Pokemon GO Invisible Pokemon Encounter Screen Bug

Pokemon GO trainers have yet another bug to wrestle with. This time around, it’s the invisible Pokemon encounter screen glitch. What triggers it seems to be travelling over the speed cap, which is 20 mph (32 kph). There’s some kind of discrepancy between the Pokemon spawns and the speed cap. Together, they create a very annoying problem. Let’s take a closer look, shall we?

I’ve written before about the Pokemon GO Speed Cap. Back then, I thought that this limit only affected PokeStops. However, it appears that it affects Pokemon spawns as well. If you’re travelling over 20 mph, you can’t encounter any Pokemon. Okay, fair enough.

However, the problem arises when not all Pokemon register that you’re over the speed limit. So, naturally, they can pop up. You tap on them, and it’s showtime. You’ll get a screen glitch, very similar to the error you get when you tap on an expired Pokemon. Except, you won’t get any error message. You’ll just be sitting on your map screen as if nothing happened. But, that’s only the beginning.

Since the encounter screen didn’t register, you’ll be on the map screen, but you won’t be able to interact with anything on it. You’re frozen. You can’t spin the PhotoDiscs, move your character, anything. At this point, I simply restarted the app and everything was fine again.

However, if you’re not impatient like me, there’s another way. According to some trainers, all you have to do is wait. After a while, you’ll see the Pokemon dodge/jump sprite. After that, the app might work again. However, this doesn’t seem to be a surefire solution. Even after the phantom Pokemon jumps, there’s a chance that you’ll still have to kill the app before it’ll work.

We got so much cool stuff in Pokemon GO this holiday season. It’s a shame that we got a bug for every bonus feature. I’m sure Niantic will solve this problem soon, though.