Is Facebook Down? How to Check and What to Do

Your feed is not loading. Posts will not publish. Messenger is silent. When Facebook goes down, it affects not just casual scrolling but businesses that depend on the platform for advertising, customer communication, and sales.

This guide covers how to check if Facebook is down, the common causes of Facebook outages, and what to do while the service is unavailable.

How to Check if Facebook Is Down

Use Is That Down

Is That Down monitors major services including Facebook and sends alerts when incidents are detected. It is the fastest way to confirm an outage without guessing. For a broader guide, see how to check if a service is down.

Check Third-Party Outage Trackers

Downdetector collects user reports for Facebook in real time. A large spike in reports over the last 30 minutes strongly suggests an active outage. Reports are categorized (news feed, login, Messenger) so you can see which features are affected.

Check Other Meta Services

Facebook, Instagram, WhatsApp, and Messenger share infrastructure. If Facebook is down, check whether Instagram and WhatsApp are also affected. If all three are down simultaneously, the issue is likely at Meta's infrastructure level rather than a Facebook-specific problem.

Try a Different Device or Network

Switch between the app and web browser, or between Wi-Fi and mobile data. If Facebook works on one but not the other, the issue may be local to your device or network.

Check Social Media

Search "facebook down" on Twitter/X, Reddit, or Bluesky. During a major Facebook outage, these posts appear rapidly and provide real-time confirmation.

Common Causes of Facebook Outages

Infrastructure Failures

Facebook operates one of the largest server networks in the world across dozens of data centers. Hardware failures, power issues, or network problems within these data centers can cause partial or complete outages. The October 2021 outage was caused by a BGP configuration change that effectively disconnected Facebook's entire network.

Configuration Changes

Routine maintenance and configuration updates are the most common trigger for Facebook outages. A bad deployment, a misconfigured load balancer, or a flawed software update can cascade into a service-wide issue.

Capacity Issues

With nearly 3 billion monthly active users, Facebook handles staggering amounts of traffic. Viral events, global news, and seasonal spikes (holidays, elections) push traffic to peak levels. If capacity planning does not account for these spikes, users experience slowdowns or errors.

DNS and Networking Issues

The October 2021 outage demonstrated how a DNS and BGP failure can make Facebook completely unreachable. When Facebook's DNS servers disappeared from the internet's routing tables, no browser in the world could find Facebook's servers.

What to Do When Facebook Is Down

For Personal Use

Switch to alternative platforms for communication. If you use Messenger for daily conversations, have a backup: Signal, Telegram, iMessage, or SMS. If you use Facebook Groups for community interaction, most active groups also have Discord servers or email lists.

For Business

A Facebook outage affects multiple business operations:

Advertising. Facebook Ads stop serving during outages. Campaigns are paused automatically. You are not charged for impressions that do not happen, but scheduled campaigns may be delayed. Check your ad performance after the outage to ensure campaigns resumed correctly.

Customer communication. If you use Messenger for customer support, switch to email, phone, or live chat on your website during the outage. Post a notice on your website that Facebook support is temporarily unavailable.

Scheduled posts. Posts scheduled through Facebook's native tools or third-party schedulers may fail silently during an outage. After the service recovers, check whether your scheduled content was published.

Facebook Login. If your app or website uses "Login with Facebook" as an authentication option, those users cannot log in during a Facebook outage. Offering email/password as an alternative login method ensures your users are not locked out.

How to Get Notified About Future Facebook Outages

Use automated monitoring. Is That Down monitors Facebook's status and sends alerts through email, Slack, or webhooks the moment an incident is reported. See the vendor monitoring guide for a complete setup.

Maintain backup communication. Set up a group chat on a non-Meta platform with your team and key contacts so you have a communication channel that works when Facebook does not.

Notable Facebook Outages

October 2021 Global Outage

On October 4, 2021, Facebook, Instagram, WhatsApp, and Messenger went completely offline for approximately six hours. A BGP configuration change disconnected Facebook's DNS servers from the internet. The outage affected 3.5 billion users worldwide and cost Facebook an estimated $60+ million in lost ad revenue. It remains one of the largest internet outages in history.

March 2019 Widespread Outage

In March 2019, Facebook experienced its longest outage in years, lasting over 14 hours. The outage affected Facebook, Instagram, WhatsApp, and Messenger. Facebook attributed the issue to a "server configuration change" without providing specific details.

References

• Downdetector - Facebook - Real-time user reports for Facebook outages.
• Meta Platform Status - Meta's status information for developers.

Beyond vendor monitoring, consider uptime monitoring for your own services and DNS monitoring to catch infrastructure issues.