Meta platforms restored after one-hour outage

After an outage that lasted nearly an hour, service has been restored to the Meta social media platforms of Facebook, WhatsApp, Messenger, and Instagram.

Several media outlets reported a widespread outage on Meta platforms from 7:21pm on Friday Bangladesh time. Service was reportedly restored around 8:15pm.

Data from Downdetector, a UK-based monitoring platform, said complaints about problems on different Facebook services spiked from 7:21pm, with most complaints (56 percent) related to the app. Another 26 percent of users reported difficulties logging in, while 11 percent reported issues using the website version.

User comments showed the outage struck many parts of the world, including the US, Canada, Romania, Myanmar, West Asia, and the Philippines.

The outage blocked users from launching the Facebook app, log into accounts, or use the service normally. Several users said they were automatically signed out during the outage. Attempts to log back in produced an error message saying “an unexpected error occurred”.

Facebook’s parent company Meta has yet to publicly comment on the cause of the problem as of the writing of its report.

Downdetector analyses reports sent by users and information from various sources to give a sense of possible service disruptions. The number of complaints and the overall situation may shift over time.

Facebook and other Meta services have seen several outages in recent years. Details on the extent of Friday’s outage and how many users were affected have yet to be released.