Scrolling news screen still seems to shudder on occasions....Lumia 1320..... Not a completely smooth transition..... Not complaining though........ Just informing ;)
  • One thing I'd like to see that is in so many apps is pull down to refresh. Refresh doesn't need to be in a popup menu at the bottom. Just let us pull the headline list down. Then make Settings a wide tile at the bottom of the Browse pivot. The popup menu is unnecessary.
  • I would like to be able to save articles to OneNote as in weave news reader.
  • In WP 8.1 OneNote is part of the Social Launcher, meaning if an app supports sharing to social networks, OneNote is included in that list now automatically. In wpcentral, you can only share the link though, not the content. Choose Share, then Social, then OneNote.
  • For some reason the autocomplete often doubles the first letter of some words. It's been like that for quite a while.
  • Comment notifications maybe? Or could it get too spammy? Wouldn't be bad to have the option, right?
  • Nice.
  • This is available, may have to set from web, can't recall
  • That beautiful change log!
  • Seems a little juddery on my HTC 8X when scrolling quickly. 520 is fine though.
  • Always on top of things Jay, great job. I haven't read all of the comments yet, but I would love it if you could enable voice readability. Otherwise, could be happier.
  • Awesome
  • I am not getting any notifications for WPC using wp8 done all updates....
  • No body to help me
  • Since I updated to wp8.1 pinch and zoom text is not working well in WP central
  • What was the warning message for trial users about? "If you don't buy the app, we'll fry your phone..."
  • Underline and make links clickable in articles rather than having to go to the links folder and guess which URL applies to what you think there may have been a link to. Fix this and I'm a happy camper. I hate the current link implementation.
  • This.
  • Are all the features still unlocked for trial users in this version?
  • Yes
  • What about the one where the tile goes nuts (text all aligned left) when you exit the app with the back button.   Tapping in again and back out fixes it but..
  • I really wish I knew how to fix that. We're doing something a bit custom by rendering XAML into an image to great a tile. But sometimes for reasons I cannot fathom that XAML rendering fails. Now it's supposed to catch that error and then not update the tile for that instance, but instead the image rendering for some reason goes ahead as no error is reported. It's incredibly difficult to diagnose what goes wrong when there are no error messages anywhere!
  • What's weird about it is that it's random and doesn't even do it all the time.
  • Ah ok good to know its not my phones problem :p Hope you find a solution one day it doesn't really bug me though cos its random like the guitarist says.
  • But the rendering of the tile is performed on the device or on your server?
    Wouldn't it be easier to address this issue if you render the tile on your server?
  • Yes it would, but then in comes the fun that I don't run the server, I just make the app :) It's something we'll be figuring out properly when we re-build the app to be a full universal one
  • +1
  • Now go and take rest Jay...We will handle things from here on
  • The transparency livetile doesnt work
    Edit: Now its works fine
    Edit2: Doesn't work again
    confused
  • Just like car blinkers. Now it works, now or doesn't, now it works, now it doesn't...
  • ☺
  • Two things:
    • The Reply box under Comments is always visible, even when just reading. It would be nice to have the box hidden, and call it up with a Reply command, to have maximize screen space.
    • Article images push the text down upon downloading, it disrupts reading a bit on slow connections. Either preloading or a placeholder for the images could prevent the sudden shift of text I think.
    Great app, thanks.
  • Eyup to bidding the comment bubble :)
  • Ah but then how would you add a new comment? I'd have to put a button in the app bar or something and the intention was to emulate the messaging app in Windows Phone. Still, we might change that some day. As for the article images, it's difficult, we don't know how big the image is going to be so we can't really put a placeholder in. Or we could but then if the image is smaller or larger it will still involve a jump in the text. I'll have a think about it for our new version.
  • Bring uo the comments using the ellipse
  • Off topic...they removed "Nokia" sign in Finland and they replaced it with the "Microsoft" sign.
  • What a surprise.
  • Amazing background! Love it. Can you put an link to that image please? Would definitely be my most used background.
  • Thanks Jay
  • THX for the update. Now, any chance you'll be fixing the comments section anytime soon?
