What just happened? On Wednesday around 8AM ET, users of Facebook, Instagram and WhatsApp started experiencing problems with some features of the apps. While message exchanges were still working for some, people had trouble loading Facebook News Feeds and images, viewing Instagram Stories and transferring media over Whatsapp. Facebook acknowledged the widespread issue which prevailed across the US, Europe and parts of Asia for several hours. The company announced around 8PM ET that it had resolved the problem and the services should be back at 100% for everyone.
After Cloudflare's recent troubles, the internet was frustrated yesterday when three of the most popular and widely used apps experienced partial outages. Broken features across Facebook, Instagram and WhatsApp led to blank images and posts, empty news feeds, and a rather boring day for some at work, who form part of the combined 4 billion+ user base of the three platforms.
Earlier today, some people and businesses experienced trouble uploading or sending images, videos and other files on our apps and platforms. The issue has since been resolved and we should be back at 100% for everyone. We're sorry for any inconvenience.
— Facebook (@facebook) July 4, 2019
According to the tracking website, Down Detector, many users from US, Europe and across the globe reported issues with photos on Facebook. Posts failed to load for Instagram's news feed and users also complained of file upload failure across IG and Whatsapp.
"During one of our routine maintenance operations, we triggered an issue that is making it difficult for some people to upload or send photos and videos. We’re working to get things back to normal as quickly as possible and we apologize for any inconvenience," a Facebook spokesperson told CNN Business.
Facebook's Platform Status Page used to track problems with the site indicates that the service is now "Healthy" with the most recent issue resolved being "Degraded performance across Platform" that the company describes is related to its platform API endpoints. Facebook also faced a massive outage in March this year when its services were down for at least 5 hours.
Disruptions like this can cause financial losses and inconvenience to a large amount of users and businesses dependent on these platforms. With the services now "back at 100% for everyone," expect to come across a lot of content from when they weren't.
Image Source: Downdetector
