Great news for all those players who are stuck with a very buggy buddy! In the past several days, there was an ongoing problem with the AR buddy system on Pokemon Go that affected worldwide. A problem with the latest patch caused some backlash in the community as players were unable to play with their buddies to obtain their candy or make some nifty pictures in the hope that some Pokemon were willing to photobomb you. ( Got my first shiny with that )
Luckily, there is now a patch ready to be downloaded. It seems that this problem was coming from the system android itself. It’s high likely that you already have that update ready to be installed, so for all those Android users out there, make sure that you update your phone’s Android system to the latest version of Android.
If you however do NOT have an update for a newer version of your Android, make sure that your Android OS version is above 11. If you have Android 11 or lower, it’s likely the cause that you will not be able to play with your buddy anymore, and a new phone will be required.
Now, we do must say that not everything has been fixed yet, as I do still experience some wacky text from time to time, similar to that with the missingno back in Pokemon Red/blue, but it’s a huge progress in making the game app better once more.