Face ID - Move your iPhone a little lower

Crazy, it worked for me. I tried everything from removing the protective glass to resetting all settings, and the hilarious thing is smashing it worked. I'll stick to the low tech then.

Mine worked too! After everything I tried to do, I opened the ‘set up face ID’ held it on my left hand and hit the front camera lol. Never thought it would work but it did for me! Thank you!!!!!

oh god this works for me too! just a little smack and it goes fine! LOL

It worked!.

Wild - don’t normally believe in hitting expensive bits of tech, but it worked! The circle appeared & allowed me to set Face ID. Had already updated software to 16.3.1 & no joy. Already tried cleaning & switching off & even tried updating all apps. So thanks a million for that suggestion

This happened to me as well after update. I can’t believe this fixed it. Wish I saw this before spending hours researching and factory restoring phone. Thanks you so much. I hope a patch will resolve for good will be available soon

Im another person that shortly after 16.3.1 Face ID stopped working. I removed the screen protector and it briefly worked again….. then it stopped again. I tried the slapping and sure enough… back to working again. Crazy!!

I am having the same issue on my iPhone 13 Pro, updating to 16.3.1 didn’t fix the issue. Hitting the front camera with palm works temporarily but it always come back. Hoping for the fix in the next update.

I’ve gotten the same issue on my 13 pro max recently too. I got it when i was on 16.3 I think it’s a hardware issue withy the 13s that the software created but i’m not sure why this is happening. Either there is an issue with the dot projector or the camera etc

[Edited by Moderator]

Same issue happened on my iPhone XS and when I removed the screen guard then it started working fine. So what happened that I dropped my phone and after that my face id stopped working and then I noticed one small bubble appeared on the top where I think the face id sensor is and that is what was blocking the face id to scan. Now it is working fine I had to replace my sceen gaurd with the new one.

Hey all,

I had this very same issue. After attempting various steps, including some mentioned here, I first reached out to Apple Support. The attempted to remote diagnose the issue but that didn’t show anything wrong.

After a few failed attempts of DIY troubleshooting I decided to drive to the closest authorized repair center. They hooked the phone up and moments later told me the True Depth module was not functioning properly. I the reached out to Apple again, using Support application and explained what I did in resolving the issue. They listened. Since I have Apple Care+ on my iPhone they worked with me on shipping a replacement device. A few days later, I’m up and running again.

So, you can stop sla…tapping your iPhone and take it to a repair center near you. Use the Support application to help you find one, if you don’t know it already.

hope this helps those that are having issues with their device.

I’m guessing it’s either fix a connection issue, loose solder, or an alignment issue. Unfortunately it’s a temporary fix.

Having this issue, take it in for diagnosing. Then make the decision to either fix or forget it.

Or you could upgrade your device.

You will find a few humorous solutions, slapping the phone one of them.

I had this problem for several weeks, I first used the Apple Support app and the support person remote mis-diagnosed my issue and told me nothing was wrong. Fail!

I drove to an authorized repair store and they correctly diagnosed that the True Depth module was having issues. Since I have Apple Care+ active, I then reached out to Apple and they cross shipped me an iPhone.

Anybody else reading this, please take your beloved device in and get her, mine is her by the way, looked at. Hopefully they will diagnose it as a True Depth issue. If you do, come back to this message and post your results along with estimated repair costs so others don’t have to muddle through the noise.

If you want a permanent fix, then take it to an authorized repair store.

Before doing so, find the Apple article for it not working. Clean the lenses area, restart device, all that. Then when you take it in, hopefully it acts up and the tech helping you see that it is not functioning properly. Also have them run diagnostics on it.

I took mine in, and they correctly diagnosed the issue. Remote support couldn’t find any thing wrong. Yet Face ID was not working.

@salvinosoto, let us know if it starts acting up again. When I did it, it would allow me to reregister with Face ID, but then other attempts at registering again would fail. Or, Face ID stopped working again. Either the message was move lower, or Face ID is not available.