Facebook-ios-sdk: App suddenly crashing on startup in production due to FBSDKRestrictiveDataFilterManager.m

[nicklocking]

Checklist

• [ ] I've updated to the latest released version of the SDK
• [x] I've searched for existing GitHub issues
• [x] I've looked for existing answers on Stack Overflow, the Facebook Developer Community Forum and the Facebook Developers Group
• [x] I've read the Code of Conduct
• [x] This issue is not security related and can safely be disclosed publicly on GitHub

Environment

Describe your dev environment here, giving as many details as possible. If you have them, make sure to include:

Production. Facebook SDK 5.0.2.

Goals

What do you want to achieve?

My company's app to not crash in production.

Expected Results

What do you expect to happen?

My app to work properly in production.

Actual Results

What actually happened? Can you provide a stack trace?

The app crashes on open, because of Facebook's SDK, starting at 10:53PM PST. Seems to be happening for 100% of users. 1400 crashes in the last 16 minutes.

FBSDKRestrictiveDataFilterManager.m - Line 108
+[FBSDKRestrictiveDataFilterManager updateFilters:restrictiveParams:] + 108

Steps to Reproduce

What are the steps necessary to reproduce this issue?

Open our app, Pray.com.

[agam-mahajan-swiggy]

Happening for my App also. 'FBSDKCoreKit' , '5.1.1' for all the users.

[ethanhuang13]

Happening on my app. tvOS with FBSDKCoreKit v5.8.0.
(However the iOS app with the same SDK version is not affected.)

[furthergo]

APP using FBSDKCoreKit v5.0.2 is crash, which using FBSDKCoreKit v5.4.1 is OK

[sekitaka]

APP using FBSDKCoreKit v5.0.2 is crash, which using FBSDKCoreKit v7.1.1 is OK

[PrLion]

Please fix this ASAP.

[agam-mahajan-swiggy]

Upgraded FBSDKCoreKit to 7.1.1. Working fine now
For existing users, Had a kill switch to disable SDK

[PrLion]

Upgraded FBSDKCoreKit to 7.1.1. Working fine now
For existing users, Had a kill switch to disable SDK

Did you solve it?

[agam-mahajan-swiggy]

I think the issue is with the older SDKs. I'm not exactly sure what is causing the issue.
After updating to the latest SDK, it's not crashing

Before also a discussion happened on this crash.
https://github.com/facebook/facebook-ios-sdk/issues/1374

[PrLion]

I think the issue is with the older SDKs. I'm not exactly sure what is causing the issue.
After updating to the latest SDK, it's not crashing

Before also a discussion happened on this crash.

1374

Yep. But if app in store we can't solve it ourself. Only update.

[puneet1106]

For FBSDKCoreKit v5.0.2 facing this issue. Please fix this ASAP.

[agam-mahajan-swiggy]

@PrLion yeah. For my app on App Store, it worked because of the kill switch which is controlled remotely. I disabled SDK when got crash alert.

Now Either we have to wait for the FB team to reply and fix this or you can meanwhile upgrade to latest SDK (try 7.1.1) and request for expedite release to the Apple team.

Also, add some kill switch for this SDK so that this kind of situation doesn't come again.

[PrLion]

@PrLion yeah. For my app on App Store, it worked because of the kill switch which is controlled remotely.

Now Either we have to wait for the FB team to reply and fix this or you can meanwhile upgrade and request for expedite release to the Apple team.

thx. Can you tell how can I do this one too?

[Garima0812]

App is getting crashed since 11:45 in the morning due to the exception in FBSDK . Please resolve it as soon as possible .

[agam-mahajan-swiggy]

@PrLion After submitting app for review
Go to this link https://developer.apple.com/contact/app-store/?topic=expedite and fill the necessary information.
Mention the crash and the fix.

[PrLion]

@PrLion After submitting app for review
Go to this link https://developer.apple.com/contact/app-store/?topic=expedite and fill the necessary information.
Mention the crash and the fix.

Thank you)

[OneManMobile]

Is there a timeline for the rollout of a fix @joesus ?

