Facebook Connect is an absolute boon for iPhone developers who want an easy way to add a social layer to their apps. And the service is great for users because it allows them to use the social elements of apps without having to create yet another account with yet another service. It’s a win-win — except when it goes down. As it has today.
Based on several tips and various bitching around the web, it’s pretty clear that Facebook Connect for the iPhone has been broken since yesterday. This of course is a huge problem when a lot of apps rely on the service for their apps to function. Various users are reporting seeing this error when trying to login to an app via Connect:
Under Construction
APP NAME is under construction.
Note to application developers:
To fix this error, please set your Connect URL in the application settings editor. Once it has been set, users will be redirected to that URL instead of this page after logging in.
A thread on Facebook Platform Developer Forum features several pissed off developers explaining the problem in detail. Apparently, some people are able to login, but when they try do anything, nothing works.
I’ve contacted Facebook for the official word on what is going on and will update when I hear back.
Update: A Facebook Platform team member, Matt Trainer, has just responded in the forum:
Thanks for the reports. We are aware of the bug and are investigating now. We will follow up in the bug report.
Update 2: Here’s the statement I got from Facebook:
“There was a small bug that prevented users from logging in to Facebook Connect for iPhone apps for a short period of time. We expect it to be back up momentarily.”
A day hardly seems like a short period of time, but at least it will be working again soon.