Facebook has fixed a bug in its apps that was draining users' phone batteries
David Marcus, the VP of messaging products at the social network, confirmed on Twitter that there was a bug, and that it should now be solved.
"Issue was isolated and fixed server side," he wrote on Tuesday. "If you restart Messenger the problem should be gone now. Very sorry."
It's not clear how many users were affected by the problem - a Facebook spokesperson did not immediately respond to a request for comment - but it appears to have only been an issue on Android smartphones.
Plenty of people complained about the bug online. "Shoutout to facebook/messenger apps for destroying 90% of my phone battery in three hours when i wasn't even using them," one Twitter user wrote on Tuesday.
"Facebook messenger used 15% of my battery today. I haven't opened it at all this week," said another.
One Reddit user said they even deleted the Facebook and Messenger apps as a result: "It was draining my battery really bad and phone was getting hot. Had to delete them."
(I'm pretty sure I also experienced this bug. My Moto G handset repeatedly got very hot and drained extremely quickly over the last week, though I didn't check to see which app was causing it.)
In short: If you're experiencing rapid battery drain on your Android, Facebook Messenger is probably the problem. Restart the app, and the issue should be fixed. (But let us know if it isn't!)