[wangjunhua1]

The old version suddenly appeared a lot of crashes today
[FBSDKRestrictiveDataFilterManager updateFilters:restrictiveParams:]

[alainnguyen]

Same here on our iOS App on Live users, using FBSDK 5.1.1.
Please, fix the regression ASAP.

[matt-aitken]

Same here. I believe this issue also happened on May 7!!

[rom4ikq]

Same here. Using FBSDK 5.0.2

[danbus]

The same problem, please fix it as soon as possible, affecting all users

[samh-depop]

We are using 5.2.3 and having the same crash.
This is crashing the app for all our users in productions.

Can anyone help on this?

[JamesSawley]

Same problem on 5.11

[IainS1986]

Same issue with SDK 5.0.2 (Xamarin package Xamarin.Facebook.iOS 5.0.2 etc)

Upgrading to SDK 5.12.0 (Xamarin package(s) Xamarin.Facebook.iOS 5.12.0 etc) seemed to resolve the issue.

[PavloNovak]

Same 5.6.0

[th3hamm0r]

Just tested a minor upgrade from 5.0 to 5.15.0, it worked for a couple of app-starts, but then started crashing again (so the SDK seems to update itself in some ways).
So you will probably need a higher version, but I cannot tell at the moment, if that fixes the issue...

Related: https://github.com/facebook/facebook-ios-sdk/issues/1373#issuecomment-624936404

[kopfnick]

Multiple of our apps crashing for us, new releases are not an option. Spotify is also down...

[esam091]

All essential apps in my country crashes ☹️

[tecbot]

Second time this year, great

[guptameet]

FBKMKB

[guptameet]

FB is not responsible enough to have shipped code like this. Irresponsible!!

[Wisors]

FB, Have you consider adding Continuous Integration and Functional Tests questions to your Interview's questionnaire?

[Ravi61]

MoveFastBreakEverything

Do you even have a code review process?

[tewner]

We're seeing this issue too.
This may be related to bug https://developers.facebook.com/support/bugs/249767556223451/
which was fixed back in May by a Facebook Platform rollback.

[wangjunhua1]

Now there are problems with the new version

[wangjunhua1]

Now there are problems with the new version

FBSDKCoreKit、FBSDKLoginKit、FBSDKShareKit 6.3.0

[tothvoj-gl]

Issue status here: https://developers.facebook.com/status/issues/1739188102911114/

[soaurabhtokopedia]

FB guys, any ETA around this fix, please...

[nghuiqin]

It's Happy Friday 🥇

[objectiveCarlo]

Anyone have eta? will they fix for all versions or just the newest version of their sdk?

[arthur-watcha]

@agam-mahajan-swiggy

How did you remotely control whether to use the SDK?

[lawgimenez]

Spotify, Booking.com and Pinterest crashing

[iphonic]

Happening all of a sudden crash in Development too..

-[NSNull count]: unrecognized selector sent to instance 0x10d05eea8

in FBSDKRestrictiveDataFilterManager

+ (void)updateFilters:(nullable NSDictionary<NSString *, id> *)restrictiveParams
{
  if (restrictiveParams.count > 0) {

Line number 62

[simonlee2]

@PrLion yeah. For my app on App Store, it worked because of the kill switch which is controlled remotely. I disabled SDK when got crash alert.

Now Either we have to wait for the FB team to reply and fix this or you can meanwhile upgrade to latest SDK (try 7.1.1) and request for expedite release to the Apple team.

Also, add some kill switch for this SDK so that this kind of situation doesn't come again.

How did you disable the SDK?

[PrLion]

@PrLion

How did you remotely control whether to use the SDK?

I can't do it. "I'm not Steve Jobs)))". I'm confusion like you all)
Just sent my application to update.

[TimNN]

While this doesn't help from the developer side of things, as a user I noticed that, for me, the Apps start in Airplane mode, although they crash as soon as Airplane mode is deactivated.

[apchrkey]

Thank you Facebook, for stopping everyone from using their phones.

[apchrkey]

Another reason to never put any Facebook code in your app?

[rhysforyou]

Yeah there's no way to implement a kill switch since the Facebook SDK swizzles methods to bootstrap itself when your app launches. If you include the Facebook SDK, you're trusting Facebook not to crash your app.

