If Facebook crashes or the event-creation screen breaks when Location Services are off, you’re usually hitting a brittle part of the Events UI where Facebook expects a location signal (GPS or location permission) during venue search, map preview, or “Nearby” suggestions, and when it gets “no access,” the app sometimes fails ungracefully instead of falling back cleanly. The good news is you can almost always work around it in a few predictable ways. 🙂
Why it happens (what’s actually crashing) 📍💥
During event creation, Facebook often tries to do one or more of these in the background:
- pre-fill a location picker using your device location
- load a map/places search
- validate an address or venue suggestion
If Location Services are OFF globally, or Facebook’s Location permission is set to “Never / Deny,” that call can fail and the UI can crash, especially on certain app builds and OS versions. Meta’s own guidance on enabling location for Facebook shows that Facebook expects location access at the device level for related features (see Turn on Location Services for Facebook). Also, Facebook’s help steps for editing event location confirm that location is a first-class event field with a dedicated UI flow (see Add or edit the location of your Facebook event).
Fast fixes (pick the one you’re most comfortable with) ✅
Option A: Keep Location Services OFF, but create the event on desktop 💻
This is the cleanest workaround if you don’t want to enable location at all.
- Open Facebook in a desktop browser (or “Desktop site” mode on mobile browser)
- Create the event there
- Set location manually (or set it as an online event if applicable)
Desktop event creation typically avoids the same mobile-specific crash path.
Option B: Temporarily enable Location just long enough to get past the broken step ⏱️📍
If you’re okay with a short temporary toggle:
- Turn Location Services ON at the OS level
- Set Facebook Location permission to While using the app
- Create the event, set the location, save it
- Turn Location back OFF if you want
Meta’s official steps for granting Facebook location permission (Android/iOS) are outlined here: Turn on Location Services for Facebook.
Option C: Avoid triggering the “place search” entirely (manual location strategy) 🧠
Sometimes the crash is specifically triggered when the app opens the venue search/map component.
Try this pattern:
- Choose Online event (if it fits), or
- Enter a very plain text location (city name) first, save draft, then edit later
After the event exists, editing the location sometimes works more reliably using the dedicated flow described in Add or edit the location of your Facebook event.
Option D: Fix a “stuck” app build/session (common if it started suddenly) 🔄
If this began recently (yesterday it worked, today it crashes), treat it like an app-state issue:
- Update Facebook app to the latest version
- Force close the app and reopen
- Clear cache (Android) / Offload + reinstall (iOS)
- Try the same flow on a different network (Wi-Fi vs cellular)
Device-specific checklist 📱
iPhone / iOS
- Settings → Privacy & Security → Location Services → ON (temporarily, if needed)
- Settings → Facebook → Location → While Using the App
- If you want Location Services OFF globally, use desktop creation as the stable workaround
Android
- Settings → Location → ON (temporarily)
- Settings → Apps → Facebook → Permissions → Location → Allow only while using the app
- If you deny location permission, retrying the broken join/create flows repeatedly can sometimes worsen stability; try desktop or web fallback first
How to confirm it’s really location causing the crash 🧪
Do a 30-second A/B test:
- Location OFF → try creating event → crash
- Location ON + Facebook permission “While using” → try again
If it stops crashing immediately, you’ve confirmed the dependency.
When it’s not Location (two sneaky alternatives) 🕵️♂️
Even if Location Services are off, the “crash on create” can also be triggered by:
- A broken “places/venue search” component for your account/app build (web/desktop often bypasses it)
- A permissions/UI bug in that specific Facebook version (updating/reinstalling fixes it)
Quick question so I can give you the exact steps (no guessing) 🎯
Are you doing this on iPhone or Android, and does it crash the moment you tap “Location” (venue search), or when you hit “Create/Save”?
