UPDATED: Meta’s family of apps, including Facebook and Instagram, experienced widespread technical problems on March 5, 2024, lasting for more than two hours. During this time, hundreds of thousands of users encountered difficulties accessing these popular social media platforms.
Users reported various issues, such as being logged out of Facebook and encountering error messages when attempting to log back in. Downdetector, a monitoring service, registered a significant surge in error reports at around 10:25 a.m. ET on March 5. By 10:40 a.m., Downdetector had received over 500,000 error reports, with approximately 76% of them related to login troubles on Facebook.
Instagram users also faced problems with their feeds not refreshing and were unable to post content on the platform. The outage extended to Meta’s Messaging platform and Threads, the company’s Twitter-like app launched in the previous year.
At 10:17 a.m. ET, the Facebook Login Status page alerted users about major disruptions, stating that they were aware of the issue and actively working to resolve it. An update at 12:07 p.m. confirmed that the Facebook Login services were in the process of being restored, apologizing for any inconvenience caused. Meta spokesman Andy Stone later announced at 12:19 p.m. that the company had resolved the technical issue and restored access to their services.
During the outage, Elon Musk, the tech tycoon who owns X, took the opportunity to humorously troll Meta. He tweeted, “If you’re reading this post, it’s because our servers are working.” The main @X account on Twitter also playfully subtweeted, “we know why you’re all here rn,” just before 11 a.m. ET.
This isn’t the first time Meta (then known as Facebook) has experienced a significant outage. In October 2021, Facebook, Instagram, and other apps went down for approximately six hours. At that time, a company executive attributed the problems to a “faulty configuration change” on the backbone routers that manage network traffic between data centers. The outage in 2021 was the longest since March 2019 when Facebook experienced a 24-hour downtime across multiple apps due to server configuration errors.
FAQs
Q: How long did the Facebook and Instagram outage last on March 5, 2024?
A: The outage lasted for more than two hours, beginning in the morning and ending around midday.
Q: Were other apps affected by the outage?
A: Yes, Meta’s Messaging platform and Threads, their Twitter-like app, were also affected by the technical problems.
Conclusion
On March 5, 2024, Facebook and Instagram, along with other Meta apps, experienced a significant outage that lasted for over two hours. Users faced issues such as being logged out, encountering login errors, and experiencing difficulties with posting and refreshing content. Meta promptly addressed the problem and restored access to their services. This incident highlights the occasional technical challenges that even the largest technology companies can face, reminding us of the importance of reliable infrastructure in our increasingly digital lives. Stay tuned to Trends News for the latest updates on technology and digital disruptions.
