Firebase Bug Triggers Widespread iPhone App Crashes

A bug in Google's Firebase backend platform caused widespread iPhone app crashes on Monday night. The glitch, which was triggered by an 'incorrectly formatted payload' received by Firebase's software development kit for iOS, affected thousands of apps that rely on the platform for authentication and other features.

The problem started at 5:41 p.m. Pacific time and was resolved almost two hours later, with Google rolling out a fix at 7:52 p.m. Developers reported crashes across various iOS versions, not just the latest update, iOS 27.0.1.

No app updates were required to resolve the issue, but caching caused some apps to continue crashing for several hours after the fix was rolled out.