The messaging app, WhatsApp, is back after millions of users of the social media platform were unable to send, and receive messages.
Nigerians and other users of the instant communication app, owned by Meta, had reported that they were unable to either receive or send messages.
Tuesday’s outage began around 8:00 am with several of the users heading to other social media platforms like Twitter to lament the development. Both the mobile and web versions of the app experienced similar issues.
But the services were restored around 10:00 am (just over two hours after the crash).
“We know people had trouble sending messages on WhatsApp today. We’ve fixed the issue and apologise for any inconvenience,” a Meta spokesman said.
A check indicated that users could not send messages to groups while personal messages only showed one tick which means that such messages were not delivered to the recipient. The WhatsApp status feature did not also function.
While the users could open the app and also access past conversations, new messages were not delivered.
No reason was given for the outage by the messaging platform. WhatsApp last tweeted on its handle about 16 hours ago, sharing a 16-second video of how users can protect their privacy.
This was not the first time the messaging app and other social media platforms will crash. In April, WhatsApp users in the US, Brazil, Paris, Spain, and Costa Rica reported that the app was down.
“You may be experiencing some issues using WhatsApp at the moment,” WhatsApp said in a Twitter update about the development. “We’re aware and working to get things running smoothly again. We’ll keep you updated and in the meantime, thanks for your patience.”
Facebook, Instagram, and WhatsApp had an outage in October last year, and it took hours before normal services were restored.
With over two billion active users, WhatsApp is the largest chat app globally and is the third biggest social media platform after Facebook and YouTube.
According to Statista, there are about 33 million active social media users in Nigeria as of January 2021 with WhatsApp being the most popular, amassing 90m users.
