How to Fix Play Store Error RH-01 "Error Retrieving Information From Server"

By FixMyError · Updated October 17, 2026 · 7 min read

What "RH-01" means

RH-01 is one of the Play Store's longest-running error codes, and it shows up the moment the store tries to fetch anything from Google's servers — app listings, update availability, search results, sometimes even the whole storefront — and the request comes back empty. The full message reads "Error retrieving information from server. [RH-01]", which at least names the problem honestly: the Play Store is talking, but Google's servers aren't answering in a way the store can understand. What the message never tells you is why, so most people end up staring at a Play Store that refuses to load while the browser, YouTube, and every other app on the phone work perfectly.

The reassuring part is that this is a connection failure, not damage to anything you own. Your Google account isn't locked, your installed apps aren't broken, and your purchase history hasn't gone anywhere. Something in the short chain between the Play Store app and Google's servers is failing — a network setting that's quietly rewriting the store's traffic, a corrupted chunk of cached data that's poisoning every request before it leaves the phone, a system clock that's drifted out of sync (Google's servers are strict about timestamps on secure connections), or an account sync token that's gone stale on the device. RH-01 is also a classic symptom on phones running custom ROMs with a mismatched Google Services Framework. The fixes below clear each of those layers in order, from least disruptive to most, and in the vast majority of cases the error is gone long before the final step.

Common causes

• Network interference: a VPN, private DNS setting, or proxy is breaking the Play Store's route to Google's servers.
• Corrupted Play Store cache: stale temporary files from a failed download or interrupted update poison every subsequent request.
• Wrong date and time: even a small clock skew makes Google's servers reject the Play Store's secure connections.
• Stale account sync or broken framework: your Google account's sync token has gone stale, or the Google Services Framework is mismatched — very common on custom ROMs.
• Google-side outage: occasionally the problem really is Google's servers, and no amount of phone troubleshooting will help until they recover.

How to fix "RH-01" — step by step

Work through these in order. Most people are back in the store by step 4.

1. Retry on a different network and rule out a Google-side outage. First, confirm the problem is on your end: open your browser and check Downdetector for Google Play reports — if many people are reporting problems, Google's servers are having a bad day and the only fix is to wait a few hours. If there's no outage, switch networks: if you're on Wi-Fi, turn Wi-Fi off and retry over mobile data, and vice versa. Then turn off anything that rewrites your traffic: open your VPN app and disconnect fully, and go to Settings, Network & internet, then Private DNS, and set it to Off. Open the Play Store again. If the error only appears on one network, your router or ISP's DNS is the culprit — restarting the router usually clears it.
2. Restart your phone to clear stuck system processes. Before digging into settings, do the simplest thing that genuinely works: hold the power button, choose Restart, and let the phone boot fully before unlocking it. RH-01 is often caused by a background service that got wedged mid-request — a half-finished sync handshake that the Play Store keeps retrying instead of starting over. A clean reboot terminates all of those stuck processes and gives the store a fresh connection, and it resolves a surprising share of RH-01 cases on its own. When the phone is back up, open the Play Store and see whether the error is gone before continuing.
3. Turn on automatic date and time. A wrong system clock is one of the most common causes of RH-01, and one of the least suspected. Google's servers validate timestamps on every secure connection, so a phone whose clock has drifted — even by a few minutes — gets its Play Store requests rejected outright. Open Settings, go to System, then Date & time, and switch on automatic date and time plus automatic time zone (the exact labels vary — on Samsung phones it's under General management, Date and time). Wait a few seconds for the clock to sync, force-close the Play Store from your recent apps, and reopen it. This step alone has fixed RH-01 for countless people, especially on phones that were recently reset or traveled across time zones.
4. Force stop the Play Store and clear its cache. Open Settings, then Apps (or Apps & notifications), and find Google Play Store in the list. Tap it, then tap Force stop to kill any stuck process. Next, tap Storage & cache, then Clear cache. This removes temporary files only — your account, your installed apps, and your purchases are all untouched. Go back to your home screen, open the Play Store, and test. Clearing the cache is completely safe, and it clears the cases where a single corrupted cache entry was breaking every request the store made.
5. Clear the Play Store's data, reset Play services, and check Download Manager. If the cache clear didn't do it, go deeper. In the Play Store's Storage & cache screen, tap Clear storage (labeled Clear data on some phones) and confirm — you'll need to accept the store's terms again on launch, but everything tied to your Google account stays intact. Next, find Google Play services in the Apps list, Force stop it, and tap both Clear cache and Clear storage under its Storage screen. Then enable the system apps view using the filter icon in the Apps list. Find Google Services Framework, open it, and clear its data — on phones with custom ROMs this is usually the step that finally resolves RH-01, because a mismatched framework build is the underlying cause. Finally, open Download Manager from the system apps list: make sure it shows as enabled and hasn't been disabled, then clear its cache too. Restart the phone once more and test the store.
6. Remove and re-add your Google account, or roll back Play Store updates. When nothing else works, the problem is usually the account sync itself rather than any data on the phone. Go to Settings, then Passwords & accounts (or just Accounts), tap your Google account, and choose Remove account — you'll need your screen lock or password to confirm, so have it ready. Restart the phone, go back to the same screen, choose Add account, and sign back in with the same Google account. Your email, contacts, Drive files, and purchases re-sync from the cloud; nothing is lost as long as you know your password, and this step fixes the stubborn RH-01 cases that survive every cache clear. If you still see the error after that, open the Play Store's app-info screen (Settings, Apps, Google Play Store), tap the three-dot menu in the top corner, and choose Uninstall updates. This rolls the store back to its factory version, which then updates itself cleanly the next time it's opened — wiping out any update-related corruption.

Did this fix it? Quick checklist

• The Play Store loads listings and updates without RH-01
• VPN and Private DNS are off (or the error was tested on mobile data instead of Wi-Fi)
• Automatic date & time and time zone are enabled
• Play Store cache and data have been cleared at least once

If you've done all six steps and RH-01 still appears, the issue is deeper than the usual cache or account problems. On custom ROMs, the real fix is almost always a compatible GApps package: check that your GApps build matches your Android version and the framework architecture (ARM vs ARM64), and consider reflashing with the correct package if the mismatch persists. On stock phones, check whether other Google apps like Gmail and Maps sync normally — if they don't either, your device's Google framework itself is broken and you'll need to factory-reset or contact Google support with the exact error code.