Biometric login not prompting consistently

Question

Running into an issue with biometric login on our field team iPhones. Here's what we're seeing:

Works fine on most devices
On ~15% of devices, Face ID prompts only 3-4 times out of 10
No error message — just falls back to passcode silently
Users have to manually tap "Use Face ID" to trigger it

Devices are iPhone 12-15, iOS 18.2-18.3. FieldPulse app v3.3.1.

Anyone else seeing this? Is there a setting we're missing, or is this a known issue?

Priya Nair (Staff) · Accepted Answer

Hi Sylvia, happy to help!

Josh is right that iOS Keychain issues are the most common cause. Here's our troubleshooting flow:

Check Settings > Face ID & Passcode > Other Apps — ensure FieldPulse is enabled
Force-close and reopen FieldPulse — don't just minimize, actually swipe up and close
Sign out and back in — this refreshes the credential binding

If those don't resolve it, there's a known issue we're tracking where biometric prompts fail when the app resumes from background suspension after 10+ minutes. We're targeting a fix in 3.3.2.

Meantime, you can see our full push notification and auth troubleshooting guide here for the workaround steps.

Josh Mercer · Answer

We've seen this too. Pro tip: it's usually iOS Keychain getting confused, not the FieldPulse app itself.

Try having users go to Settings > Face ID & Passcode > Other Apps and toggle FieldPulse off and back on. Also check if they're logged into multiple FieldPulse accounts — the app stores credentials per-account and biometrics can get sticky when there's overlap.

One other thing: if users recently changed their iPhone passcode, iOS temporarily disables Face ID for some apps until you re-authenticate. Ask if anyone did that in the last week.

Art Kowalczyk · Answer

In my experience this happens more on older iPhones with weak batteries. iOS thins background processes and Face ID falls back to passcode to save power. Check battery health in Settings — if it's under 80%, that's your culprit.