Instagram App Goes Down: Users Report Widespread Technical Problems

[UPDATE, 2:30 p.m. ET: Instagram‘s PR account on Twitter reported that service was restored after it resolved the technical problem. “We resolved the issue that caused today’s outage, and apologize for any inconvenience,” it said in a tweet.]

meta’s Instagram app appeared to be experiencing technical problems Thursday, as thousands of users globally reported problems accessing the service.

According to uptime-monitoring site Downdetector, complaints about Instagram began to spike just after 12:30 p.m. ET. As of 12:54 p.m., more than 24,000 users had submitted error reports, according to the site, with 86% of those indicating problems accessing the app. The highest number of problem reports about Instagram in the U.S. were from users in New York and L.A., according to Downdetector, although the issues were affecting users worldwide including in Europe, Asia and South America.

In a tweet posted at 1:34 p.m. ET, the Instagram PR team confirmed the problems and wrote, “We’re aware that some people are having trouble accessing Instagram. We’re working to get things back to normal as quickly as possible. Sorry for any inconvenience, and hang tight! #instagramdown.”

According to users on Reddit, the Instagram app on Thursday was crashing when they tried to open it. A few users said that when they did manage to get Instagram back open, it had reverted to an older configuration that lacked Reels, which is Instagram’s TikTok-like short video format.

In one of Instagram’s most prolonged outages, the popular photo- and video-sharing service went down for about six hours in October 2021, along with meta’s Facebook and WhatsApp services. That had been the longest outage for meta’s family of apps since March 2019, when the service wasdown for about 24 hoursacross multiple apps including Instagram.