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David Shanahan Author

Level 4

1,004 points

Face ID Failing After Installing iOS 16.3.1

About 36 hrs after upgrading my iPhone 11 to iOS 16.3.1 Face ID stopped working. Until then Face ID had always worked flawlessly. It refused to unlock the phone and forced me to enter the passcode to unlock it. I tried cleaning the notch, retrying unlock, nothing helped. After several failed unlock attempts I got a message saying "Face ID unavailable, try again later".

Eventually I tried resetting Face ID and tried to set it up again, but during the face scan process I got the Face ID not available, try again later message. I then tried restarting the phone and went back into Face ID setup and it failed again, but on the second or third attempt it suddenly worked and I could complete the Face ID setup process. From then on Face ID was working again. For about 24 hrs. Then it just stopped working again (this time I didn't get the unavailable, try again later message, it just wouldn't unlock).

This time I powered the iPhone off and on again and it still failed to unlock without the passcode a few times, but then suddenly started working again for no obvious reason.

I guess it could be an intermittent h/w issue, but I'm suspicious that iOS 16.3.1 may be causing the problem, has anyone else encountered issues with Face ID after updating to 16.3.1?

I'm also curious about the meaning of the message "Face ID unavailable, try again later" and what sort of issue(s) would trigger that? What sort of problem would cause Face ID to fail temporarily and waiting a while might resolve? Temperature or something?

iPhone 11

Posted on Feb 16, 2023 2:48 AM

Top-ranking reply

magnum273

Level 1

8 points

Posted on Feb 23, 2023 3:48 AM

I have 2 iPhones 11 pro max and Face ID stopped working on both of them now. I tried all the solutions with no success . I am certain that the latest iOS update 16.3.1 is the cause .

I also have a few friends with the same phones that just mentioned to me that they have the same issue .

I hope a new update is released soon to fix this important issue

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90 replies

David Shanahan Author

Level 4

1,004 points

Mar 12, 2023 5:45 AM in response to David Shanahan

Hmm, I set the iPhone 11 up as a new phone and trying to configure Face ID during the setup failed with the message "Face ID is not available." Once I finished setting up the phone I went into Settings and tried to set up Face ID again, it failed when trying to scan my face a couple of times with the same message, but on about the third attempt it worked and I got Face ID set up ok. Brief testing of Face ID seemed to work ok, but from previous experience it will likely fail again after a while (anywhere from an hour to several hours).

David Shanahan Author

Level 4

1,004 points

Mar 12, 2023 5:54 AM in response to Alancito

Yeah, I wasn't very happy that the battery capacity was so low only a little over a year after getting the new battery (the original battery lasted nearly twice that long before needing to be replaced), but I hadn't considered it might be related to this Face ID problem. I've got a 14 now, so I'm not sure I'll bother getting the 11's battery checked, but I'll see. Thanks for the suggestion.

David Shanahan Author

Level 4

1,004 points

Mar 13, 2023 12:35 AM in response to David Shanahan

I did some further testing on the phone today and nothing's really changed — Face ID works fine for a while then fails, with no error message, it just fails to unlock the phone. Power off and restart usually clears the problem, though sometimes I have to restart it more than once to get Face ID working again, but sooner or later it fails again.

This time I made sure the phone was fully charged before testing it, given the battery capacity is only 83% I started to wonder if Face ID might start failing when the battery is getting low, but it still happens even at 100% charge.

I then tried resetting Face ID and setting it up again. That worked but it would not unlock the phone, even after three restarts. So I reset Face ID again and tried to set it up again and that failed with "Face ID not available" message, two or three restarts later I was finally able to set up Face ID again and then it unlocked the phone as usual.

Alancito

Level 7

28,253 points

Mar 13, 2023 3:16 AM in response to David Shanahan

David Shanahan wrote: "...given the battery capacity is only 83% I started to wonder if Face ID might start failing when the battery is getting low, but it still happens even at 100% charge."

