Is Facebook Down? How to Check and What to Do
Check whether Facebook is actually down for everyone, or whether the problem is your device, network, or account — before assuming an outage.
Updated
Check in this order
- Try a different network. Switch from WiFi to mobile data or the reverse. If it works on one but not the other, the problem is your original network or router, not Facebook.
- Try a different device, if one is available. If Facebook works on a second phone or a laptop, the problem is specific to the first device.
- Try the mobile site (m.facebook.com) in a browser, bypassing the app entirely. If the site loads but the app does not, the app itself is the problem.
- Check whether Messenger or Instagram also fail. Shared Meta infrastructure means a genuine outage often takes down more than one product at once — if only Facebook is affected and Messenger works fine, it points away from a platform-wide outage.
What actually indicates a real outage
- Multiple unrelated apps and websites failing at once (Facebook, Messenger, Instagram together).
- The problem persists across different devices and different networks you control.
- A visible spike in outage reports on independent tracking sites or a surge of people posting about it elsewhere.
What it usually turns out to be instead
Far more often than an actual outage, the cause is one of:
- A stale cache — see clearing Facebook's cache.
- A local network or DNS issue — affecting one site while others work fine.
- An outdated app version that has stopped being served current data.
- An account-level restriction rather than a platform problem — the app may load, but your specific account has been limited. This looks like an outage from the inside but is not one; account recovery is the relevant path if that turns out to be the case.
Full connectivity troubleshooting, including step-by-step diagnosis, is in cannot connect to Facebook.
During a genuine outage
There is nothing to do but wait — outages resolve on Meta's timeline, not yours, and there is no support phone number to call for status updates or to expedite a fix. Checking again in 15–30 minutes is more productive than repeated troubleshooting, which can trigger rate limits that make things look worse than they are once service returns.
Official source
Meta does not publish a dedicated public outage dashboard equivalent to some other platforms; the Help Center is the closest official source, and independent outage-tracking sites are a reasonable secondary signal during a suspected widespread event.
Frequently Asked Questions
- How do I know if it is Facebook or just me?
- Try a different network — mobile data instead of WiFi, or vice versa. If Facebook loads on the other network, the problem is local to your original connection, not a Facebook-wide outage.
- Does Facebook have an official status page?
- Meta does not run a public real-time status page the way some services do. The most reliable outside signals are outage-tracking sites and a spike in social media reports, not an official dashboard.
- Why does Messenger work but the main app does not?
- Facebook, Messenger, and Instagram share infrastructure but are not a single service — a partial outage can affect one and not the others, which is itself a sign of a real platform-side issue rather than a local problem.
- Is there a support line to report an outage?
- No. There is no Facebook phone support for outages or anything else. During a real outage, waiting is the only option — outages are not sped up by contacting anyone.