- Due to DNS (Domain Name System) errors
- Many users are thrown into panic
By Chinua Albert Okafor @TheRoboRai
A few minutes after Antigone Davis appeared on CNBC to defend Facebook's corporate policies and data handling, its network went offline due to a service outage. "We're aware that some people are having difficulty accessing our apps and products," says Facebook communications exec Andy Stone.
We are working to get things back to normal as quickly as possible, and apologize for any inconvenience."
The problems are widespread as evident from Down Detector (or your Twitter feed). Although it's unclear why they are unreachable for so many people, a look at their DNS record shows that, like last week's Slack outage, the problem seems to be DNS (it's always DNS). Facebook's border gateway protocol routes have been removed from the Internet, according to Cloudflare's Dane Knoecht, senior vice president. BGP helps networks find the best path for sending traffic over the internet.
We are seeing 5xx Server Error messages on Instagram, while the Facebook site simply says that something went wrong. It appears that the problem also affects its virtual reality arm, Oculus. Although users can load games they already have installed and the browser works, social features and installing new games do not work.
Currently, Facebook has not provided any information about the problem or when its services, including Messenger and WhatsApp, will be available. We will update as soon as we receive more information.
Stay tuned...
