Facebook down, Instagram not working and Whatsapp outage: Why are popular apps offline?

Today has seen a number of popular apps go offline, with many users still reporting problems accessing them.

Currently, Facebook is down, Instagram is not working in all its core features, and some users are unable to send messages on Whatsapp.

As you might already know, all three of these services are part of the same company and are facing some big issues tonight.

There are now thousands of reports confirming that there are problems with Facebook and Facebook Messenger, alongside core Instagram services.

Outage maps that show the worst affect areas reveal problems in the United States and Australia, as well as areas in Europe. And unfortunately, there have only been a few hints on what might be causing the issues tonight.

“We’re aware of an issue impacting people’s access to Instagram right now. We know this is frustrating, and our team is hard at work to resolve this ASAP,” the latest message from the Instagram support team writes.

Facebook has provided more details on the problems facing that platform tonight, revealing that it is not in connection with a mass DDOS attack.

That would make sense as all three services have been affected; however, this has been ruled out by the company as the cause.

“We’re aware that some people are currently having trouble accessing the Facebook family of apps. We’re working to resolve the issue as soon as possible,” the Facebook support message reads.

“We’re focused on working to resolve the issue as soon as possible, but can confirm that the issue is not related to a DDoS attack.”

The BBC reports that this is one of the biggest outages to affect Facebook in recent years, explaining today: “Facebook is suffering the most severe outage in its history, with key services rendered unusable for users globally for much of Wednesday.

“The last time Facebook had a disruption of this magnitude was in 2008, when the site had 150m users – compared to around 2.3bn monthly users today.

“Facebook’s main product, its two messaging apps and image-sharing site Instagram were all affected.

“The cause of the interruption has not yet been made public.”

Whatsapp doesn’t have the same social media presence as the other two sites, meaning we haven’t been provided with a direct update on the situation.

If the outage continues, we expect to hear more on from Facebook on what is causing tonight’s problems.

Another Facebook product has also been confirmed as affected by today’s outage, away from just the Facebook platform.

The Oculus VR support page has confirmed problems are affecting it tonight, adding: “We’re aware that some people are currently having trouble accessing and using Oculus.

“We’re working to resolve the issue as soon as possible. Thank you for your patience while we work through this.”

Niantic, the makers of Pokemon Go, has also confirmed that users who usually sign in via Facebook will not be able to do so right now.

As mentioned by the status update, Trainers should still be able to use other means to access Pokemon Go tonight.

“If you currently log into Pokémon GO or Ingress using Facebook, this login method is currently unavailable. We’re closely monitoring this issue and will provide an update.

“In the meantime, you can still access both games via alternate login methods. Thanks for your patience.”

source: express.co.uk