Panic! Facebook is not loading. I just encountered something that Facebook users probably experience from time to time when they try to access Facebook.
I tried to open the Facebook website directly in the Firefox web browser only to be greeted with a blank page. No content was displayed at all. Tried reloading the page with Ctrl-F5 to bypass the cache and request the page from the Facebook server again but the blank page loaded again.
Switched then to Google Chrome, Opera and Internet Explorer to see if the Facebook page was loading in those browsers. Chrome did load the page fine, Internet Explorer displayed a cannot display webpage error and Opera did load it fine as well.
Chance is that if it is working in at least one browser on your system it is not your PC that is causing the problems. It can still be a firewall rule obviously, or a browser plugin or setting, but if you have not made any changes to those programs or settings recently it is likely that Facebook has a delivery problem.
So, if there were not any updates for extensions or the browser, firewall, or other security software, then it is likely an issue that is caused by the site and not on your end.
Tip: Firefox users can start the browser in Safe Mode by holding down Shift before they click on the icon to start the browser. Safe Mode loads the browser without add-ons and customization so that you can verify if the issue is add-on related or not.
The source code of the blank page was also blank, no information given whatsoever.
There are two options that you have at this point basically: use the browser the site is loading fine in, or wait until Facebook resolves the issue (once you figured out that it is not your computer or browser that is responsible for the blank page)
And guess what. It took only two minutes before the Facebook page was loading fine once again in the Firefox web browser.
Here are a few things that you can do to analyze the problem further:
- Clear the web browser cache and cookies, restart the browser
- Run the browser without add-ons and plugins
- Check if other sites load, check if https://www.facebook.com/ loads
Have you ever encountered a blank page when you wanted to access Facebook? How did you resolve the issue?