Last night, the servers of the Facebook group services (Instagram, WhatsApp and Messenger) experienced a major outage of more than six hours. While the network is currently returning to its usual pace, Facebook said in a statement that the problem is due to “configuration changes on the routers” that did not go as planned.
But beyond social media, many gamers found themselves unable to access their favorite games due to the outage. We explain why.
Oct 4, 2021 is a date that Facebook will not soon forget. In the evening of yesterday, you must have surely noticed the general breakdown that had spread within the group’s services (Facebook, Messenger, Instagram or even WhatsApp).
For six hours, it was impossible to send messages, to update their news feed or to consult stories on these different applications. Unfortunately, some players were not at the end of their sentence since in addition to not being able to consult their social networks, they were unable to connect to their favorite games.
If you play on mobile, you may have gotten into the habit of linking your various accounts to your Facebook profile. Thus, you no longer need to create specific passwords for each game, you can uninstall and reinstall the apps as you wish and find your saves simply by logging into your Facebook account.
Unfortunately, following the blackout last night, it was also no longer possible to connect to your Facebook profile in addition to no longer being able to access the group’s social networks. Thus, if the games were them always accessible, all those who used this method simply could no longer access their account.
Heavyweights in mobile gaming impacted
Obviously, many players use this solution since several behemoths of the mobile game have reacted to this general blackout on social networks. Finally, on those that were still available. This is notably the case with FIFA Mobile Football, a smartphone version of the Electronic Arts football simulation license.
On Twitter, the developers explained last night that the problem was with Facebook and that there was nothing they could do about it:
We are aware that accounts linked to Facebook may experience connection issues. This is due to an outage at Facebook and we hope they will fix it soon. Thank you for your patience.
We’re aware that accounts linked to Facebook may be encountering issues with logging in. This is due to an outage at Facebook and we hope they resolve it shortly. Thanks for your patience.
– FIFA Mobile (@EAFIFAMOBILE) October 4, 2021
Same goes for another heavyweight in smartphone gaming, Pokémon GO which recently celebrated its fifth anniversary. In a tweet, Niantic, the developers of the game, also evoke these same concerns related to the failure of Facebook:
We’re reviewing Facebook login error reports, and we’ll try to update you here once we have more information. We apologize for the inconvenience caused, thank you for your understanding.
We’re looking into reports of errors associated with Facebook login, and will update here once we have more information. We apologize for any inconvenience caused, thanks for your understanding.
— Niantic Support (@NianticHelp) October 4, 2021
Oculus, even more affected than the others?
At last, let’s try not to forget another fringe of players who are smaller but who have been impacted even more directly by this generalized blackout, namely those who play thanks to Oculus headsets.
Indeed, this company specializing in virtual reality (VR) was bought for $ 2 billion in 2014 by Facebook. Since October 2020, it is mandatory to have a Facebook account to use Oculus products. Obviously, in this context, it was very complicated, if not impossible, to use the various services linked to Oculus last night:
We are aware that some people have difficulty accessing our applications and products. We are working to get things back to normal as quickly as possible, and we apologize for any inconvenience.
We’re aware that some people are having trouble accessing our apps and products. We’re working to get things back to normal as quickly as possible, and we apologize for any inconvenience.
– Oculus (@oculus) October 4, 2021
Beyond these specific cases, some users have also complained of having encountered difficulties to connect with their Facebook account to certain game platforms such as the Epic Game Store for example.
At the time of this publication, all Facebook group application servers have now been restored. and the services which depend on it should return to normal during the day.
But after this fright, it is possible that some players choose to no longer link their mobile game accounts to a single Facebook profile for fear of losing all of their backups in the event of a possible even more serious outage in the future.