  • Hey Jay, I've a problem over here. Everytime I opened a news through banner notification or action center, it will show an error and refuses to load the content. It happened after I update the app. Can you help?
  • I'd like to see collapsible comment threads. Something along the lines of a double tap on the parent comment to collapse. I enjoy using this feature in Readit and think it will be a great addition.
  • Eyup!
  • Thanks for the update Jay!!!! Just a question: Have you managed to resolve the random logging out, that was occurring? I've not experienced it since updating, this morning though!
  • That was a problem with Tapatalk cookies that appears to have been resolved on the server yes
  • Cheers for the response! Cookies hmmmmmmm ;)
  • Till now nobody given a solution for my problem pls help
  • Nokia mix radio get updated with minor fixes ...
  • Better way to view & navigate forums. Adding forums to the windows app would be nice as well
  • Would be cool if you could track "Participated" article comments the way you do forum threads. Could the comments sections for articles just be handled as forum threads in general?
  • I can't set the transparent live tile please help.
  • Not working via emails. App crashes now.
  • Can we have the comment "bubble" at the bottom of the comments window be transparent, outlined in the theme color rather the the bright white? Or, hidden use the ellipse?
    Perhaps collapsible comment threads?
    Use this app every day, nice work to date
  • I still get the lock screen warning
  • Are you definitely using the latest version? I completely removed that chunk of code so it'll be scary if it somehow found it's way back in...
  • That's great it won't install the update on my Lumia 1020?
  • Live tile just broke, 100% transparent with nothing on either side other than a line of vertical letters on the very left and the WPC logo tiny at the centre bottom, tried repinning, no joy Edit, working again
  • Well i got an error on the very first opening after update and mailed the bug report to app@wpcentral.com . I was in a hurry just couldn't read but here it is : 25.4.2014 06:47:21 - CRITICAL
    Message: Index was out of range. Must be non-negative and less than the size of the collection.
    Parameter name: index
    Comment: Article: Official WPCentral app updated with bug fixes But after that it's perfect.
  • Yep, this is unfortunately because I had to rush this update out! Another one will be coming to fix it!
  • For now this only appears to affect the iconic live tile. If you change to the flip live tile it should work correctly. Working on a permanent fix now so should be with you early next week!
  • Wow you are so fast. But dont be in a rush. We still appreciate your work with and without bugs.
  • I still can't share from WPCentral App to LinkedIn or Twitter is this the App or the 8.1 update? It's my only gripe :| Noel
  • Ability to copy and paste from app articles. Live links to external source in app articles. Also a link to the comment page straight from the article page (I am lazy and hate swiping left, :-) ). And get MSFT to put this App on the start page of all new windows phones.
  • On that same note k0de the ability to comment or share directly from article would be a neat feature.
  • I want this tile backbround... Can anyone tell me, from where i can download it????
  • Mine is crashing when opening from the action center.
  • Apologies this is because I rushed the update out and missed a scenario in my testing :( For now this only appears to affect the iconic live tile. If you change to the flip live tile it should work correctly. Working on a permanent fix now so should be with you early next week!
  • Thanks !
  • Sorry just read this, Jay. I'll suppress the sending out of those bug reports.
  • One other minor thing on the live tile. When you select the iconic tile, wide and check the box to show the full "windows phone central" on the tile.... In 3 column start screen mode, the word "central" on the tile is truncated. It doesn't do this in the 2 column mode, only 3. Please fix.
  • We can't fix this unfortunately. The tile is simply smaller on 3 column mode introduced by Windows Phone 8.1 so there is not enough room for our full name. Instead you'll have to make do with "wpcentral"
  • Medium live tile still does back flip with latest story even when live tiles are disabled.
  • How do I make the app transparent
  • App still very slow. When you click on an article it rakes few seconds for the app to move to the news you clicked...
  • the new update made things worse for me
  • Yay, bug fixes!
  • The latest version keeps crashing when I try to open it from a notification. It prompted me twice to file a bug report via email which I did. Hope you'll fix it soon!
  • It's crashing alot. I've sent the bug reports to you.
  • Jay, Any word on being able to share to Twitter/LinkedIN from the articles? Before the 8.1 update I was able to. Is it an App or Windows 8.1 related fault? Noel