Facebook, Instagram And WhatsApp Were Down: Here's What We Know
As per the report, the source for this problem seems to be major DNS failures at Facebook.
Trying to log into Facebook, Instagram or trying to send a message on WhatsApp and it¡¯s not responding? Well, that¡¯s because Facebook and all of its social media platforms including Instagram and WhatsApp were down and just about starting to come back up online for most of its users around the world.
This has been by far one of the largest internet outages for Facebook in recent memory, and it comes at a time where a whistleblower went public with a lot of questionable Facebook practices inside the company.
Reuters
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Reported first by Arstechnica, the Facebook internet outage problem was first spotted at around 11:30 AM Eastern Time or around 9:00 PM Indian Standard Time on Monday, October 4, 2021.
Why is Facebook down?
As per the report, the source for this problem seems to be major DNS failures at Facebook. However, the report highlights that the problem actually is much deeper than that. Instagram was down too, but, its DNS services that are actually hosted on AWS instead of Facebook¡¯s own network were functional.
Reportedly, Instagram and WhatsApp were reachable however they showed HTTP 503 error (which essentially meant no server was available for the request). This meant that even though the DNS was online and load balancers for the services were reachable, the app servers that should be connecting with the load balancers were offline.
Sometime later, Cloudflare VP Dane Knecht revealed on Twitter that their BGP (Border Gateway Protocol) routes have been withdrawn from the internet, making Facebook¡¯s own DNS servers being out of reach. Also out of reach were servers for Instagram, WhatsApp and even Oculus VR.
Also Read: Why The Internet Keeps Going Down Frequently, Blocking Access To Your Favourite Websites
What is BGP and why is it responsible for this?
In case you were wondering what exactly is BGP, it's essentially a traffic cop that is making sure the cars on the street (in this case, data) are moving smoothly and efficiently. When BGP routes are withdrawn, or they don't function properly, it causes connections go through paths that aren't capable of dealing with massive loads of data, resulting in system crashing, very much like Googe Maps telling everyone that one narrow route is the best way to beat traffic, but ends up getting everyone stuck along the way.
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AFP
Could be caused due to a failed configuration change
The report highlighted a Reddit user u/ramenporn who claims to be an FB employee working on recovery efforts to bring services back online, it is probably a case of FB engineers who were loading a configuration change that unintentionally locked them out, right before the outage commenced.
Also Read: Facebook Wants To Build An Ambitious 'Metaverse', But It's Full Of Challenges
This essentially means the issue can only be fixed from data centre technicials with local and physical access to the routers that have been compromised. They¡¯ve also highlighted that this downtime isn¡¯t a result of any malicious attack on Facebook's infrastructure.
People however have been having a gala time on Twitter and other social media platforms such as LinkedIn, complaining about how they¡¯re on the platform just because Facebook services are down.
The G. O. A. T #TWITTER #serverdown #Valimai pic.twitter.com/fabXveqkC9
¡ª ¡ã???.? ? ? ? ? ??? (@Mr_Devil33) October 4, 2021
#WhatsAppPeople coming on Twitter after Facebook, Instagram, Whatsapp goes down. ?#WhatsApp #WhatsappDown #FacebookDown #serverdown pic.twitter.com/M8Sl5aef2b
¡ª Waq¨¡r Kh¨¡n (@waqarkhan9037) October 4, 2021
Even Twitter didn't miss this opportunity.
Hi and happy Monday ???
¡ª Instagram (@instagram) October 4, 2021
#WhatsAppDown #facebookdown #serverdown #instagramdown #Facebook pic.twitter.com/7EBg70DI5a
¡ª @imAmritjpl (@Amritjaipal1) October 4, 2021
Whatsapp, facebook and instagram #serverdown
¡ª Rajneesh Pandey (@Rajjo_1) October 4, 2021
Le Twitter:) Apnaa to jalwaa h ?#instagramdown #WhatsAppDown pic.twitter.com/sFlv48NpHZ
As of now, it appears to be that the BGP and DNS issue has been fixed, as DownDetector.com is reporting Facebook and its services slowly coming back up around the world.
What did you do during this unprecedented Facebook, Instagram and WhatsApp downtime and inaccessibility? Tell us in the comments below. For more science and technology news, keep visiting Indiatimes.com.
