3 Nov, 2017 08:41

WhatsApp down: App crashes, causing brief worldwide outage

Popular messaging app ‘WhatsApp’ crashed early Friday, with users having to switch to one of the many other forms of communication.

The Facebook-owned WhatsApp has, according to website Downdetector, began experiencing outages at about 8:10 GMT. Users from a host of countries including Ireland, Russia, Malaysia, Czech Republic, Israel, Spain, Malaysia, Kenya, Turkey, Italy, Egypt and Serbia reported outages.

After around 45 minutes, users began reporting that service had been restored. The company has not yet commented on the cause of the outage.

Predictably, people panicked and took to Twitter to express their dismay.

Whatsapp is down. The end of the world is near. pic.twitter.com/gEvfFMVH15
— Rubén Mozo (@rubenmozo) November 3, 2017

Switching between WiFi and 4G trying to get WhatsApp messages to send #whatsappdown pic.twitter.com/rGCaS0NdML
— Kam (@Kamil_LFC94) November 3, 2017

#WhatsApp definición gráfica de hoy pic.twitter.com/pVGsiYBGSo
— europa-59 (@europaa59) November 3, 2017

Whatsapp is down all over the world 😂 nd everyone is panicking.. Nd some like me joking abt it on twitter 🤣 The age we live in now 😂 pic.twitter.com/ylVQwibMyo
— Nikhil Siddhartha (@actor_Nikhil) November 3, 2017

When #whatsapp is down & you come to the realisation that you will actually have to do work today 😭 #whatsappdown pic.twitter.com/fPuTdpyvZs
— Kate Farrell (@KateFarrell28) November 3, 2017

WhatsApp’s last major outage occurred in early May, when it took several hours for the company to rectify the problem.

Now that service has resumed, those who had been forced to resort to Twitter, Facebook, and good old-fashioned text messaging, can breathe a sigh of relief.