Facebook Chat “Down For Maintenance”

-Facebook Chat Down Icon-Want to find out which of your friends are busy wasting their day away on Facebook? Unfortunately you’ll have to hold off on that as Facebook chat currently says that it’s “down for maintenance”. The issues, which began appearing earlier in the day, appeared to be related to the service becoming unreliable. Users would visit a page only to notice that the chat service was no longer functioning properly.

One person we spoke to who was in the midst of conversation with a future lover, told us, “Simply put, I don’t know if we’ll ever be together again” as tears began to roll down his eyes. Alright, maybe that didn’t really happen, however reliability is something which Facebook prides itself on. Keeping a service which is used by over 300 million people presents a number of challenges to say the least.

While we’ve seen the chat service have issues before, this is the first time we’ve seen chat down for any extended period of time. Thankfully users still have Twitter, AIM, GChat, and other services for communicating with each other. In a world of instant communication, having our primary channels shut off can damage productivity (or help depending on the channel), but for most users I’d assume Facebook chat is not their primary communication channel.

While we’re not quite sure how long the service will be out for, I’m sure that Facebook is working quickly to resolve the issues. I’ve reached out to Facebook for comment and will be sure to post an update if we hear back.

Update
Facebook has reached out to us with the following comment: “We’ve temporarily turned off Chat while we perform some site maintenance. We’re working as quickly as possible and Chat will be enabled again shortly.” Sounds pretty standard, so we’ll have to wait and see how long the outage lasts.

Update 2
Chat is back up!

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37 Comments »

  1. this is fucking ridiculous. my friend is across the world and i barely ever get to talk to him, and hes online right now, yet its down for maintenance? like fuck, just leave the damn fb chat alone! its fine.

    Comment by Keisha — November 2, 2009 @ 5:38 pm

  2. I love it when major websites take things down to repair them. It shows you how good they really are. This is almost as good as Google taking search down for maintenance.

    Comment by anon — November 2, 2009 @ 5:45 pm

  3. Frustrating isn’t it I wish they would post a warning before hand with an estimated length of downtime some of us may well be trying to speak to future lovers hint hint

    Comment by steve — November 2, 2009 @ 5:50 pm

  4. I’m not happy about the sudden failure, I use it as my main chat client, I was in the middles of a fairly important conversation with my sister. We switched to another medium, but I have to say facebook, is not doing it for me much anymore. The new privacy options are great, but when I post on my wall I’d like to be able to select what group sees my wall post for individual posts, ie That was a rough presentation, great work keeping people focused on the task at hand! Only goes to co-workers groups! Just woke up (2pm on a sunday) NOT WORK RELATED! Facebook needs lot’s of polishing before I use it full time!

    Comment by Francois Ledoux — November 2, 2009 @ 6:00 pm

  5. I ‘like’ this!

    Comment by Nat — November 2, 2009 @ 6:06 pm

  6. Good its coming back up soon

    Comment by Mo — November 2, 2009 @ 6:15 pm

  7. seems to be back online
    shit facebook

    Comment by AA — November 2, 2009 @ 6:22 pm

  8. Ok ! hope will fix it soon and have some new cool options !

    Comment by SamyChelly — November 2, 2009 @ 6:23 pm

  9. Chat is back for me!

    Comment by Patrick JF — November 2, 2009 @ 6:24 pm

  10. I love loads of people on Facebook, I ate a sandwich with half a cow in it and now have chest pains, so I’m taking this opportunity to tell the poeple I love that I do love them and the people I don’t love, that, I hate them :D

    Comment by Elizabeth — November 2, 2009 @ 6:35 pm

  11. Really facebook is about to going make update some thing new.

    Comment by Facebook Fan Pages — November 3, 2009 @ 5:44 am

  12. i still cant get on to facebook chat. it says the site is broken. i dont see where they fixed anything.

    Comment by jackie — November 3, 2009 @ 8:00 am

  13. Does anybody know, why I cannot see “older postings” on my fan-page?

    Comment by Gerry — November 3, 2009 @ 12:33 pm

  14. well it works good chat,but some time we needed to know for the time we needed.But some time people don’t think’s right things on their mind to give any question to answer.some how do they have no interested at all for fun fairjust being needed open open mind,But the whole world read all the comment we type.Just we have lot of interest.This is my hoppy,Depend on how people treated good bad manner of their attidude behavior.I’t seemed to me really people have little confusing on their mind what to say.Just needed more fun able life to forward every day life.

    Comment by M tahir Din — November 3, 2009 @ 2:16 pm

  15. You people are all retards. Its real easy to throw out complaints about how bad facebook is and how they suck because their chat stopped working for a day. Get a life you idiots. There are tons of IM's out there, maybe get one as a back up if your "whole life" revolves around talking to your friend that is online RIGHT NOW.

    Try being an admin for a site like that with that much functionality and then let me hear you complain about how unreliable it is. I would say all things considered, Facebook has done a pretty damn good job of being online and running smoothly.

    You morons just need to get a life, try email or maybe a telephone, remember those??

    Idiots, all of you…….

    Comment by Wiley_Oompa — November 4, 2009 @ 11:55 am

  16. Well, facebook chat hasn't worked on my computer since they took it down, they really need to sort it out as it keeps crashing my system every time i talk to people, and if someone talks to me… bang whole system freezes luckily i have been having a lazy couple of days or i would have lost a load of work.

