Photo by Donnie Weatherhead

This morning, LivingSocial’s web and mobile site finally came back online after being down for nearly 48 hours.

So what the hell happened? Well, the Washington Business Journal reports that a “key” database crashed on Tuesday and it took some time to repair:

The database, according to spokeswoman Sara Parker, went down at roughly 2 p.m. on Tuesday and needed to be manually rebuilt and tested, which “took way longer than we expected.” It contained customer service and voucher data, but no consumer credit card information, she said.

The site went back online this morning around 9 a.m. and LivingSocial issued an apology on their blog, stating that they “will make this up” to their customers, although they have not specified how yet. An email to a LivingSocial spokesperson was not immediately returned.

Washington Business Journal also reports that LivingSocial CEO Tim O’Shaughnessy said in an email to employees that “these last two days have been an incredibly low point for our company but we will do better and we will be back.” He also told employees that they “are committed to making this right with our customers and our merchants and will be aggressively communicating with both groups.” It’s not clear what the financial toll the site outage has taken on the company, but LivingSocial has been struggling financially ever since last November, when the company laid off roughly 400 staff members.

Update: LivingSocial spokesperson Sara Parker tells DCist that they will be releasing promo codes with 15 to 25 percent off for deals and escapes purchased November 15 through 17 to make up for the temporary outage.

Full disclosure: I was an employee at LivingSocial from December 2011 to November 2012.