- An issue with the Facebook SDK on Friday morning is causing dozens of iOS apps to crash.
- Facebook says that it is “aware and investigating an increase in errors on the iOS SDK which is causing some apps to crash.” No timeline has been offered for a fix.
- Some of the apps affected by the outage include Spotify, Tinder, Pinterest, and Venmo.
If, like me, you woke up Friday morning and discovered that half of your apps were crashing as soon as you opened them, don’t fret — it’s not just your iPhone. At around 7:00 a.m. ET on Friday, Facebook acknowledged “an increase in errors on the iOS SDK which is causing some apps to crash.” If an app uses your Facebook profile to log you in, chances are that you won’t be able to open it on your iPhone right now.
While I can open the Facebook app on my iPhone, a ton of other apps and games crash as soon as I tap on the icon, including Spotify, TikTok, Booksy, Venmo, Mario Kart Tour, Arena of Valor, and more. As DownDetector shows, there are a number of additional apps and services are being affected as well.
A similar disaster occurred in May, during which “a new release of Facebook included a change that triggered crashes for some users in some apps using the Facebook iOS SDK.” The time between the first and the final update regarding that issue was about two hours, so it might be a bit before our devices start acting normally.
As of 8:00 a.m., Facebook hasn’t provided any updates, but we’ll share them here as soon as we see them.
UPDATE 1: Still nothing from Facebook, but The Verge has revealed one (somewhat complicated) method you could use to get your apps working again, if you just can’t stand it any longer. If you download Lockdown Apps from the App Store, hit cancel when it asks you to sign in, and press the “Firewall on” button at the top of the app, you can set up a VPN profile on your iPhone. Once you’ve set it up, skip the trial and your apps should work again.
UPDATE 2: It’s 9:48 a.m. ET — nearly three hours after the issue was confirmed — and there still haven’t been any updates, but all of the apps that were giving me trouble this morning appear to be working again.
UPDATE 3: Facebook has finally fixed the problem, and provided the following note at around 10:30 a.m. ET: “Earlier today, a code change triggered crashes for some iOS apps using the Facebook SDK. We identified the issue quickly and resolved it. We apologize for any inconvenience.”
