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Facebook and Instagram back up after big Thanksgiving outages

Facebook and Instagram back up after big Thanksgiving outages

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Users on both apps were reporting problems around the globe

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Photo by Amelia Holowaty Krales / The Verge

If you were trying to share Thanksgiving photos on Thursday, you may have noticed that both Facebook and Instagram began suffering intermittent outages earlier today. Just like you might feel after your third helping of turkey and stuffing: they were down, but not quite out.

Thankfully, Facebook says it’s restored service to its main social network, as well as Instagram. The photo-sharing service made the announcement on Twitter, while a Facebook spokesperson told USA Today, “Earlier today, people may have experienced trouble accessing Facebook’s family of app. The issue has since been resolved, we are back to 100% for everyone and we’re sorry for any inconvenience.”

Instagram initially acknowledged the issue on Twitter early Thursday morning, noting that “some people are currently having trouble accessing Facebook’s family of apps, including Instagram.” The company noted it was “working to get things back to normal as quickly as possible.”

Facebook said midday that it had begun restoring access to its services. “Earlier today, an issue in one of our central software systems caused many people to have trouble accessing Facebook’s family of apps,” a Facebook spokesperson told CNBC in a statement. “We quickly investigated, started restoring access, and we’re now monitoring for full recovery. We’re sorry for the inconvenience.“

There had been widespread reports of problems right across the globe, with users saying they’re unable to post to Facebook or view stories on Instagram (where outages seem to be worst). There had even been some reports of problems with Messenger, too.

According to DownDetector, Instagram was suffering the worst in central Europe, with #InstagramDown trending on Twitter in the UK, while Facebook users were reporting outages across the US.

Given that America is on holiday today, it’s certainly not a convenient time for outages on social media, but the problems only persisted it seems for a few hours.

Facebook, Instagram, and WhatsApp all suffered their worst ever outages earlier this year in March, with problems that were eventually attributed to a “server configuration change” persisting for more than 24 hours. We’ve got a way to go before today’s outages reach that level, but we’ll certainly keep you updated.

Update November 28th, 10:46AM ET: Story has been updated to add tweet from Instagram.

Update November 28th, 1:19PM ET: Added statement from Facebook indicating it has begun restoring access to its services.

Update November 28th, 4:11PM ET: Added statement from Facebook indicating t he outage has been resolved. The headline has been updated to reflect this fact.