Many users have been reporting issues with iOS apps like TikTok, Spotify, Pinterest, and Tinder. Reports across Twitter and through Downdetector show that many popular apps on the iPhone have been crashing for the last couple of hours. According to a new report from The Verge, the issue seems to be caused by a bug with a Facebook SDK.
Downdetector logged tens of thousands of user crash reports on Spotify between 3:30 and 5:30 pm PT, the time where the bulk of reports seem to have been issued across a number of popular apps. User crash reports appeared to be dying down as of publication time.
The issue was caused by an apparent problem with a Facebook software development kit (SDK) tool that’s used to power sign-in features for many of the apps. Many developers reported problems with the SDK in this thread on GitHub. You didn’t need to be logged into the apps via Facebook to be affected by the crashes — I wasn’t able to open a fresh install of Spotify from the App Store, for example.
“Earlier today, a new release of Facebook included a change that triggered crashes for some users in some apps using the Facebook iOS SDK,” a Facebook spokesperson said in a statement to The Verge. “We identified the issue quickly and resolved it. We apologize for any inconvenience.”
A source with knowledge of the situation told The Verge that Facebook had disabled a server configuration update that triggered its SDK to cause apps using it to crash. In the GitHub thread, a user who appears to be a Facebook engineer said the company had reverted the server-side change causing the issue and that the change may take time to propagate.
It may take a bit for the fix to go through, so if you are experiencing this issue, try force closing the app and continue to try and reopen until it begins to work again
