If you are an avid user of Facebook Messenger, then finding out that it’s not working can be frustrating.

There are a number of different reasons why Messenger might become temporarily unavailable, but fortunately enough there is usually a simple fix for each one.

We’re going to examine the common reasons behind Messenger becoming unavailable and also outline the steps you need to take to get it back up and running. Let’s get started.

Facebook chat is currently unavailable – Common reasons

The most likely reason your Facebook chat can become temporarily unavailable is due to a minor bugging issue which can effect every app in existence.

The bug can infiltrate the app for no reason whatsoever and can cause it to crash or freeze and essentially stop it from working as it normally does.

Luckily, this is a bug that is extremely easy to get rid of and all you have to do is to reset and/or reboot the app – simply turning it off and on again is the way to go here.

There are a couple of ways to reboot or reset an app which we will outline below. All instructions are based on the iOS operating system, and you can access this within your app settings pretty easily.

Soft reset

To complete a soft reset of an app you need take the following steps:

Go to your phone’s home screen.
Swipe up to see the apps that are currently active on your device/running in the background.
Flick through all of these active apps until you land on Messenger.
Swipe up on the Messenger app to close it properly.
Go back to your phone’s home screen and re-open the app to see if it is now working.

Hard reset

To complete a hard reset of an app you need to take the following steps:

Navigate to your phone’s home screen.
Flick through all of your apps until you find Messenger.
Hold down on the Messenger icon, select ‘remove app’ and then select ‘Delete app’.
Go into the app store, search Messenger and then re-download the app.
Fire the app up, log back in and then see if the app is working again.

If the app is still unavailable after completing the above steps then there are a couple of other issues which may be at play. Here’s a few more reasons why Facebook chat may still not be working.

Connectivity

Facebook in general relies on a secure internet connection in order to function properly and Messenger is no different.

Therefore, if you try to use the app while disconnected from the internet then it simply will not work for you.

With that in mind, if Messenger is down for you then you need to check your connection – to do this, please follow these steps:

Wi-Fi connection

Navigate to the settings app.
Select ‘Wi-Fi’.
If there is a tick next to one of your available networks then it means that you are connected to the internet and you can rule connectivity out as the reason behind Messenger’s problem.
If there isn’t a tick, then click on one of your available network and try and connect to it. You will likely need to know a password to successfully connect.

Mobile data

Navigate to Settings.
Click on ‘Mobile Data’.
Use the sliding bar next to ‘mobile data’ is displaying as green.
Check the header bar on your iPhone to see whether your phone is connected to a 3G, 4G or 5G network. If you can’t see any of these on your header bar then it means mobile data isn’t available in your current location.

App updates

Another common reason why Messenger might be unavailable to you is if you are using an outdated version of the app.

Apps go through updates all the time and Messenger is no different so you need to ensure you are running Messenger on its latest version for it to work properly.

To check if Messenger needs to be updated, follow the below:

Go to App Store
Select your profile icon.
If you scroll to the bottom, you’ll be able to see which apps need updating.
If Messenger on this list then select ‘update’ next to it.

If you want to ensure that these updates happen automatically in the future then you can do that by following these instructions:

Go to Settings.
Select ‘App Store’.
Underneath the ‘automatic downloads’ heading, ensure that ‘app updates’ is selected.

You may want to log out of the Messenger app and then log back in again to make sure that this update has gone through properly.

Conclusion

To conclude, there are plenty of different reasons why Facebook Messenger might be unavailable for you. In rare cases, it may be that Facebook has restricted your account.

Though, this is unlikely as most Facebook users find that it’s an issue with the app or your connection to the internet.

We are confident, though, that if you go through all of our instructions above that you will get to the root of the issue quickly and, more importantly, get it fixed.