[AleshaOleg]

FB investigating - https://developers.facebook.com/support/bugs/329763701368293/

[daoseng33]

FBSDKCoreKit (6.5.2) is facing the same issue.
Update: Seems like v7.1.1 is fine, but should I put some codes to disable FB SDK remotely?🤷‍♂️

[vladminsky]

I've drop using FB + Instagram 2 years ago. I have no any problems. Just letting you all know %)

[andybak]

All essential apps in my country crashes ☹️

Maybe "essential apps" shouldn't contain Facebook code? Just sayin' !

[Chevel]

Repost? 😆

[yasinugrl]

In my country(Turkey) many ios apps crashes for FBSDK

[agam-mahajan-swiggy]

@PrLion yeah. For my app on App Store, it worked because of the kill switch which is controlled remotely. I disabled SDK when got crash alert.
Now Either we have to wait for the FB team to reply and fix this or you can meanwhile upgrade to latest SDK (try 7.1.1) and request for expedite release to the Apple team.
Also, add some kill switch for this SDK so that this kind of situation doesn't come again.

How did you disable the SDK?

Before initializing SDK have a feature flag check. This flag value comes from backend API called during launch of the app

[arthur-watcha]

@agam-mahajan-swiggy
I also tried
I commented out the initialization code, but the app crashed just because the SDK was installed.

[petrykDima]

Go to Facebook Developer page > Analytics and disable automatic Events. Solved for me after 1 minute

[scf4]

Yes this happens simply by having the SDK... again. Since Apple is so committed to privacy it’s time for them to ban this SDK.

[fowkswe]

Move fast and break everybody else’s shit.

[PawelErnestLuczak]

@agam-mahajan-swiggy
I also tried
I commented out the initialization code, but the app crashed just because the SDK was installed.

same here, this is kinda creepy

[vordenken]

Maybe y'all should think about if its really necessary to add stuff like facebooks sdk to your app.
Does it help the user? Is it really a good idea in terms of privacy? What about GDPR?

btw, its not necessary to add this sdk if you only want to use facebook as a login option.

[mkeefe]

Crazy to think in 2020 that Facebook developers wouldn't use CI and code quality checking. Equally crazy how many apps rely on this SDK, needs an SLA.

[Diggsey]

Or maybe people shouldn't be using outdated versions of an SDK...

... or maybe facebook's SDK shouldn't be running code before it's initialized by the application.

Still, you'd think people would have realised what sort of company FB is at this point...

[WangGeBing]

5.7.0 also has this problem

[svobora]

Idiots, now Waze and Spotify are crashing on launch.

[flizzyJ]

Go to Facebook Developer page > Analytics and disable automatic Events. Solved for me after 1 minute

Where i find the developerpage?

[sangar]

Go to Facebook Developer page > Analytics and disable automatic Events. Solved for me after 1 minute

@Spotify 👆

[objectiveCarlo]

Go to Facebook Developer page > Analytics and disable automatic Events. Solved for me after 1 minute

its already off for us but still crashing

[m1]

Thanks, Jakes crying

[samh-depop]

Go to Facebook Developer page > Analytics and disable automatic Events. Solved for me after 1 minute

@spotify 👆

This does not work for us.

[guptameet]

Go to Facebook Developer page > Analytics and disable automatic Events. Solved for me after 1 minute

It didn't work for me. Is it working for others?

[petrykDima]

Fix with automatically events starts work after one minute.
Don't forget check your target and tap on save changes =)

[BorisMolch]

@guptameet it took around 10 minutes here
app stopped crashing...
But i've seen people say fb have a fix now, so not sure why its stopped crashing.

[flizzyJ]

how do i get on the Facebook developer Page? is it in the App, or where?

[Olovorr]

how do i get on the Facebook developer Page? is it in the App, or where?

@flizzyJ https://developers.facebook.com/ -> navigate to your app in top menu

[yusufkayaer]

i have same issue.

[guptameet]

@guptameet it took around 10 minutes here
app stopped crashing...
But i've seen people say fb have a fix now, so not sure why its stopped crashing.

Still crashing. Could you pls direct me to the page where they are saying FB got the fix?
I am following this https://developers.facebook.com/support/bugs/329763701368293/
Still no results here.

