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Facebook fixes bug that crashed some iPhone apps

Engineers at the social network address a bug that caused some iPhone apps to crash when trying to interface with the service.

Jim Dalrymple Special to CNET News
Jim Dalrymple has followed Apple and the Mac industry for the last 15 years, first as part of MacCentral and then in various positions at Macworld. Jim also writes about the professional audio market, examining the best ways to record music using a Macintosh. He is a member of the CNET Blog Network and is not an employee of CNET. He currently runs The Loop.
Jim Dalrymple

A bug in Facebook's software appeared late Tuesday that caused some iPhone apps using the service to crash instantly, according to developers that spoke with CNET.

Nodconcept

The bug was originally thought to be with Facebook's application programming interface, which enabled developers to publish feed stories into their apps. Facebook reminded developers on Monday that the old APIs would be turned off on Tuesday, a plan that had been in the works since last October.

Chris Diskin of Nodconcept, makers of Emoti (iTunes Link), an iPhone app that enables users to post status messages on Facebook with custom emoticons, said his app stopped working on Tuesday afternoon, after the old APIs were supposed to be turned off. However, Facebook representatives later said a bug in the software, not the company's APIs, caused the issue.

The bug didn't affect all apps, and perhaps not even all apps in the same way. For instance, Emoti users that purchased the app and logged into Facebook before Tuesday afternoon were able to use the app just fine. Those that purchased the app after midafternoon on Tuesday found that the app crashed immediately.

Within hours of being alerted to the problem, Facebook engineers tracked down the problem and fixed it.

Diskin confirmed for CNET late Wednesday that Emoti was working again.