Facebook and Instagram appear to be partially down for some users around the world today. While you can open both platforms and some services appear to have been restored, users are reporting issues with sending messages on Messenger, posting to the feed on all Facebook products, and accessing other features on Facebook.com, Instagram, and WhatsApp. Even Facebook-owned Oculus VR is experiencing issues related to the outage.
Earlier in the day, WhatsApp appeared to be fine for many people, but users in Paraguay, India, Bangladesh, Argentina, and more note that they begun experiencing issues with sending messages as the afternoon went on. DownDetector indicates that those in Brazil were experiencing the most severe outages.
We’re aware of an issue impacting people’s access to Instagram right now. We know this is frustrating, and our team is hard at work to resolve this ASAP.
— Instagram (@instagram) March 13, 2019
We tested multiple accounts at The Verge, and found that Messenger couldn’t load at all on desktop, although the mobile app was working. Instagram is markedly worse: for some users, posts aren’t loading, Instagram Stories are down, and direct messages and the button to post new content are also not working. Facebook’s ad section was not functioning either, and it led to an internal error when you tried to buy an ad.
About an hour after users first noted the outage, Facebook responded on Twitter. It also noted that “the issue is not related to a DDoS attack.”
We’re aware that some people are currently having trouble accessing the Facebook family of apps. We’re working to resolve the issue as soon as possible.
— Facebook (@facebook) March 13, 2019
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According to DownDetector, it looks like the outages are mainly in New England; Texas; Seattle, Washington; parts of Latin America, including Peru; the UK; India; and the Philippines. Users have written in from Canada, Las Vegas, and Turkey to note outages there as well. We’ve reached out to Facebook and Instagram to learn more.
It now looks like Oculus is also down. One user in California wrote in to The Verge, “Nobody can log in to any multiplayer games purchased through the Oculus store. They also can’t access their Oculus Home environments.” Users also reported being unable to buy games from the Oculus store.
We’re aware that some people are currently having trouble accessing and using Oculus. We’re working to resolve the issue as soon as possible. Thank you for your patience while we work through this.
— Oculus Support (@OculusSupport) March 13, 2019
Other users noted that attempting to use Facebook to sign into apps like Tinder or Spotify wasn’t working either. Attempting to do so would bring up an error saying this feature isn’t available right now. If you were already signed into Spotify, it appears that your login is still valid, but once you sign out, you’ll be unable to get back in.
Makena Kelly and Esther Cohen contributed to this report.
Update March 13th, 2:08PM ET: This article has been updated with further details and comment from Facebook. It now appears that WhatsApp is also down for some users.
Update March 13th, 4:05PM ET: Some users have reported Oculus is also down and that the feature for authenticating logins through Facebook is down.
Update March 13th, 6:58PM ET: Updated to include more timely information about the outage, which is still ongoing.
https://www.theverge.com/2019/3/13/18264092/facebook-instagram-down-partially-post-messages-profile-loading