Stay up to date with notifications from The Independent

Notifications can be managed in browser preferences.

As it happenedended

Instagram, Facebook and Messenger down – live updates: Users unable to access apps amid major Thanksgiving outage

Anthony Cuthbertson,Andrew Griffin
Thursday 28 November 2019 15:46 GMT
Comments
Facebook and Instagram down

Your support helps us to tell the story

This election is still a dead heat, according to most polls. In a fight with such wafer-thin margins, we need reporters on the ground talking to the people Trump and Harris are courting. Your support allows us to keep sending journalists to the story.

The Independent is trusted by 27 million Americans from across the entire political spectrum every month. Unlike many other quality news outlets, we choose not to lock you out of our reporting and analysis with paywalls. But quality journalism must still be paid for.

Help us keep bring these critical stories to light. Your support makes all the difference.

Instagram, Facebook and Messenger have gone down in a major Thanksgiving outage.

Almost all of Facebook's products were hit by the problems, with the exception of WhatsApp, which appears to have successfully stayed online.

The problems were seen across the world, though did not appear to affect all users the same. Some said they were still able to see parts of each app, while others reported that the services appeared to be working as normal.

The outage recalls the major problems over summer, during which the entire Facebook suits of products went offline for almost a day.

Please allow a moment for the live blog to load

Welcome to The Independent's coverage of the Instagram, Facebook and Messenger outage.

Andrew Griffin28 November 2019 14:55
Andrew Griffin28 November 2019 14:59
Andrew Griffin28 November 2019 15:00
Andrew Griffin28 November 2019 15:00
Andrew Griffin28 November 2019 15:01
Andrew Griffin28 November 2019 15:03

Facebook was hit by problems during the last UK election period, too. Here's a story from June 2017, when the site went down on election day.

Andrew Griffin28 November 2019 15:03

Thanksgiving outage leads to jokes and frustration

Reaction on Twitter – which is still working – is somewhere between joy and frustration that people won't be able to post about Thanksgiving:

Andrew Griffin28 November 2019 15:06

Facebook's status page says site is still working

Facebook's server status page – which is intended to announce when there are problems with the platform – suggests that the site is still working:

This page is intended for developers, which is why it focuses on how the platform itself is working rather than whether the site is working. But even on there, as can be seen, there seems to be an uptick of problems recently.

Instagram doesn't have a version of this site. During previous widespread outages, the company has posted on its Twitter account, but it has not yet done so.

Andrew Griffin28 November 2019 15:08

Instagram's Thanksgiving post remains last tweet on profile

Instagram's last official tweet was about Thanksgiving pie, noting that most people had been posting about pumpkin, followed by pecan. But sadly people won't now be able to post them.

Andrew Griffin28 November 2019 15:10

Join our commenting forum

Join thought-provoking conversations, follow other Independent readers and see their replies

Comments

Thank you for registering

Please refresh the page or navigate to another page on the site to be automatically logged inPlease refresh your browser to be logged in