Facebook and Instagram down: Users hit by ‘session expired’ bug blocking access

Facebook and Instagram down: Users hit by ‘session expired’ bug blocking access

If you are trying and failing to get access to your Facebook and Instagram account this afternoon you are not alone.

It appears the social media apps are both down for most users – and Facebook Messenger and Threads are reported as not working. The gremlins appear to have started at around 3.20pm with the outage still ongoing and no word on when it will be fixed.

Users were greeted with a “session expired” or “unexpected error” message. This issue appears to be affecting users of the sites globally.

Downdetector, which monitors outages across the globe, is showing over 160,000 reports of Facebook being down. Instagram stands at over 40,000 reports making this one of the biggest issues for Meta (which owns both of these platforms) in years.

It’s unclear what is causing the problems but many Facebook and Instagram users have dashed to rival social site, X (formerly Twitter). The issue was soon trending on Twitter with hundreds of users posting their frustration or asking what had happened.

One of the first users to post said: “Facebook is Down. Can’t access my account,” whilst another added: “Facebook Down/ Instagram Down everything in Meta down.”

Users have reported feeling worried that being logged out and met with a message that their password was incorrect as an indication of being hacked – however, there is no evidence of this at this stage.

Facebook Messenger runs as a separate app on most mobile devices. Users are also reporting that their Messenger app and function is also not working at the moment. People are being met with the same message that they have been logged out.

The messaging service WhatsApp is also owned by Meta, but it appears to be working as it usually does.

It’s very rare for Meta apps to have such big issues and hopefully, the tech team will be desperately trying to fix the glitch as soon as possible. The cause of the issue is currently unknown and we await more information on when access to accounts will be restored.

Meta have been contacted for comment.