Meta CTO Blames Demo Glitches on Self-Inflicted DDoS and Rare Bug During the recent Meta Connect keynote, Mark Zuckerbergs planned demonstrations of the new smart glasses hit not one, but two significant technical snags. The issues disrupted the live presentation, but according to Meta Chief Technology Officer Andrew Bosworth, they were not indicative of problems with the consumer product. Instead, he attributed the failures to a self-inflicted digital traffic jam and a previously unseen software bug. The first malfunction occurred during a segment with a cooking content creator. The chef, using the glasses Live AI feature, asked for instructions to make a Korean-inspired steak sauce. Instead of providing a step-by-step guide, the AI assistant skipped ahead and began to glitch. On stage, the chef suggested that the venues WiFi might be to blame for the poor performance. Bosworth later clarified that the WiFi was not at fault. The real cause was far more ironic. When the chef said the wake words, Hey Meta, start Live AI, the command was picked up by every single pair of Meta Ray-Ban smart glasses in the building. Given that the event was focused on these devices, a large number of them were present and active. To make matters worse, Meta had configured the system to route all Live AI traffic to a development server for the demo. This combination of factors meant that a massive, unexpected surge of requests from all the glasses in the room flooded the single server. Bosworth explained that the company had essentially DDoSed itself, meaning they overwhelmed their own server with traffic. He noted that this scenario did not happen during rehearsals because significantly fewer people were wearing the activated glasses at that time. The second glitch happened when Zuckerberg attempted to demonstrate taking a WhatsApp video call directly on the new Meta Ray-Ban Display glasses. The audience could see the incoming call notifications appearing on the heads-up display, but Zuckerberg was unable to answer them. The call interface simply did not provide an option to accept the call. According to Bosworth, this was caused by a rare and unfortunate bug that had never been encountered before. He described a situation where the glasses display entered a sleep state at the exact moment the call notifications arrived. This timing conflict prevented the answer call option from appearing, even after Zuckerberg woke the display back up. Bosworth stated that this specific bug has since been identified and fixed following the incident. He expressed confidence in the underlying technology, stating that the company knows how to do video calling, but admitted it was a missed opportunity to prove the feature live on stage. The incidents highlight the inherent risks of live technology demonstrations, where complex systems can interact in unpredictable ways. While Meta was quick to label the issues as demo-specific failures rather than product flaws, the public glitches undoubtedly created a moment of embarrassment for the company during a major product announcement.
