"Pokemon Go" keeps updating itself in the quest to become a better Pokemon-catching experience for everyone, but as always, nothing is perfect. The most recent update, while finally replacing the broken old Pokemon-tracking system, brings with it a brand new set of bugs.
This new "Pokemon Go" bug might have to be the worst: upon logging in, players will find that there is nothing on their map. Nothing. Absolutely nothing. No Pokemon, no Pokestops, and certainly no Gyms. It's like being region-blocked or banned from the game, even though you did nothing wrong.
It seems as though this will make the game unplayable, but thankfully there's an easier fix for this—all you have to do is turn off your smartphone's mobile data, and then restart your phone. The only catch is it doesn't seem to work for everyone. You should be able to see everything when you start up "Pokemon Go" again, but if you don't, then you might be out of luck.
If it doesn't work for you, you could actually try and keep restarting your phone just to see what happens. And if it really, really doesn't work, then you're going to have to wait for yet another "Pokemon Go" update. It really seems as though developer Niantic Labs put out a half-baked app just to meet a promoted deadline. We would have been able to wait if it meant getting a game that wasn't broken, you know.
Just make sure that you're not actually banned from playing "Pokemon Go," as it looks like Niantic has been handing out indefinite soft bans to cheaters using GPS fakers and bots that play the game for them. The soft ban's effects are similar to what this bug does to the game.
