My wife reported that her 2016 Samsung Tablet S2 with version 7 Android, had done a facebook app update and when she went to reopen the app she saw that she had been logged out of her account and needed to log back in.
When she tried to log in, she was told that the app needed to perform a “security check”. This required her to enter the contorted looking text that was presented on the screen. After successfully doing this, an error popped up saying “oops something went wrong. Try again later”.
Strangely though, as the 2FA (two-factor authentication) had been activated on her account, she received a code on her cell phone. She was also presented with a facebook message asking is she had tried to sign into her account on another device. She answered “yes it was me” and was told that the access was authorised on the tablet. However the Tablet still only presented her with the same log in and screen and security check. This went on for days
The app then closed. She clicked to reopen the app and once again was presented with the normal log in screen.
I checked her Tablet to make sure that there were no other software or app updates that needed to be done that was causing this problem. There were no updates needed. I also opened the app and cleared the cache but that didn’t work. Finally I uninstalled the facebook app altogether and reinstalled it but that didn’t work either!
Next I thought that maybe the 2FA had caused a problem in her account, so thought that I would try to turn off the 2FA temporarily but unfortunately, facebook has stopped the ability to turn off 2FA once activated.
I decided that the only way to fix the problem, was to reset her Tablet back to the manufacturer’s settings which was a mission in itself as she had accumulated many apps over many years. She agreed as she wanted to regain access to her facebook account. After resetting the Tablet and reinstalling her favourite apps, I launched facebook only to be greeted with the same security check problem!
This led me to believe that the problem wasn’t with her Tablet, but with her facebook account.
She was upset that she was now faced with not being able to watch facebook on her Tablet which was one of her favourite past times.
Being faced with no way forward, I started to scour the Internet looking for ways to fix this problem that I had missed. But sadly there were no answers.
Sadly I had to tell my wife that there were no fixes and that it seemed she would not be able to watch facebook on her Tablet anymore.
After a few days I wondered if I could log into my facebook account on her Tablet. Using my account, which also uses 2FA, I was able to log into my account with no problem. I then logged out of my account and tried logging in with her account again and low and behold I was then able to log in!
Needless to say she is now very happy and since happy wife means a happy life I am also happy that I have learned something new.
