Face ID - Move your iPhone a little lower

I slapped the front camera too! I cannot believe that was the solution 😂😂😂. Seriously, I was about to make an appointment at the Genius Bar when I read about smacking the phone. Thank you to whomever figured this out originally!!!

I thought this was a prank response; It is not. I had all the symptoms listed here, included "Move iPhone lower" ad nauseum. Nothing cleared it. Just a very light tap did the trick.

i want to reply to @jokka31, thank you! I palm punched my front camera when it was telling me to move phone lower and boom! It let me setup my Face ID again! (13 Pro Max) our apple products are $1000+ and we fix them by face palming them? That in itself is a face palm. Get your stuff together Apple.

One more thing to try to fix "move iPhone a little lower" - move the iPhone into strong light, preferably daylight and try again. One iPhone user here walked outside and was able to complete the Face ID setup without the "move iPhone ...' fault. Worth a try!

Had this issue for months. Tried the slapping thing with no joy. Read this comment and decided to try again with the phone out of it's case. Now it works. Honestly can't believe it. Bloomin' brilliant. I was genuinely going to buy the new 15 pro max if I couldn't fix it. Now I'll just wait for the 16.

Thank you, you legend

Try cleaning your front facing camera. It worked for me.

That worked for a while for me then stopped again and back and forth a few times then took to Apple and got fixed. I have AppleCare. It is something with the Face ID sensor.

Go to Genius Bar, they will fix it for free if you are in the manufacturer warranty if not they will charge you about 300$

The IOS 17 update fixed the issue with my phone.

I did not think this would work and honestly just did it out of frustration after trying everything else for hours and hours. Lo and behold, THIS FIXED MINE TOO! This is fricken hilarious. I don’t have to hit it too hard either. Just one solid slap of the front camera to the palm of my other hand about as hard as a polite clap and voila! Thank you for posting this.

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.

I genuinely can not believe this worked for me too.... What in the world. I went to the Genius Bar and everything. They did hardware tests.. nothing wrong. They told me to take it home and do a factory reset and see if it worked then.. it didn't. Then I found this feed and I,too, smacked my iphone with the heel of my hand. And it let me set up Face ID! Canceling my second Genius bar appointment lol

From my experience with this issue, I’m guessing there is a huge design flaw causing the True Depth sensor to fail. And giving it little tap gets it going. The best analogy I can come up with to think of the sensor like a filament bulb. The bulb stops working, and upon inspection it looks like it should work. Give the bulb a tap and it lights up. Take the bulb out and tilt it, only to discover that one end of the filament has become detached from its connection and by tapping it the filament makes a connection until it fails, again.

The swift smack on the screen with my palm worked for me too, I’m so surprised! (I have an iPhone 13). I smacked the middle of the screen first with my palm and when that didn’t work I smacked a little more toward the top of the screen and it worked! My Face ID had stopped working so I tried resetting it only to get that dreaded “move your iPhone a little lower” message repeatedly. I also tried restarting and loading the latest software per instructions online but to no avail. As a last straw I tried the smack and my face started registering! Thank you for posting that and good luck to all!

LOOOL I NEVER respond to forums but this is a must. I literally listened to the comments suggesting to "lightly tap/hit" the front camera while attempting to reset my Face ID and it worked INSTANTLY. Nice reminder that although advancing and sometimes mind-blowing, technology is still man made. :)