As the battery is likely to be fundamentally weak (having only 83% capacity), being 100% charged won't make any difference to the battery's ability to supply enough power to the demanding function of Face ID. ...But probably the only way to confirm that the battery is causing the Face ID issues is to have the battery replaced.

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jptrek77

Level 1

13 points

Mar 13, 2023 5:36 AM in response to Alancito

Capacity is not the same as charge voltage; your reply exhibits a fundamental misunderstanding of how DC electronics work.

What’s more, Face ID does not spontaneously work while the phone is plugged in either.

Additionally, your idea that FaceID is “power demanding”, as opposed to say, mapping rooms with the integrated LiDAR and then processing the resulting point clouds (both of which I do daily) is just uninformed bananas.

Mar 13, 2023 8:38 AM in response to David Shanahan

YES, I'VE TWICE TO APPLE ON THE SAME PLACE IN TWO DIFFERENT STORES AND BOTH OF THEM TOLD ME AFTER TESTING THAT I NEED TO REPLACE THE FACE ID AND SINCE I'M OUT OF WARRANTY OF MY IPHONE 13 PRO MAX I MUST PAY APPROX. €350+(DON'T RECALL THE ACTUAL AMOUNT) TO APPLE. OR I CAN ASK THE RETAILERS WHERE I BOUGHT THE DEVICE FOR THE HELP TO SOLVE OR REPLACEMENT OF FACEID. I'VE RUN LIKE CRAZY FOR THESE LAST TWO DAYS TO THE RETAILER BUT IT SEEMS, IN THE END OF THE DAY I CAME TO THIS CONCLUSION EITHER APPLE GIVES A SOFTWARE UPDATE TO SOLVE IT OR IF REPLACING IS THE ONLY OPTION LEFT THEN WE'RE SCAMMED....

Mar 13, 2023 12:21 PM in response to MINHAZRAFSAN

I can confirm that Apple and apple support is absolutely ****. First they push an update that breaks FaceID and next they ask customers to pay for the repair. my phone has a third party battery replacement since 9 months and was working fine without any issues, updated to 16.3.1 and booom face id stops working. Apple then proceeds to run diagnostics on my phone and accepts that faceid is not working because of a System issue and tells me go to the store to get it fixed free of cost even though i am out of warranty, they state that the issue is system related and it will be handled free of cost. I step into the store and they start asking me money for what was supposed to be a free repair, next thing i know they are blaming me for having a battery replaced at a third party and not at all agreeing to fix the face id issue which they caused via an update!

David Shanahan Author

Level 4

1,004 points

Mar 14, 2023 10:46 PM in response to David Shanahan

After further testing and Alancito's suggestion I've an appointment at an Apple store on Friday to have this problem investigated, particularly the battery, as I'm starting to think that's more likely the cause of this Face ID issue than the 16.3.1 update.

A couple of days ago while restarting the phone to try to clear the Face ID problem it booted up and immediately popped up a low battery warning (supposedly only 10% charge left), but I knew the phone had over 90% charge at the time. I shut it down and powered it on again and this time no low battery warning and the battery showed 90%+ charge as expected. I think the battery, having only 83% capacity, is maybe getting flakey and this may be the cause of the Face ID problem. I checked and the battery was replaced in Nov 2021.

i'll report back after Apple have had a look at the phone, but in the meantime I'd recommend that anyone else suddenly having Face ID failures on an iPhone 12 or earlier check your battery capacity and if it's getting close to the magic 80% level get it checked by Apple.

jptrek77

Level 1

13 points

Mar 15, 2023 8:56 AM in response to David Shanahan

Again, the battery argument makes no sense, as your FaceID worked prior to the 16.3.1 update even when it only had 10% charge left; now it doesn’t work even when 100% charged.

This feels a lot like someone messed up Apple’s normal strategy of bricking older phones, especially since mine is a 13Pro.

