Instagram has apologised for an outage caused by a ‘technical issue’ that plagued users around the world throughout Thursday.
According to DownDetector, more than 7,000 Instagram users reported problems with the app as of midday UK time on Thursday, but this rose to more than 8,000 at around 10pm.
MailOnline contacted Facebook, which owns the photo-sharing app, for comment.
‘We’re aware that some people are having trouble accessing their Instagram,’ a company spokesperson said.
‘We’re working to get things back to normal as quickly as possible and we apologise for any inconvenience.’
Problems started just after 8am on Thursday. About 18 hours later, at 2am on Friday, Instagram announced the problem had been fixed – but the firm is yet to disclose its specific cause.
It’s one of the most popular social media apps around the world, but it appears that Instagram has crashed
Hours after the problems started, Instagram tweeted at 3:42pm Thursday: ‘Is #instagramdown for you? We’re on it! We know some people are having issues accessing Instagram and are working to fix things ASAP.’
When it finally fixed the issue at 2am it tweeted: ‘This issue has been fully resolved – we’re sorry for the inconvenience.’
A Facebook company spokesperson told MailOnline on Friday: ‘A technical issue caused some people to have trouble accessing Instagram.
‘We resolved the issue for everyone who was impacted, and we apologise for any inconvenience.’
Instagram users flocked to Twitter to share their frustrations, and to check if other users were experiencing the same problems.
While the reason for the outage remains unclear, of those who reported issues, 51 per cent said they couldn’t access the app, 29 per cent said they were having server issues, and 21 per cent were having problems with the Instagram website.
According to DownDetector, more than 6,000 Instagram users have reported problems with the app as of midday on Thursday
The Instagram outage appears to be affecting users worldwide, with reports in the UK, France, US and Portugal
As of late Thursday afternoon, #instagramdown was still trending on Twitter, which is often the first point of call whenever users can’t access an app.
One Twitter user said: ‘I really thought I’m having issues with my internet connection. #instagramdown.’
Another tweeted: ‘I deleted Instagram just to find out everyone on twitter is having the same problem.’
Downdetector collates reports of outages from multiple sources, including Twitter and reports submitted on its websites and mobile apps.
Its website shows that Instagram outage reports started to rise substantially just after 8am BST on Thursday, reaching a peak after noon.
‘The only two apps that don’t let me down’: Instagram seems to be getting a reputation for outages
@lheria3 tweeted: ‘I really thought I’m having issues with my internet connection.’ Twitter is often the first point of call whenever users can’t access an app
Instagram seems to be getting a reputation for outages, following other incidents earlier in the year.
In June, Facebook, WhatsApp and Instagram – which are all owned by Facebook – all went down, affecting more than 1,000 people in countries including the US, Morocco, Mexico and Bolivia.
There were further Instagram outages in March, including one on March 26 that hit a number of major US cities including New York, Seattle and San Francisco, along with other across the globe, like the UK, China and Australia.