On Tuesday night, Meta-owned platforms Facebook and Instagram encountered significant technical issues, causing frustration among users worldwide. The outage, which began around 9 pm, led to a surge in reports on Down Detector, a website that monitors real-time instances of service disruptions.
According to Down Detector, Facebook experienced the onset of issues at approximately 8:57 pm, with a staggering 15,381 reports flooding in. Users found themselves abruptly logged out of their accounts on both Facebook and Instagram, encountering difficulties when attempting to log back in. The problem persisted across both the mobile app and the website interface, exacerbating user inconvenience.
The root cause of the outage remains shrouded in mystery, leaving users puzzled and impatient for resolution. Notably, numerous users in the United States reported encountering obstacles while attempting to reset passwords and utilize two-factor authentication for login security.
The technical woes extended beyond Facebook and Instagram to Meta’s broader ecosystem of apps. Users encountered similar difficulties across Meta’s family of platforms, including Facebook and Instagram, indicating a widespread disruption to services. Reports of errors flooded in, with users encountering issues such as being involuntarily logged out of their Facebook accounts and encountering error messages upon attempting to reauthenticate, such as “Something went wrong. Please try again.”
Downdetector recorded a significant spike in error reports shortly after 8:30 a.m. on Tuesday, March 5, with over 500,000 reports flooding in by approximately 11 a.m. A substantial portion of the reported problems pertained to difficulties logging into Facebook accounts, accounting for approximately 76% of the issues reported by users.
Instagram users faced their own set of challenges, with many noting that their feeds failed to refresh during the outage. Furthermore, the disruption extended to Meta’s messaging platform and Threads, its Twitter-like application launched in the previous year.
The widespread nature of the outage underscored the interconnectedness of Meta’s digital ecosystem and the profound impact such technical disruptions can have on users’ daily digital interactions.
As Meta works to identify and address the underlying causes of the outage, users worldwide await the swift restoration of normal service, eager to resume their social media activities without interruption.
