Facebook apps experienced serious problems Friday afternoon. Instagram and WhatsApp seem to be coming online again after going down for almost an hour.
The source of the outage was not immediately clear, but WhatsApp and Instagram were most affected. While they were off, both apps could not refresh, and WhatsApp ‘connected’. Similarly, Instagram displayed an error message stating that it ‘could not refresh feed’. According to downdetector.com, which tracks service outages, users have also reported issues with Facebook and Messenger.
There are currently a number of issues affecting Facebook products, including game streams. Several teams are working on it, and we will keep you posted whenever we can.
– Facebook Gaming (@FacebookGaming) 19 March 2021
Facebook did not immediately respond to a request for comment. A Twitter account for Facebook Gaming said that a number of issues had affected different Facebook services and that ‘multiple teams’ were working on a solution.
Update 2:30 PM ET: This post has been updated to note that Facebook’s applications have come back online since this story was first published.
Update 3:15 PM ET: In a statement, a Facebook spokesman said the interruptions were caused by a ‘technical problem’ but did not elaborate on the cause. ‘Earlier today, a technical issue caused people to have difficulty accessing some Facebook services. We’ve solved this problem for everyone, and we apologize for the inconvenience. “