Major server error brings down Facebook [UPDATED]

[UPDATE] As of 10pm GMT the site is back up and functioning correctly

Facebook is in the process of fixing a major DNS failure which has brought down the social networking site globally.

The site has been down for most of the day following a short outage yesterday. Facebook has not announced an official reason for the outage although it is unrelated the ‘onmouseover’ attack that affected Twitter this week.

Users who attempt to connect to the Facebook page are being met with a time out message and an error code.

Worryingly in a statement released on the site’s development blog Facebook says it is “investigating” the issue and will “provide an update when either the issue is resolved or we have an ETA for resolution.”

However, the downtime is not just an aesthetic issue as the disruption to Facebook’s service has led to longer loading times on websites that connect to the site. The near ubiquitous Facebook Like button has also been brought down (as can be seen by the error messages on this page).

The downtime has also affected third part applications that connect to the site, with CNN and Hootsuite both being particularly affected.

According to Facebook, today’s downtime is unrelated to the service issues the site experienced yesterday which brought the site down for some users.