A technical issue caused millions to be locked out of their Facebook accounts and certain co-owned apps like Instagram and Threads on Tuesday.
The issue started around 10 a.m. Eastern Time when some Facebook users noticed they were automatically logged out of the social media platform on computers and mobile devices, with no way to sign back in.
Some users thought they might have been hacked, and tried to implement password resets on their accounts, only for the issue to persist. The glitch also caused Instagram and Threads users to be signed out of their accounts, with no way back in for at least an hour.
The situation appeared to resolve itself for most users by noon Eastern Time, though some said they were still having trouble logging into accounts that were protected with two-factor authentication (2FA) protocols.
Andy Stone, a spokesperson for Facecbook’s parent company Meta Platforms, blamed the matter on a “technical issue” that “caused people to have difficulty accessing some of our services.”
“We resolved the issue as quickly as possible for everyone impacted, and we apologize for any inconvenience.”
Is it just me or facebook logged me out?
— Secret Razzie (@RealRazzieBinx) March 5, 2024
Did everyone else just get kicked out of their @facebook accounts & prevented for logging back in? #FacebookDown
— Gillian (@JillianButWithG) March 5, 2024
Anyone gets logged out from @facebook with the message "unexpected error occured"? You're not alone. I almost reset my password. #facebookdown
— Charmaine @ Li Ping (@pualiping) March 5, 2024
Anyone else kicked out of Facebook/Messenger?
— Deejay Pile 🇵🇠(@deejaypile) March 5, 2024
The glitch comes about three weeks after thousands of users around the world reported they were unable to access their Facebook account through the company’s mobile phone and tablet apps. The precise cause of that glitch is still unknown, though the situation resolved itself within about an hour.
In 2021, Facebook suffered a global outage that left its core website and ancillary services unavailable for nearly eight hours. The issue was caused by a domain name issue, according to security researchers.
That issue didn’t just affect Facebook users — it also prevented Facebook’s own employees from using internal communication tools across different divisions within the company. The problem was resolved when Facebook sent members of its infrastructure team to reset servers at its Santa Clara data center.
Two years earlier, Facebook suffered a global outage that lasted for several hours, affecting users on its main platform as well as Instagram and WhatsApp. The glitch was eventually blamed on a server configuration change.