[andreykuritsin]

I'm update SDK to 7.1.1 & a crash was solved

[BorisMolch]

@guptameet it took around 10 minutes here
app stopped crashing...
But i've seen people say fb have a fix now, so not sure why its stopped crashing.

Still crashing. Could you pls direct me to the page where they are saying FB got the fix?
I am following this https://developers.facebook.com/support/bugs/329763701368293/
Still no results here.

its not a page , just seen comments on our slack and other issue here on gitHub. https://github.com/facebook/facebook-ios-sdk/issues/1431
Spotify is still crashing so i think the issue is still there.

[dsjoerg]

My daughter won't get out of bed because of this bug, thanks Facebook and Spotify

[erzailham]

Go to Facebook Developer page > Analytics and disable automatic Events. Solved for me after 1 minute

this does not work for me

[zenith-jacob]

This FB SDK disaster lasts longer than you can imagine guys.

https://github.com/facebook/facebook-android-sdk/issues/625

I'd really advise you to remove FB SDK's to save yourselves some sleep.

If you only need FB because you run ads on FB, you can still do this with an attribution partner and you can completely remove the SDK.

[haru1945]

Thank you facebook SDK for ruining our day

[guptameet]

@guptameet it took around 10 minutes here
app stopped crashing...
But i've seen people say fb have a fix now, so not sure why its stopped crashing.

Still crashing. Could you pls direct me to the page where they are saying FB got the fix?
I am following this https://developers.facebook.com/support/bugs/329763701368293/
Still no results here.

its not a page , just seen comments on our slack and other issue here on gitHub. #1431
Spotify is still crashing so i think the issue is still there.

Tried every possible permutation combination...didn't work. What is this sorcery 😩

[zenith-jacob]

You can't fix it.

It started crashing because they've changed something in the backend's API's and the SDK client error handlers simply - can't handle that.

You have to wait for them to fix it remotely. It'll work fine in a couple of hours.

Even if we fork the SDK and handle the error properly, it will still take days for Apple to approve our updated apps.
Facebook will handle that quicker.

[happymanx]

5.5.0 is crashing when launching app :sweat_smile:

[ihsanhusnul]

When I turn off auto init by adding this line in .plist.. the crash is gone.
https://developers.facebook.com/docs/app-events/gdpr-compliance/

<key>FacebookAutoInitEnabled</key>
  <false/>

may be it will help you guys for the future.

[phuongwd]

Go to Facebook Developer page > Analytics and disable automatic Events. Solved for me after 1 minute

this does not work for me

[NikxDa]

Back in March when this happened before, I said that mistakes can happen and to give the guys at Facebook a break. Two major issues like this in 4 months is a new low however, and Facebook needs to implement some proper processes to prevent stuff like this in the future - get your shit together!

[jhnferraris]

Seems our iOS app is working again. How about yours?

[dmitrybobylev]

It started working =)

[auryn31]

Mine too

[gerinka]

Seems to be fixed. Viber is working again [:

[guptameet]

Its working. Is it fixed?

[hyobb]

Our app is back to normal too!

[soaurabhtokopedia]

Most apps are working now, deployment done :)

[AntonErholt]

That was quite a ride 🚂 .

[felipepsq]

Apps are working now!

[haru1945]

Now it works again yay

[rizaldirnm]

Seems to be fixed. Viber is working again [:

Yeee mine to. Finally

[filiptronicek]

A truly historical moment 🤣

[sekitaka]

It works 👏

[masterpranav]

The issue seems to be fixed now!
That escalated quickly :P

[haru1945]

Now let’s just ditch facebook sdk all together

[digitalbrain]

looks like it has been fixed now #civostra

[erzailham]

Phew, our app is working again now
it's time for the Facebook team to say:
"its a prank !!"

[guptameet]

The issue seems to be fixed now!
That escalated quickly

This caused 2 hrs of downtime. Doesn't look quick enough to me

[drcongo]

The best fix for this is to not install a spyware SDK in your app.

