Oh No: Pixel 4 Owners Getting “Can’t Verify Face” Message

A growing list of Pixel 4 owners are experiencing an issue with the phone’s Face Unlock that leaves it unable to verify faces. Since this is the only option for a secure lock on the phone, outside of the old school PIN or password settings, you can imagine how frustrating it might be to not be able to use Face Unlock.

The list of folks with the issue started in November at Google’s Pixel Phone Help forum and has only grown since. Users are seeing a “Can’t verify face. Try again.” message that they are unable to make go away. Some are also seeing “Can’t verify face. Hardware not available,” which sounds worse.

Some users said that they received a message on their phone to re-enroll their face in order for Face Unlock to continue working. After deleting face data and setting up again, the “Can’t verify face” message began to appear.  Again, this first popped up in November, but a wave of people jumped in after the January update to echo the issue.

What’s the fix? So far, a full factory reset on the phone is all that has helped. Deleting and setting up face data again hasn’t worked, nor have simpler solutions like rebooting the phone.

Should we find out more, we’ll update this post. If you are experiencing this issue, I hate to say it, but a factory reset might fix you right up.

// Pixel Phone Support