Unable to access FaceTime after 17.4 update

I did my 17.whatever update, and decided to do a little cleaning up while I was at it. It turns out I was a little too thorough and deleted my FaceTime App. Ha ha ha... I reinstalled FaceTime, and presto! Even if you didn't delete it, as a attempted fix, you might try reinstalling FaceTime. Good luck!!

This is so very bizarre! I updated to iOS 17.4 a couple of days ago. Somebody tried to FaceTime me today but the option was greyed out. As mentioned above, the solution is to re-download the FaceTime app from the App Store. I've certainly never had to do this before.

I found this on the support.apple.com website:

Spoke with Senior Support and went through all the motions. Apparently it’s an issue that has been escalated to the Engineering Department which means there have been enough incidences that they have realized it’s a problem. Was told that the only fix is to wait for an update to be released which will fix it.

You have to download the FaceTime app, which we have never needed before. Idk what Apple did, but they really screwed up.

I have the 15 and it did the same thing after the update! I downloaded the FaceTime app. Deleted it, then opened it back up and FaceTime was attached to my contacts!

I just contacted Apple support. The rep claims I am the first person to call with this issue. She assured me that it would not increase my memory usage if I download it from the cloud. I went ahead and downloaded it and now when I click video, I’m given a choice of FaceTime or Instagram and FaceTime does show up as a separate app on my phone. Not the same as it was prior to the update.

You have to have the FaceTime app now to make calls. If you deleted you will need to redownload it🤦🏻‍♀️

If you go to apps and type in FaceTime. All you get is FaceTime that you can click on and it's not even an app to download. It takes you to a page you have to either create a link or tap on New FaceTime. You tap on the green New FaceTime and it'll show you contacts to FaceTime. Then it looks like you'll have to go to apps each time to get to FaceTime to even contact them. This is absurd! Why did they break something that wasn't broken!

The annoying part to me is not that I had to reinstall the app to restore access to FaceTime, but that I just spent literally about an hour searching different keywords to figure out what was happening and how to resolve the issue.

You have to download the FaceTime app. Never needed an app for FaceTime before. Apple really screwed up.

Apparently you have to download the FaceTime app from the App Store.

It took me a while to find this thread. My sister and I facetime twice a week, and starting on March 6th, the connection was made, but my screen was blank (her videofeed was not working). My videofeed worked perfectly. This continued until today and she decided to call Apple support and was instructed to re-download the Facetime app, which she did. Now that she has done that, any attempt to reach her from my device gets a "Facetime unavailable" message. I am making the connection from an old ipad 2 ios 9.3.5. I wonder if I also have to reinstall Facetime on my device.

The exact same thing happened when I installed the latest update. First off, WTF is a FaceTime app? We never needed an app for it before. It is extremely annoying having to “fix” something that wasn’t broken.

Ever since I updated to the new 17.4 version, I can't FaceTime ANYONE. Why because porque is this happening? At risk for security issues if don't upgrade, once I do upgrade suddenly I have to download another app?!? Make it make sense migente. Please. Smh

After the latest iPhone update, the FaceTime button under only one of my contacts has disappeared so am not sure what to do as the FaceTime button is there for all my other contacts? I have been reading on hear that I might need to reinstall the FaceTime app but not sure I have to do that to get back FaceTime access to just one contact?