[denkquer]

one sdk to rule them all

[shirshak55]

even bank app don't work just wow. And if i block following domain using next dns it works.

    facebook.com
    fbcdn.com
    fbcdn.net
    fbsbx.com
    fb.com
    instagram.com
    connect.facebook.net 
    graph.faceboom.com
    sdk.facebook.com

[gyoridavid]

Oh, this is why I uninstalled ~5 apps - I thought they are broken for good

[scf4]

Apple needs to develop and promote a simple solution to switch your Spotify/whatever account from FB login to the privacy-focused Apple login.

Obviously it would be down to app developers to implement, but Apple has a lot of power here.

[traceyhemp12]

Glad there is a fix

[xiao-maven]

Is there a postmortem from the last time? I am trying to find whether Facebook released or has plans to release an SDK update to prevent this class of issue, but all I have found so far are:

• the terse closing comment on the previous github issue
• the bugsnag postmortem of facebook's event

[ryankearney]

starting at 10:53PM PST.

Did you mean 10:53 PDT? Pacific Standard Time isn't currently observed. Pacific Daylight Time is the correct timezone to use. There is a 1 hour difference between the two.

[joesus]

Earlier today, a code change triggered crashes for some iOS apps using the Facebook SDK. We identified the issue quickly and resolved it. We apologize for any inconvenience.

[scf4]

Thanks for that quick fix guys! I’m looking forward to Apple’s more permanent solution :)

[moleki]

Are you guys going to do something to prevent this issue from happening a 3rd time? Or should I start a petition for FB to start having a proper QA?

[marcusmotill]

@moleki Facebook is a cancerous dumpster fire nobody wants to work there so we get third rate development

[vincentclee]

NextDNS is showing a lookup on graph.facebook.com when opening up Waze.

Blocking that should do the trick.

[brandonros]

@moleki Facebook is a cancerous dumpster fire nobody wants to work there so we get third rate development

is that true? i'm pretty sure they pay like... $300k-$1m/yr...

[abhay8nitt]

FBSDK sounds as F-BSDK

[rubyFeedback]

SamJakob I believe the emotional aspect is not the one of primary interest here; the engineering approach is that even when you dislike a company or a team of developers xyz (let's assume this for the moment), if something is a bug (let's assume it is as well), then the proper engineering point of view should be to fix the bug, or at the least find means to mitigate or work around it, if fixing is not possible for whatever the reason (right now). I myself reported bugs to projects I dislike or disagree with, where there, again, were several reasons as to why that was done. I find nothing wrong with reporting bugs.

[chronikum]

Thanks for the fix. But you should consider improving your testing/review process and reflect about what happened.

[enahs]

SamJakob I believe the emotional aspect is not the one of primary interest here; the engineering approach is that even when you dislike a company or a team of developers xyz (let's assume this for the moment), if something is a bug (let's assume it is as well), then the proper engineering point of view should be to fix the bug, or at the least find means to mitigate or work around it, if fixing is not possible for whatever the reason (right now). I myself reported bugs to projects I dislike or disagree with, where there, again, were several reasons as to why that was done. I find nothing wrong with reporting bugs.

Well of course I agree that Quality Assurance needs to be improved (and these bugs need to be mitigated) but I maintain that it's hard to argue calling Facebook a "cancerous dumpster fire" is constructive, no matter how true it may be.

cancer (noun): a practice or phenomenon perceived to be evil or destructive and hard to contain or eradicate.
dumpster fire (noun): a chaotic or disastrously mishandled situation.

I'd say this about meets the requirements, wouldn't you?

[dancojocaru2000]

Thanks for the fix. But you should consider improving your testing/review process and reflect about what happened.

They never do unless it results in them getting less data.

Facebook seems to be only interested in harvesting more data, hence why they force the use of a privacy invading SDK in the first place when most people just want login.

The only time they'll improve QA is if not doing so will lead to people leaving and them not getting as much data anymore, considering this is the second time a Facebook SDK issue affected a lot of apps.

[siddheshc27]

I faced this crashing issue with v7.1.1 & v7.0.1 as well, #1435

Is there any new update available which contains fix for crashing issue ??

[archywillhe]

Great! We have just witness how much power FB has over the app economy :D

[crazymanish]

In case, someone looking for a solution: https://github.com/facebook/facebook-ios-sdk/issues/1431#issuecomment-662028837