Date: September 9-10, 2025
Duration: 14 hours, 18 minutes (5:20 PM GMT+1 Sept 9 - 7:39 AM GMT+1 Sept 10)
Severity: Major

On September 9, 2025, Buffer users experienced significant disruptions when attempting to publish content with media (images and videos) to Instagram and Threads. The issue was caused by errors in Meta's media container API, which prevented the successful creation and processing of media posts.

• Affected Platforms: Instagram and Threads

• Service Disruption:

  • Instagram posting success rate dropped to 5%

  • Threads posting success rate dropped to 10%

• Type of Impact: Only posts containing media were affected; text-only posts continued to function normally

• Duration: The issue persisted for approximately 14 hours before Meta resolved the underlying problem

This incident was caused by a service disruption on Meta's side, specifically affecting their media container API endpoints. When Buffer attempted to create or fetch media containers for Instagram and Threads posts, Meta's systems returned errors without explicit error messages, preventing the completion of the posting process.

The issue was not unique to Buffer - multiple social media management platforms experienced the same disruption simultaneously, confirming this was a widespread Meta platform issue.

As this was a third-party platform issue, our response focused on:

• Immediate Detection: Our automated monitoring systems detected the drop in posting success rates and triggered an incident response

• Investigation: We confirmed the issue was external after verifying no recent changes on our side

• Communication: Updated our status page and initiated customer communication workflows

• Monitoring: Continuously tracked posting success rates while Meta worked on their resolution

• Verification: Confirmed service restoration when success rates returned to normal levels at approximately 6:31 PM GMT+1

Meta resolved the issue on their end without requiring any action from Buffer or our users. Once fixed, all posting functionality immediately returned to normal.

• Proactive Detection: Our monitoring systems caught the issue immediately, allowing us to communicate with customers before receiving reports

• Quick Diagnosis: We rapidly identified this as a third-party issue and confirmed it with other platforms experiencing similar problems

• Clear Communication: We promptly updated our status page and kept customers informed throughout the incident

While we cannot prevent third-party platform issues, we continue to focus on:

• Maintaining robust monitoring to detect issues as quickly as possible

• Providing clear, proactive communication when platforms we depend on experience disruptions

• Building resilience into our systems where possible to minimize the impact of external service issues

This incident reinforces the importance of our monitoring and communication systems. When third-party platforms experience issues, our goal is to:

• Detect the problem before customers need to report it

• Communicate transparently about the situation

• Provide updates as we receive them

• Confirm full restoration once services return to normal