Instagram users have flooded social media with reports of the photo-focused smartphone app not working this morning. iPhone and Android smartphone owners have complained about issues refreshing their timeline – with some showing a completely blank feed, no matter how many times they pull-down to refresh. Confused users have checked their Wi-Fi router, switched to 4G, and force-closed the Instagram app to try to bring back the functionality – all to no avail. The Facebook-owned social network has yet to confirm exactly why some users are having trouble accessing the service this morning, but if the timeline of people on Twitter complaining about the problem is anything to go by, it seems pretty widespread.
DownDetectors, an independent service that trawls mentions across social networks to determine when web apps and online services, like Instagram, are down for users, has reported hundreds of reports from users every minute. At the latest count, some 700 Instagram users were complaining about problems seeing photos and videos on the service.
Instagram Stories, which appear for 24-hours before vanishing (unless saved to their profile), also appeared to be impacted by this latest issue, with users screenshotting blank images when trying to view the latest photo or video shared by friends, celebrities or influencers they follow on the social media service.
Using the geolocation data stored by social networks, DownDetector is able to show the volume of users in each region of the UK, as well as nations worldwide. At the moment, the issues impacting Instagram appear to be centred around the UK and North America. However, there are some reports in mainland Europe, too.
Writing on Twitter, users voiced their frustration with the service being offline – with some unable to access Instagram for hours now. One posted: “Instagram has not worked for almost 6 hours, I deleted it from my device, I restarted my phone, I deactivated my internet but it still works like that. Someone else? Does someone know how to solve this problem?”
Another posted a screenshot of a blank Activity tab, with the loading symbol endlessly twirling, writing: “What’s happening to @instagram? It’s down for me whole day…”
Meanwhile, one Twitter user joked about the outage, “Maybe this is a sign I need to focus on other stuff #instagramdown”
- We’ll keep you updated about the outage. Please refresh this webpage for the most up-to-date information.