According to a recent report, multiple iPhone and iPad users are seeing their apps crash at launch, and the issue appears to be caused by a faulty Facebook SDK that the apps are using. While the issue has not been officially blamed on Facebook, all the apps that are crashing use Facebook’s SDK to provide the option to log into the app using the social media account.
Multiple developers on GitHub have attributed the problem to a Facebook software development kit used by the apps for sign-in purposes. Apps are failing to open even when users do not use the Facebook login options included. Some high-profile apps that are affected include Spotify, Waze, Pinterest, and TikTok.
It is not clear when the issue will be fixed, but with so many apps affected, it could be addressed shortly. Facebook will likely be able to fix the problem over the air with a server update. Unfortunately for users, Facebook did not need to roll out an update to the SDK on users’ phones to cause chaos. A simple server-side change was apparently enough to cause apps using the SDK to crash.
The more worrying aspect of this incident is that users who did not even use Facebook logins were affected by this issue. The app just needed to be linked to the Facebook SDK in one way or another for it come crashing down like a house of cards.
That change has been reverted, according to The Verge, but it might take some time for it to propagate to all users across the world. So if you are experiencing this issue, try force closing the app and continue to try and reopen until it begins to work again.
