Instagram, Facebook and WhatsApp are back online after an hour outage that frustrated users across the world
- Instagram, WhatsApp, Facebook and Messenger are back online after an outage
- All four of the social media apps stopped working worldwide about 5:30pm GMT
- The outages were first reported earlier this evening by website Downdetector
Facebook, Instagram and WhatsApp went down for about one hour across the world earlier, leaving social media users frustrated and unable to connect.
The social tools, all owned by Facebook, including the platform’s own Messenger service, were first reported as not being available from 15:30 GMT on Friday.
Users visiting Instagram online were shown a simple error message saying ‘5xx Server Error’, with no other information provided.
Some Facebook users were able to sign in to the app, although 63 percent of reports on downdetector.com suggested there was a ‘total blackout’.
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The social tools, all owned by Facebook, including the platform’s own Messenger service, were first reported as not being available from 5:30pm GMT on Friday
Some Facebook users were able to sign in to the app, although 63 percent of reports on downdetector.com suggested there was a ‘total blackout’
A Facebook spokeswoman told Business Insider: ‘Earlier today, a technical issue caused people to have trouble accessing some Facebook services.
‘We resolved this issue for everyone, and we apologise for any inconvenience.’
There was a sudden spike of reports on downdetector for the Facebook owned services, with the outage affecting the entire Facebook social product line.
Users have taken to social media to express their frustration at not being able to connect to friends, family or work colleagues.
Popular TV show Family Guy even shared its desperation, following the brief outage.
One user shared a picture of the word ‘connecting….’ and said ‘wifi on and off, phone on and down, switch to data, instagram still down, what’s app still down.’
Users flocked to social media to express their frustration at not being able to connect to friends, family or work colleagues
Another talked about using one form of social media to check on another, tweeting that they came to Twitter ‘to see if WhatsApp and Instagram is down.’
While Facebook is yet to comment on the outage, of those who reported issues to DownDetector with Instagram, 77 percent said they had problems with their news feed, 11 percent with the website and 10 percent with log-in.
The last major outage of a Facebook platform, in January, saw Instagram’s desktop site and app go down for roughly two hours across the globe.
Most of the social media comments revolved around users turning to Twitter to find out what is happening with Instagram or WhatsApp
The Instagram website was showing a 5xx Server Error message
Most of the social media comments revolved around users turning to Twitter to find out what is happening with Instagram or WhatsApp.
One user shared a picture of people being chased, adding the words ‘me running to twitter to check what happened to WhatsApp again’.
Last year Facebook moved to unify the back end systems of Facebook Messenger and Instagram, effectively merging the two chat platforms.
This was the first phase in a new unified messaging service for Facebook, Instagram and WhatsApp.
