Face ID - Move your iPhone a little lower

Couple firm slaps on front camera array with lower palm solved the issue for me on iPhone 13 Pro Max.

Honestly, try this. Remove phone from case. Hold face down by the base of the phone, now clap the front camera into the palm of your other hand. Not too hard, but not too gentle.

tap top of screen works!!!

tap island at top medium firm with base of hand

I ran into the same problem. Could not get face ID to work again. I called Apple Support and they had no real answers other than to update from 6.2 to 6.3 software. That worked beautifully. So if you’re on 6.2 or maybe lower and it’s not working update your software to iOS 6.3..

I just tried this thinking it wouldn’t work and it did!! Thank you been trying to make a new Face ID all day!! And turning the phone off and on didn’t work but giving it a tap to the palm did! Whoohoo

Face Id stopped working for me completely after tapping was working for a while. I went to Apple Store, they did diagnostics and said everything was alright regarding hardware :) Of course. They advised to completely erase my iPhone and set it up as a new one. Like delete everything I have and rebuild everything from scratch. No guarantees though it would fix the issue. But just buy iCloud plan to ease the pain to restore whatever might be restored with no guarantees to fix the core issue. Pathetic!

jokka31 wrote:

For some reason knocking the phone on the front camera area on my palm wakes it up then works for a day or so then stops then i just knock it again and it works and so the cycle goes

If that works then you have an intermittent hardware problem , If not then its a permanent hardware problem.

Having a non-Apple shop change battery or screen will permanently disable Face ID

Updates can bring on hardware failures that were ready to fail, especially on X, XR or XS models .

No compensation for fails during an update out of warranty.

Unbelievably I rebooted the phone then smacked the top left side of the screen (where the camera that faces me is located) against the palm of my hand. Then I went to Face ID & Passcodes in Settings and toggled Password Autofill on and I was able to reset my Face ID moving the phone whilst it captured all the angles of my face! Eureka amazed that a few taps did the trick!!

I mean I can’t believe it. After trying everything else literally.. I slapped it on its front camera and it worked.

I find adjusting the distance between the phone and your face helps with this. Occasionally " the good ol' fashion" restating your phone can also help with this issue.

Take a selfie in *Portrait* mode. Then try Face ID setup again.

So the fix is to gently smack your front camera. I thought the other posts were a joke but it works

For some reason knocking my phone like a slap worked as well. Just did it a few times until the ‘move iPhone lower’ disappeared and then it recognised my face… weird!

Lo and behold hitting the phone makes it work again.