Facebook’s apps experienced some serious issues Friday afternoon. Instagram and WhatsApp appear to be coming back online after going down for nearly an hour.
It isn’t clear what caused the outage, but it was large enough to take down four of the most popular apps on the planet, albeit all running on the same infrastructure.
WhatsApp and Instagram seemed to be the most affected. While they were down, both apps were unable to refresh, with WhatsApp stuck “connecting.” Likewise, Instagram displayed an error message that it “couldn’t refresh feed.” Users also reported issues accessing Facebook and Messenger, according to downdetector.com, which tracks service outages.
In a statement, a Facebook spokesperson said the outages were cause by a “technical issue,” but didn’t elaborate on the cause. “Earlier today, a technical issue caused people to have trouble accessing some Facebook services. We resolved this issue for everyone, and we apologize for any inconvenience.”
