WhatsApp down: Facebook, Instagram, WhatsApp, and Messenger down in global outage, company working on a fix

WhatsApp, Instagram and Facebook services are down. The outage issue seems to be around DNS servers. Facebook has confirmed working on a fix.

WhatsApp, Instagram, and Facebook services are down for the majority of users. Several users have taken to Twitter to report an outage on these platforms. At the time of writing this article, all three services were showing an error that is refreshing. While WhatsApp isn't sending or receiving messages, Instagram shows "couldn't refresh the feed." Similarly, the Facebook page takes forever to load.

Downdetector confirms that there are issues on WhatsApp, Instagram, and Facebook platforms.

Update: A Facebook spokesperson has emailed India Today Tech a statement about the outage, "We're aware that some people are having trouble accessing our apps and products. We're working to get things back to normal as quickly as possible, and we apologize for any inconvenience."

Marcus Hutchins, a Cybersecurity expert famous on Twitter with the handle MalwareTech, has ruled out global cyber attack possibility. In a tweet, MalwareTech says, "Facebook, Instagram, WhatsApp are all down due to a BGP configuration error, which means it's only a matter of time before someone tweets a pew pew map screenshot and claims it's a global cyber attack."

In a similarly worded statement, WhatsApp has taken to Twitter to acknowledge the outage, "We're aware that some people are experiencing issues with WhatsApp at the moment. We're working to get things back to normal and will send an update here as soon as possible. Thanks for your patience!"

Facebook's Twitter handle has now tweeted, "We're aware that some people are having trouble accessing our apps and products. We're working to get things back to normal as quickly as possible, and we apologize for any inconvenience."

Instagram's official communication handle has also tweeted, "Instagram and friends are having a little bit of a hard time right now, and you may be having issues using them. Bear with us, we're on it! #instagramdown."

As per Downdetector data, WhatsApp users are reporting issues in the app as well as sending messages. The Downdetector website shows almost 9,000 crash reports for WhatsApp.

Talking about Instagram, Downdetector, the website that tracks services and websites, shows that there are roughly 8,000 users who reported issues. The issue is said to be around server connection. Similarly, the Facebook service outage was reported by approximately 4,000 people on Downdetector and the service claims issue related to the website, app, and server connection.

While it may be too early to say, this seems to be an issue around the DNS server down. The refresh request submitted to Facebook or Instagram on the website or app comes out as a timeout. We will wait to hear from Facebook about the outage and will update the copy.

Another Facebook property, Messenger, is also down, as confirmed by Downdetector. Similar to Instagram, Messenger users won't be able to send or receive messages.