Facebook and Instagram face downtime; users unable to login because of ‘required maintenance’

Facebook and Instagram, two of the largest social media platforms on the internet were down for some time last night. According to a report by Independent, thousands of users reported that they could not access the websites. Some users even reported that the website threw an error saying that Facebook was undergoing ‘required maintenance’ as they tried to log in to their accounts.[caption id="attachment_3887701" align="alignleft" width="380"]

Representational Image: Reuters[/caption]The problem was not limited to logging in on Facebook but it extended to uploading content like photos or adding status updates to the platform. Popular services like Outage.Report and Down Detector confirmed that this was not an isolated incident. About 4,826 users reported problems with Facebook on Outage.Report and about 17,194 users reported problems on Down Detector. Not all users were affected by the issue and the problem seems to be limited in scope.Facebook was not the only platform plagued with issues as Instagram users also reported problems while liking pictures on the platform. Facebook did not detail the cause of the problem but a Facebook spokesperson informed The Verge that ‘a technical issue’ was causing the problems and the company was ‘currently restoring service for everyone’.