Regional Jet 200 ER/LR (CRJ200)
Flight Crew Multiengine; Flight Crew Air Transport Pilot (ATP)
Aircraft Equipment Problem Less Severe; Deviation - Track / Heading All Types; Deviation / Discrepancy - Procedural Clearance
Air Traffic Control Issued New Clearance; Flight Crew Requested ATC Assistance / Clarification; Flight Crew Returned To Clearance; Flight Crew Overcame Equipment Problem
Aircraft; Human Factors
On our morning flight we were only able to navigate by VOR. We were given a new clearance to fly direct to a specific VOR. While the FO was getting the clearance I tried to use my EFB to locate the VOR frequency. The FO was still getting the clearance and my Jeppesen App froze and then shut off. We were still navigating via the original clearance. The FO had trouble finding the VOR frequency so we asked ATC for vectors because my Jepp App was still loading after about a minute. We got a heading from ATC and flew the heading because my EFB failed and the FO had difficulty finding the frequency. We were in the approach area and I knew there was significantly more traffic around so we were trying to be as quick as possible. We didn't cause any traffic deviations. The cause of the event is that my EFB froze and the Jepp app shut down for no reason whatsoever. Also the FO was task saturated by talking to ATC and verifying the clearance and then having to find a VOR frequency quickly. The way to fix this problem is to get an EFB that won't have these problems.
CRJ-200 Captain reported an EFB malfunction while requsting essential navigation information.