Facebook and Instagram Users Face Access Issues Amid Outages

On Sunday morning, Facebook users encountered difficulties accessing the site, with a message indicating that accounts were ‘temporarily unavailable.’ Downdetector, a live outage tracker, recorded issues beginning at 3:25 a.m. ET, with thousands of users affected in the United States. Similar problems were reported for Instagram at the same time, both platforms being owned by Meta.

A notification on Facebook stated, ‘Your account is currently unavailable due to a site issue. We expect this to be resolved shortly. Please try again in a few minutes.’

Alongside the US, users from Canada, Mexico, India, the UK, and various parts of Europe faced access troubles. There seems to be a recurring pattern, with reports suggesting Facebook operates on mobile devices but not desktop browsers. Downdetector data shows 63% of issues relate to the website, 20% to mobile devices, and 10% to the app.

A Reddit user reported initially receiving a message saying ‘You’ve been temporarily banned,’ which was later replaced by a generic error page. Another user noted an error about being temporarily blocked for ‘going too fast and overusing,’ merely refreshing the page in an attempt to see if the platform was functional. Many others shared similar experiences.

Reports concerning Instagram are increasing, with Downdetector indicating that 44% of issues relate to the Feed or Timeline, 40% to the app, and 12% to content posting or publishing. Users reported struggling with feed loading, messaging, and viewing stories, encountering error messages and server connection issues.

WhatsApp, another Meta-owned platform, also shows problems according to Downdetector. Messaging issues account for 44%, while app-related issues and login problems register at 39% and 8% respectively. However, the reporting volume remains lower compared to Facebook, pointing to a potentially limited disruption.

Meta has faced several notable service disruptions previously, like the major outage in October 2021 impacting Facebook, Instagram, WhatsApp, and Messenger for nearly six hours. This incident was attributed to a network infrastructure configuration error. Similarly, in March 2024, Facebook and Instagram experienced a significant outage, logging out users and disrupting access for over two hours, because of a vague technical issue.

The current problem centers around Facebook (including Messenger), Instagram, and WhatsApp, with no comparable issues reported for Threads or other Meta platforms like Meta Quest.

According to Christine Harrison, a digital design professional, analysts suspect the outage might relate to an issue arising during a significant update to Facebook’s systems. An analyst mentioned that the company had notified some regions about a planned update, hinting at a glitch during the process being the likely cause. However, Meta has yet to confirm the exact reasons.

Newsweek contacted Meta via email for acknowledgment of the issues across Facebook and Instagram, inquiring about the identified cause and a potential resolution timeframe.

Contact Newsweek editors for updates on this story: Tobias Meyjes and Tony Phillips.