Report: Facebook Outage Caused by ‘Database Overload’ as Users Still Report Problems

A number of Facebook, Instagram, and WhatsApp users have said the websites are down. (Downdetector)

After Facebook suffered its worst outage in recent memory, the social media giant reportedly blamed the problem on a “database overload.”

A source told NBC Bay Area news anchor Raj Mathai on March 13 that the database got “overloaded,” and “we are racing to spin up new machines as others go down.”

“Mostly resolved...but it takes time,” the person reportedly said.

On Twitter, Facebook said early in the outage that it is “focused on working to resolve the issue as soon as possible, but can confirm that the issue is not related to a DDoS attack.” There were rumors and speculation about the social media website and app being hacked.

As of March 14, Facebook has not issued a statement as to the cause of the outage. Instagram announced it was back online.

During the outage, which reportedly lasted about 14 hours for some, people couldn’t log into the website, post links, post photos, or share anything. Facebook Messenger, Instagram, and WhatsApp were also down for many, and users also reported that logging into other websites with their Facebook or Instagram accounts didn’t work.

According to DownDetector.com as of March 14, there were still “problems at Facebook.”

“Facebook isn’t opening again on a web browser. Nothing comes up,” wrote one woman at around 10:30 a.m. ET.

“Still can’t log in and the ’reset password' does not work. Get it together, Facebook!” another woman stated.

“Same problem as yesterday, unable to post, comment, or like or share,” added another.

According to the BBC, the 14-hour outage was the worst in Facebook’s history. “The last time Facebook had a disruption of this magnitude was in 2008, when the site had 150 million users—compared with around 2.3 billion monthly users today,” the website reported.

People took to Twitter to complain about the downtime.

The outage also affected Facebook Workplace and reportedly affected its ads management service.

Argentina-based designer Rebecca Brooker told the BBC that Facebook’s outage severely affected her work.

“Facebook for personal use is fine - but what happens when we rely on large companies such as this to provide business services?” she said. “I’m trying to communicate with my team in New York. Facebook Workplace is our only channel for [communication] with the exception of email.”