On Wednesday, Meta experienced a significant disruption across its suite of social media and messaging platforms, including Instagram, Facebook, Facebook Messenger, WhatsApp, and Threads. By late afternoon, the majority of these applications were restored to functionality.
Details of the Outage
Reports of issues began surfacing around 10 a.m. PT, as users flocked to Downdetector to voice their frustrations. The platform, which tracks service disruptions, noted a sharp increase in outage reports for all affected apps during this timeframe. Users encountered various problems, with Instagram displaying error messages on its web interface and a persistent spinning wheel on the mobile app when attempting to refresh their feeds. Although Stories remained accessible, the “following” tab was plagued by a “couldn’t load activity” notification.
As the hours progressed, while the number of outage reports began to decline, many users still faced sluggish loading times, with some only able to access posts that were hours old. In a bid to keep users informed, Meta acknowledged the situation on X at 10:48 a.m. PT, stating, “We’re aware that a technical issue is impacting some users’ ability to access our apps. We’re working to get things back to normal as quickly as possible and apologize for any inconvenience.”
By 2:26 p.m. PT, Meta provided an update, expressing gratitude for users’ patience and confirming that they were “99% of the way there” with the restoration process. “Just doing some last checks,” the company added, while also extending apologies to those affected by the outage.
Technical Insights
Cisco ThousandEyes attributed the outage to “internal server errors and timeouts,” suggesting potential complications within Meta’s backend services. Despite the widespread impact, Meta has yet to provide a detailed explanation regarding the root cause of the disruption.
As the situation unfolded, users took to X to share their experiences, seeking confirmation from others about the loading errors and even posting humorous memes to cope with the inconvenience. The collective response highlighted not only the reliance on these platforms for communication but also the community spirit that emerges during such technical hiccups.
