Mysteriously Logged Out Of Facebook? Here’s What Happened

Did you get logged out of Facebook on Friday? You weren’t the only one. Here’s what Facebook says happened.

On Friday around 8:30 p.m., El Paso time, many Facebook users got mysteriously logged out of their accounts simultaneously, causing many to question if they had just been hacked.

The hashtags #FaceBookDown and #SoFacebook even started trending on Twitter after many Facebook users noticed that they had automatically gotten logged out of their accounts.

Facebook soon responded and posted that the app glitch was due to a “configuration change.”

Facebook posted on Twitter:

“We’re looking into reports of people being logged out and having to log in again to access their Facebook accounts. We’re working to resolve this issue as quickly as possible. Thank you for your patience.”

The apparent "configuration change" caused some users to be logged out unexpectedly, especially iPhone users of the Facebook iOS app. These users reported experiencing problems logging back in with the two-factor authentication, and while some were able to log back in, others were having issues receiving the authentication codes.

I, too, got logged out and was able to log back in quickly even though I have an iPhone.  However, I was hesitant because I thought I had just been hacked and changed my password immediately.

Apparently, many other Facebook users also thought they had been hacked and reset their passwords as well.

Although Facebook wasn’t clear on the “configuration change” was for, we hope it was necessary for something useful like preventing data collection.

So if you recently experienced the automatic logout on Facebook, don’t panic it; it was just Facebook tinkering under the hood. But if I were you, I’d go ahead and reset your password. You know, just in case.