Facebook users reported widespread difficulties accessing the social media platform early Sunday, July 19, 2026, with many desktop users receiving notices that their accounts were temporarily unavailable because of a site problem.
Users attempting to access Facebook through desktop browsers were met with the message: “Account Temporarily Unavailable. Your account is currently unavailable due to a site issue. We expect this to be resolved shortly. Please try again in a few minutes.”
The disruption appeared to begin at about 3:25 a.m. Eastern Time, with thousands of complaints recorded in the United States by live outage-monitoring platform Downdetector.
Although the problem affected Facebook broadly, reports suggested that the website version experienced the greatest disruption. Some users said they could still access their accounts through mobile devices while desktop browsers remained unavailable.
According to Downdetector’s breakdown, 63 per cent of reported Facebook problems concerned the website, 20 per cent involved mobile devices, while 10 per cent related to the app.
Several users also reported receiving different and sometimes alarming messages while repeatedly attempting to access or refresh the platform.
One Reddit user said the initial message indicated that the account had been temporarily banned before redirecting to a general error page.
Another user said the message later changed to a warning that the account had been temporarily blocked for “going too fast and overusing” the platform, despite the user merely refreshing the page to check whether service had been restored.
Other users reported encountering similar temporary block messages, raising concerns that repeated attempts to access the platform during the outage might have triggered Facebook’s automated security systems.
Instagram, which is also owned by Meta, experienced problems around the same time, with outage reports rising as users complained about difficulties loading feeds, viewing stories, sending messages and publishing content.
Downdetector data showed that 44 per cent of reported Instagram problems involved the Feed or Timeline, 40 per cent concerned the app and 12 per cent related to posting or publishing content.
Some Instagram users also encountered server connection errors and difficulties accessing messages and stories.
The pattern of complaints suggested that the disruption did not affect every user or device in the same way, as some people remained able to access Facebook through mobile applications while others were completely locked out through desktop browsers.
The error message displayed by Facebook indicated that the problem originated from the platform rather than individual user accounts and that service was expected to be restored shortly.
As of the time of the reports, Meta had not provided a detailed public explanation of the cause of the disruption or confirmed whether the Facebook and Instagram problems were connected.
