UPDATE 12/18: The rollout of Chrome 79 has now resumed as confirmed by Google's Chrome Releases blog. Chrome 79 (79.0.3945.93) for Android includes a fix for the WebView bug. The fix is described as, "Resolves an issue in WebView where some users' app data was not visible within those apps. The app data was not lost and will be made visible in apps with this update."
Original Story 12/16:
Google released version 79 of its Chrome web browser last week, but a bug is causing serious problems because it's seemingly wiping the data some Android apps use.
As Android Police reports, the bug impacts apps that rely on Android's WebView, which allows web content to be accessed and displayed from within an app. In order for this to work, some data is stored locally, but with Chrome 79 the location of the storage was changed. This required local data to be migrated to the new location, and that's where the failure lies.
The data migration didn't happen properly, so apps are left unable to function properly. The good news is the data isn't being deleted as it still exists in the old location. Google now needs to figure out the best way to move it, and to do so quickly, but until a fix is in place the rollout of Chrome 79 has been paused.
On the Chromium bugs forum, it's unclear what Google will do and engineers are currently considering whether to continue the migration while moving any files missed to the new location, or reverting the change and moving any migrated files back to the old location.
While that deliberation continues, app developers are dealing with a stream of bad reviews because their apps no longer work properly and they are powerless to fix them until Google acts. End users only see an app failing to work, not the reasons behind it, and understandably direct their anger at the developer.