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Tom’s Guide
Technology
Jeff Parsons

Facebook went down for thousands of users — full recap as bug crashed the social media app

Facebook Live outage.

Facebook users started seeing more problems today, June 18, less than a week after users were unable to log into the social network.

Reports started to spike on DownDetector at 6:30 am ET / 11:20 am BST with over 1,000 users reporting problems. According to the reports, 80% of affected users claimed there was an issue the Facebook app loading.

Earlier this week, Facebook's parent company Meta experienced issues for around four hours that also impacted other services like Instagram and WhatsApp. Today's problems lasted little more than a couple of hours and seemed to affect primarily Android users. It could have been due to an update to Facebook's Android app that was released yesterday.

Here's how our coverage of the reports unfolded:

Full recap

Reports surge past 1,000 on DownDetector

(Image credit: DownDetector)

Our clearest picture that there's some trouble at Facebook comes from the website DownDetector, which has suddenly shown a spike of over 1,000 users reporting trouble with the social network. Less than a week ago, similar problems hit Facebook for over four hours.

New York, Chicago and Dallas

(Image credit: DownDetector)

Most of the reports of Facebook's troubles on DownDetector appear to be coming from three main cities: New York, Chicago and Dallas. If you're based in one of those regions and are having trouble accessing your Facebook profile right now — let us know!

Meta isn't reporting anything, yet

(Image credit: Meta)

Meta doesn't have a status page for its consumer products, so we can't see if there's anything officially amiss, but it does run an equivalent for its business products. As we can see at the time of writing, there are no reported problems there.

So, if people are experiencing issues this morning, it may be a more localized problem and one that hasn't touched Meta's central nervous system yet. We'll keep circling back to this page and let you know if there are any updates.

Instagram and WhatsApp unaffected

(Image credit: aap Arriens/NurPhoto via Getty Images)

While we're seeing reports spike across Facebook, there seemingly aren't any issues with Meta's other services at present. Instagram, WhatsApp, Facebook Messenger and Threads all appear to be working normally.

Facebook failing to load?

(Image credit: NurPhoto / Getty Images)

When issues started to occur for Facebook earlier in the week, users trying to access the app were bumped right out to the login screen of the app. This affected the app both on Android and iOS.

I'm based in London in the U.K. and — for me at least — the app appears to be working as normal. If you're seeing something different, let me know in the comments.

Reports are starting to slip

(Image credit: DownDetector)

This could be little more than a blip for just a few folks. The reports on DownDetector — while still north of 1,000 — are starting to slip. Sometimes this can indicate the issues were only very temporary.

They could be a result of a small update or configuration change that's been pushed through by Meta that's caused a hiccup in servers along the network.

It could be an Android issue

(Image credit: Google)

Android users may be feeling today's Facebook problems more than iPhone users. One commentator on DownDetector says that the issue is persisting on their Samsung Galaxy Note 20.

If that's the case then it could be that the problems being reported today are specific to one particular app version rather than anything more widespread.

Reports falling, but users report problems on X

(Image credit: DownDetector)

Reports are continuing to decrease sharply on DownDetector right now — falling down to below 800. Usually, if there are prolonged issues we would expect to see another small spike occurring right now but that hasn't happened.

Users are still reporting problems with the service over on X/Twitter. But this looks very much like it could just be a flash in the pan.

Are you having problems with Facebook this morning?

(Image credit: Chip Somodevilla/Getty Images)

A problem we're seeing reported is that users are able to log into the Facebook mobile app for a few seconds before it then bounces them back out again to the login screen.

It seems like reports are starting to subside, so this might not be an ongoing problem but if you're experiencing an outage on Facebook today, let us know in the poll below. We'll continue to monitor the situation as it unfolds.

How to clear your Facebook cache

(Image credit: Shutterstock)

If these recent problems with Facebook have got you concerned about how the app is running, one thing you can do to juice up the performance is clear your cache.

Providing you can access Facebook's app, you'll need to tap Menu > Settings & Privacy > Settings. Then, under the Preferences section, tap Browser, then select Clear next to Cookies and Cache.

Less than 500 DownDetector users now reporting problems

(Image credit: DownDetector)

Reports on DownDetector have now sunk to below 500 reports and there's been no official statement from Meta on any problems with its app.

A quick glance at the Play Store shows the Facebook Android app was given an update yesterday, June 17, so it's highly likely that it has caused some teething problems with Android users. Especially if those users own older devices. For the vast majority of Facebook users, it appears that the social network is operating as normal today.

Calling time on today's outage

(Image credit: Christophe Morin/IP3/Getty Images)

We can call time on today's outage as reports have dwindled to under 100 on DownDetector, and the comments on social media have dried up. Unlike the outage earlier in the week, this one was just a blip. We can all rest comfortably now that Facebook is back up and running — thanks for reading along, everyone.

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