This archive report was first published on 4 July 2019.
On July 3, 2019, Facebook services, including Instagram and WhatsApp, experienced a worldwide outage that left users unable to access the platforms.
According to online monitoring service DownDetector, the outage began around 12:00 GMT and affected users in various parts of the world.
Facebook confirmed the issue had been resolved and services were back to 100% functionality by 00:06 GMT on July 4, 2019, apologizing for any inconvenience caused.
A Facebook spokesperson explained that a routine maintenance operation accidentally triggered a bug that made it difficult for users to upload or send photos and videos.
Thousands of users around the world reported outages, with Europe and North America most impacted, including individual users, businesses, and organizations.
Even the CIA tweeted about the outage, joking that they didn't cause it and couldn't fix it, suggesting users try turning their devices off and back on again.
This was not the first outage for Facebook, with a 24-hour outage in March 2019 blamed on a server configuration change, affecting an estimated 2.7 billion people.