    Comment by David — November 4, 2009 @ 12:50 pm

  17. I am getting extremely fed up with Facebook…can someone explain to me why my son and husband can get online but mine is supposedly going thru maintenance?? ALL my stuff has gone to waste because of this…I am sick of it and would rather cancel my acct than to waste my time building something they always seem to destroy. Again everyone can get on but me :(

    Comment by Brandy — November 15, 2009 @ 12:31 am

  18. haha this is funny … but also not kool i like to see the comments people put on here… lol

    Comment by cassie — November 23, 2009 @ 4:47 pm

  19. well my site is apparently goin through maintenance.. my children can get on there accounts luckily..i got my farm. fishworld restaurant and everything goin to waste…hope it works soon….

    Comment by karen — November 30, 2009 @ 3:09 pm

  20. to get a friend on face book

    Comment by tony — February 4, 2010 @ 9:07 am

  21. i use that chat function a lot, for in my world, not many ppl use twitter just yet. i didn't know fb actually were doing site maintenance until i did this little search. seeing u ppl said that the chat's back made me feel strange – cos mine's still not working. every time i click on it there's no one on. reported to fb already, no news so far, chat not working still. it's chinese new year here so it'd be most kind if anyone could please share a tip on how i can get my fb chat back…………………

    Comment by Katty Yeung — February 12, 2010 @ 7:22 pm

  22. i fuck hate wen Chat is down for maintenance at this time. wen can i get back

    Comment by MERITA — April 14, 2010 @ 7:25 pm

  23. wot the fuck is this yaa…it realli is annoying…plz plz facebukk…its realli important for me to tok to him..!!..my facebook chat havvent opened since three dayzz…its realli frutrating…i hope my facebukk chat opens asap..! :( do sumthin abt it..!!! ergghhhh fuck..! ;'(

    Comment by krishna — May 5, 2010 @ 6:42 am

  24. this is not good i was talking with a very important boy than the facebook is no more able to use as a chat place

    i am super ungry and i wanna know if it's onna be fixed or not

    Comment by sara — May 5, 2010 @ 6:47 am

  25. facebook chat is still down! stupid update 2.. you lie!

    Comment by Lauren — May 5, 2010 @ 6:49 am

  26. i fuck hate wen chat is down for maintenance at this time.when can i get to chat to my mates again

    Comment by gemma — May 5, 2010 @ 7:29 am

  27. hiiiiiiii

    Comment by Sidd Roy — May 5, 2010 @ 7:56 am

  28. wen ll it be normal i hate u guys it was fine

    Comment by Nishanth le Roi — May 5, 2010 @ 8:08 am

  29. ahhh……wat de heck is goin on wid fb chat ??? arrgg…many ppl r online nw nd i wana chat wid 'em….dat too ma bst frnd…. jus hate it…:( wen ll v get bak ??

    Comment by ViSHAKHA — May 5, 2010 @ 8:14 am

  30. hey…wat R facebook. uh..stupid…..juzz liv uRz alone

    2 chat..m so sad..wat de hell……guin uh..my frenzz

    all..in on9//.but currently..v R cnt chat….plzzz

    upgrade fazter,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,v cnt wait along…..k

    gud bye…………

    Comment by ivnaa — May 5, 2010 @ 8:33 am

  31. Hmm facebook chat works for me even though I never use it, hmm my computer froze 2 times when I logged onto facebook, do you think this has anything to do with the chat?

    Comment by Crystal-Mask — November 7, 2010 @ 6:43 pm

  32. yeah…
    facebook doesn't have to provide anything for us.
    they're not forced to give us this service..

    Comment by Jonnn — November 14, 2010 @ 1:08 am

  33. yeahh!
    what he said

    Comment by Lauren — November 14, 2010 @ 1:08 am

  34. but man,
    facebook doesn't have to be here.
    the owners probably dont make much money..
    give it a break

    Comment by david — November 14, 2010 @ 1:09 am

  35. HOw long will it take? i Can't waiT…

    Comment by rymor_la — November 14, 2010 @ 1:26 am

  36. I FEEL THAT WAY TOO. I EVEN DELETED MY FB ACCT AND IN 2 WKS LIKE THEY SAID TO DO, STARTED WITH A NEW EMAIL ADDRESS, NOW I HAVE THE SAME PROBLEMS WITH FACEBOOK I HAD BEFORE I DID THAT. I AM AWAY FROM MY FAMILY AND USE IT MOSTLY FOR PICTURES AND CANT EVEN SEE THEM. THEY DO KEEP YR OLD INFO, THEY SAID AFTER 2 WKS OFF FB IT WOULD BE DELETED AND ITS NOT. I SURE HOPE THEY IMPROVE THEIR SERVICE. I HAD TO MAKE MY PASSWORD SO HARD, CAUSE IT WOULDNT WORK TIME AFTER TIME. YET SOME PEOPLE SEEM TO HAVE NO PROBLEMS CANT UNDER STAND IT. I SURE WISH THEY WOULD POST A WARNING FOR MAINTENCE.

    Comment by GIEST — April 3, 2011 @ 5:00 pm

  37. It was weird I lost chat like 10 minutes before all my friends

    Comment by Mandy — November 3, 2011 @ 2:44 am

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