Millions of Facebook users were left fearing they lost priceless photographs and data today after the social networking site crashed.
At around 5pm GMT those who tried to log on were given an error message saying 'Sorry, something went wrong. We're working on getting this fixed as soon as we can."
The last time Facebook crashed like this was on June 19 when the site was down for around 20 minutes, which is extremely unusual for a website that prides itself on its reliability.
This time the site was down for a similar amount of time.
Facebook by numbers
Facebook has yet to confirm the cause of the outage but it appeared to be back up around 5:30pm UK time.
Specific details as to what went wrong have not been released yet - but luckily in case it happens again there are ways you can back up your personal data, messages, wall posts, pictures, videos and contact details.
Firstly you'll need to log in to your account, click the arrow button in the top right of the page and select settings, then click Download a copy of your Facebook data.
This will take you to the Download your information page where you should select Start My Archive.
A pop up will display on the screen titled Request My Download and the message: "It may take a little while for us to gather your photos, wall posts, messages and other information.
"We will then ask you to verify your identity in order to help protect the security of your account."
You will then need to click Start My Archive where you will be prompted to reenter your password before downloading a Zip file containing all of your pictures, messages, wall posts and videos.
This will be stored on your computer but you can later back this up through cloud storage, on a CD or on a memory USB stick, which you can pick up online or at your local electronics store for several pounds.
If Facebook suddenly went offline for good then it would cause chaos on the internet. Check out the reaction in our Storify below after it was down for around 20 minutes.
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