Meta one of the largest tech companies in the world suffered a massive outage that affected most of the company's social platforms.
Facebook and Instagram seemed to struggle the most but Messenger, Threads and Whatsapp were experiencing issues.
Reports started coming in around 9:30 a.m. Pacific and lasted through about 2:30 p.m. Pacific.
Most users were saying that they were getting error messages or that parts of the platforms like Stories and messages weren't appearing or were never sent.
It's unclear why the platforms suffered problems though an outside report suggested it was due to back-end server issues.
Meta released on statement on X fairly soon after issues started saying, "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."
As of this writing, all of the affected social media platforms appear to be back to normal.
Facebook showing error message
Currently, if you try to access Facebook, this error message appears.
Some platforms seeing bigger outages
Based on Down Detector reporting, not every service appears to be equally affected.
Whatsapp and Facebook reporting are already in decline with Whatsapp nearly back to normal.
Instagram, Messenger and Threads are still high with 1000s saying they can't access those services.
Meta showing "major disruptions"
Meta has a status page for "business products" that is currently showing "Major Disruptions" to Facebook, Messaging, Instagram and Whatsapp.
It's not clear what is affecting those services based on the status bar though.
Meta uses X to respond to outage
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.December 11, 2024
Meta has not posted on its official X account since October 7th.
Today, possibly due to the outages, the account posted that the company is aware of the interruption and that they are working on the issue.
Of course, responses to the tweet are roasting the company some cheekily finding it ironic that Meta had to use a competitor to post about the issues.
Down from peak but ongoing
The outage appears down from its initial peak but still ongoing.
Instagram also used X to report the outage.
- Facebook - 107,109 reports
- Instagram - 71,654 reports
- Messenger - 15,025 reports
- Threads - 883 reports
- Whatsapp - 12,334
Facebook sharply declined but appears to be holding steady around 21,000 reports.
Instragram shows similar numbers.
Whatsapp sharply dipped down but has peaked again over 6,000 reports.
Messenger appears to similar to Whatsapp though it hasn't peaked again.
Threads seems fine, but do people use it?
Meta response
Tom's Guide reached out to Meta about the outage.
A spokesperson directed us to the X post the company made about the ongoing outage.
That post reads, "“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.”
No other comment was made about what could be causing the issue or an estimate of how long it may take to return service to normal.
Meta status page shows more disruptions
The outage has been ongoing for about 2 hours now.
It has not reached out the highs of its initial peak but does appear to be holding steady.
The Meta status page is showing more services disrupted.
Anecdotally, we have successfully been able to access Whatsapp, Facebook and Instagram and scroll through them and send a few messages.
Instragram seemed a little slow. Facebook however, isn't showing stories or recent posts. And it appears to be the hardest hit based on the Meta page.
Users seek info on other platforms
While Down Detector is great for initial outage sighting, it's not always good for ongoing tracking. Their tracking has seen the reports sharply decline.
However, Meta's status pages are all in the red and after our last post, Instagram and Facebook have become much slower and in some cases aren't loading certain parts of the apps.
Meanwhile, concerned users are looking to Reddit, X and Bluesky to get more information.
The Facebook and Instagram subreddits, for example, are filled with people wondering what's going on.
For now, we don't know what is causing the problem, but Meta is going through it today.
Outage hits the three hour mark
Meta's service wide outage has cross the three hour mark and from where we sit, there is no end in sight.
The Meta status page has been fully read for the last 15 minutes.
As of this writing, Meta has not released a follow up statement to the initial X post. Similar statements were posted on the Whatsapp and Instagram X feeds.
Meta's products are global, especially Whatsapp, so we're seeing reports from all over the world come in about the outage.
While we've struggled to use Instagram and Facebook, not seeing a new post newer than 4 hours, we have been able to use Whatsapp for some group chats. So it's not clear if the outage is affecting every region equally or not.
Outage may be to internal server errors
Meta services, including Facebook and Instagram, are currently experiencing an outage that began at approximately 17:55 UTC and is still ongoing. ThousandEyes is detecting internal server errors and timeouts, which may indicate issues with Meta's backend services. Network… pic.twitter.com/f3amGx3nZmDecember 11, 2024
For the most part, Whatsapp, Messenger and Threads seem off the outage train. Facebook and Instagram still appear to be hurting.
ThousandEyes, a security company owned by Cisco, reached out to us sharing their analysis of the outage.
They believe that Meta may be having issues on the back-end, suggesting an internal server problem.
It's not clear from their posting if that suggests a hack like DDoS attack or a failure of some kind on the servers in Meta's systems.
Outage appears to be winding down
While the outage reports on Down Detector are still around 3,000 reports for both Instagram and Facebook, it does appear that the outage is winding down.
Threads, Messenger and Whatsapp have been fairly solid for the last hour or so.
The Meta status page still has everything in the red as of 2:01 pm Pacific.
That said, we're seeing far fewer posts on other platforms about the services being down.
On our end, Instagram appears to be loading again with stories and more recent images starting to appear in the feed. Those things appear to be returned on Facebook as well.
Meta has not officially responded since its initial posting and statement.
Meta says things are 99% back
Thanks for bearing with us! We’re 99% of the way there - just doing some last checks. We apologize to those who’ve been affected by the outage.December 11, 2024
Within the last hour, Meta released another statement on X.
The post read, "Thanks for bearing with us! We’re 99% of the way there - just doing some last checks. We apologize to those who’ve been affected by the outage."
The Meta Status page still shows mostly red across the board, though a couple of sectors have shifted into yellow or green.
