Update: Facebook, Instagram and Whatsapp seem to be working again, but this is the second time the popular social media and messaging services are down within a month.
Could not access your Facebook feed today? Instagram photos not uploaded? Whatsapp messages will not go through? You were not alone. All of the apps owned by Facebook were possible for billions of users. We paused for about 20 minutes, according to our testing and the complaints of others – mostly via Twitter.
⚠️Someone else? Facebook, Instagram and WhatsApp are no longer available to me. I will continue to download from here while Twitter remains standing. But I plan to post a question and answer on Instagram Stories tonight (so many questions). https://t.co/GPPm6DUZSt8 April 2021
“We’m sorry, but something went wrong. Please try again,” the Instagram app said when we tried to access any part of the app. We can now refresh our stream of photos and videos, and we could not send messages either.
WhatsApp was similar, with a ‘Connecting’ and circular icon at the top, and we saw the same kind of issues in the Facebook Messenger app. Messages did not go out to our contacts for about half an hour. Eventually WhatsApp messages went through but the app is still struggling to connect.
Facebook has not yet commented on the issues, but in the past there have been similar issues that have seen all of these services interrupted simultaneously.
TechRadar has asked Facebook for a comment on what is happening, but we have yet to hear. However, without Facebook officially commenting, we have not received confirmation as to why its services have declined or how many of its billions of users have been affected.
We will continue monitoring the four services owned by Facebook – which apparently are no longer off – if your messages stop working again.