Facebook says it has resolved an issue that caused its apps including Instagram, WhatsApp and Twitter to be down for several hours in a worldwide outage on Wednesday.
‘Earlier today, some people and businesses experienced trouble uploading or sending images, videos and other files on our apps,’ Facebook said on its official Twitter account at 4:49 p.m.
‘The issue has since been resolved and we should be back at 100% for everyone. We’re sorry for any inconvenience.’
Facebook-owned Instagram said its issues were also fixed.
‘We’re back! The issue has been resolved and we should be back at 100% for everyone. We’re sorry for any inconvenience,’ Instagram said in a tweet.
However, some users replied saying they were still experiencing problems with hashtags and logging in.
Facebook said on Twitter that it had resolved an issue that caused its apps including Instagram, WhatsApp and Twitter to be down for several hours on Wednesday
Facebook-owned Instagram tweeted its issues were also fixed after the worldwide outage
But some users replied to Instagram saying they were still experiencing problems with hashtags and logging in
Earlier, people began to report the issues in their hundreds to outage tracker Down Detector shortly before 9 a.m.
Thousands of Instagram users were unable to post to news feeds, see stories or load content.
Facebook users also said they had trouble logging in and accessing their feeds, as well as viewing or posting pictures.
WhatsApp was also failing to send or receive messages, as well as offering a poor connection. A number of users were also unable to log in.
Those in mainland Europe seemed to be hardest hit as well as a smattering of people in the eastern United States. Pictured: Map for worldwide Instagram outage reports
Bemused and confused users took to social media to bemoan the outage on Wednesday
Even celebrities got in on the madness as complaints poured across Twitter in the wake of the Facebook outage. Mariah Carey shared a gif poking fun at the outage
Facebook first acknowledged the issue around noon (ET) in a brief statement on Twitter, saying it was aware and ‘working to get things back to normal.’
‘We’re aware that some people and businesses are currently having trouble uploading or sending images, videos and other files on our apps,’ a Facebook spokesman said initially after reports of the outage began to pile in.
Hours later it elaborated somewhat in a statement to Reuters, saying an internal problem was to blame.
‘During one of our routine maintenance operations, we triggered an issue that is making it difficult for some people to upload or send photos and videos,’ Facebook said Wednesday afternoon.
On user replied to Instagram with a meme ironically applauding the app for being back online on Wednesday evening
Issues on Facebook and Twitter were happening in pockets worldwide, according to Down Detector, which tracks issues and outages on a variety of sites.
Those in the UK, US and Europe appeared to be hardest hit, though reports came in from further afield as well, including Australia, Brazil, Colombia, Japan, Mexico, the Philippines, Russia, Singapore, South Africa and Uruguay.
Bemused and confused users took to social media to bemoan the outage and ask if others were experiencing any difficulty getting online.
The hashstags #instagramdown, #facebookdown and #whatsappdown were trending worldwide on Twitter, which is packed with jokes and complaints about the social media disruption.
Briana said: ‘Dear Instagram PLEASE FIX YOUR APP. Your news feed is almost always down.
‘Please do some major maintenance and fix all your problems!!! UPGRADE YOUR SERVERS TOO!!! – Yours truly one pissed off Instagrammer.’
Eric Norton, from Daytona Beach, Florida, said: ‘It’s going to be one of those days again. #FacebookDown #InstagramDown Guess it’s back to living real life instead…’
Facebook is not faring much better, with reports coming in from 1,200 users complaining that they can’t access the social network – a figure that continues to grow
Issues centre around posting to the news feed, seeing stories and loading content. Pictured: Outage reports for Instagram have grown from hundreds to thousands in the past hour
Like floods of other social media users, Briana Taylor took to Twitter to complain about the outage
Twitter user Eric Norton, from Daytona Beach, Florida, said: ‘It’s going to be one of those days again. #FacebookDown #InstagramDown Guess it’s back to living real life instead…’
Facebook has experienced a number of outages affecting one or more of its apps – Instagram, Facebook and WhatsApp.
As the servers dealing with all three share information, it is increasingly likely that an issue affecting one Facebook service will also hit others.
That can be a big problem as the suite of apps collectively have billions of users and are critical for business and communications.
Every hour the platforms are not working properly can mean real inconveniences or lost money.
In the early weeks of June, Instagram was hit with an outage that affected users around the world and lasted for several hours.
Just days before that, Instagram was hit by a separate outage that left users unable to access their feed, post photos and or view direct messages in the app.
In March, Instagram, Facebook and WhatsApp were hit by one of the worst outages in the social media giant’s history, when all three services were down at the same time for more than 14 hours.
The company blamed a change it had made to its system for the outage.