I was told by the Geniuses at the bar that my hardware failed and I need to pay for a refurbished phone.

Before you take your phone in: try doing a complete restore and report back? Of the 4 people I know that have had this problem, it appears to have fixed one of them.

jptrek77

Level 1

13 points

Mar 15, 2023 2:00 PM in response to David Shanahan

How is 83% nearly the end of life for the battery!? If you had a laptop for a year, would you say the battery is dead, even though it lasts a full 4/5ths as long as it used to!?

I think my annoyance with this is that customers with your mindset enable the behavior that created the problem, and if they replace the battery and it works you’ll be happy, even though it’s all nonsense, the same as the last couple lawsuits apple paid a fortune out to resolve.

blah.

David Shanahan Author

Level 4

1,004 points

Mar 15, 2023 2:55 PM in response to jptrek77

80% is the recommended capacity for battery replacement that Apple recommend.

From previous experience that's also about the level at which you start encountering problems with these batteries. I had an iPhone 6 before the 11 that got to around 80% capacity after a couple of years and then it pretty quickly began lasting far less than it's previous time, it sometimes wouldn't charge to 100%, it would suddenly drop from reporting 80 or 90% charge to 20% or less, and other such issues. Replacing the battery fixed it and it worked fine from then until I upgraded to the 11.

Now this phone has also started misbehaving at close to 80% battery capacity, so it would not surprise me to find that replacing the battery fixes it.

Why would I not be happy if replacing the battery fixes the problem? If it fixes it then it's clearly not "all nonsense". This is not a "mindset" issue, it's a fact that these batteries start causing problems at around 80% capacity. They do not simply decline smoothly with no impact on operation aside from reduced run time, at around 80% they hiccup and can misbehave in various odd ways.

With a laptop that no longer lasts a full day or starts shutting down due to low battery capacity you can usually plug it in and run it from the mains, that's not possible with an iPhone.

jptrek77

Level 1

13 points

Mar 18, 2023 6:45 AM in response to David Shanahan

This isn’t intended to be an appeal to authority, but I’m an engineer with a robotics and electronics lab in my basement. I work at a small lab designing small weight and power solutions to technical and defense problems.

Your “mindset” is founded in not understanding how batteries work and what “battery health” means: FaceID is absolutely not a higher power demand than, say, the screen. Or the speaker. Much less cell, lte, wifi, and Bluetooth.

If swapping the battery fixes the issue, it would still indicate that this is either a software bug or, worse, planned obsolescence, for which apple has been successfully sued more than once.

Mar 18, 2023 8:00 AM in response to David Shanahan

Same problem with my phone since updating to 16.3.1. My sons phone was working fine until he upgraded to 16.3.1 this week. Seems to be the common denominator. Apple is trying to make money off people claiming they aren’t the problem.

David Shanahan Author

Level 4

1,004 points

Mar 18, 2023 1:36 PM in response to Amy_applefan

Do yourself a favour and take the phone into Apple and have them test it, you may find, as I did, that it is in fact a hardware fault. I thought at first that it might be a software bug in 16.3.1, then I thought maybe a battery issue, but hardware tests proved that these assumptions were incorrect.

Mar 18, 2023 1:47 PM in response to David Shanahan

Hi everyone:

I originally started this post regarding the software update that is causing the Face ID to stop working .

I am a technician and replaced my badly scratched screen with an OEM screen . The Face ID was working fine up until the latest software update .

After numerous attempts to repair the Face ID by replacing the true depth camera , dot projector and ear piece speaker , the Face ID would not work .

I decided to install the original scratched screen and finally the Face ID is now working perfectly.

Now I can confirm that the software is the case of the Face ID not working due to the replacement of the part that is not originally programmed to the motherboard.

Any phone that has a screen replaced by a non Apple Store will have this issue as they can pair the new part to the motherboard so all functionalities will be as per original.

Face ID Failing After Installing iOS 16.3.1