Instagram was down — here's what happened and who it affected

Not so snap-happy

News
By last updated
Instagram app logo on a phone display
(Image: © Shutterstock)

Instagram was down, as thousands of users are reporting a service outage on Down Detector.

At around 12:08pm ET / 5:08pm GMT, users started reporting issues with the app and website. After our own testing and seeing other user outage reports, it seems that the desktop website was the only service affected.

LIVE UPDATES

Refresh

That's a big outage spike

Down detector

(Image credit: Down detector)

If you're experiencing issues with Instagram, you're not the only one. At the time of writing, 2,689 users have reported an outage is happening.

This looks like it's desktop-focused

We're seeing more users sharing their experiences, which are similar to my own testing. It looks the feed is not loading on desktop, but on the smartphone app, it seems to be fine.

May have just been a blip?

Down detector

(Image credit: Down detector)

Whatever these service issues are with Instagram on desktop, it looks as if a fix may have been implemented, as the spike is quickly tapering off at just over 1,000 user reports.

The outage looks to be over

Well, that was quick! The desktop site for Instagram is working for us again, and the number of user outage reports has dropped down to 234 at the time of writing — much closer to the expected average.