An application recovery system is configured to recover an application executing on a client device by determining that an application is operating abnormally and providing recovery instructions to the application. The application executing on a client device includes a main portion of the application and a recovery portion of the application. The recovery portion of the application sends requests for recovery instructions to a network system. The network system receives the recovery requests and analyzes operational requests generated by the main portion of the application to identify failing functions and their associated software packages. The recovery instructions are determined based on the identified failing functions and their associated software packages and sent to the client device. The client device applies the recovery instructions to modify the application such that the application recovers normal operation.