It appears Facebook Web crashed early hours of today in Nigeria as a visit to the social media site on Google Chrome returned “This site can’t be reached” error message.
“The webpage at https://www.facebook.com/ might be temporarily down or it may have moved permanently to a new web address,” the error message further read.
Getting error messages similar to this, the first thing that comes to mind is an Internet connection issue.
I have to switch connections to my different Wi-Fi devices and restart the devices on several occasions, but the issue persisted.
Visits to other websites, of course, did not display the error message. They loaded as usual.
When I usually have error issues due to Internet connectivity, the image below is the message I usually get.
This left me curious to start searching for what might be wrong.
MailOnline confirmed the development as it reported that Facebook also crashed in some parts of the United Kingdom.
“Facebook appears to have crashed in parts of the UK, leaving thousands of users unable to access their social media accounts,” MailOnline reported.
I first noticed the issue at about 9:55AM WAT.
After I attempted visiting the site on several occasions without getting through, I have to try my hands on Mozilla Firefox. The website, however, worked on Firefox and on the mobile app on Android and iOS.
However, it appears engineers at Facebook are working to fix the issue, as the site would sometimes load and at other times display the same error message.
At the time of publishing this, the issue still persists.
However, according to a report on ZNet, going into ‘Incognito mode’ on Google Chrome appears to rectify the issue.
ZNet also says that a hard refresh, which clears the cache for a webpage, appears to be working for some users.
A trick that has, however, worked for me is:
- Hold down SHIFT button on your keyboard
- Click REFRESH on the web browser
This will not, however, fix the issue as the error message will come up intermittently. You will have to repeat the process above every time the issue occurs.
Facebook is yet to release an official statement addressing the issue.
Meanwhile, several users have taken to Twitter to express their concerns at the crash.