/cdn.vox-cdn.com/uploads/chorus_asset/file/22245551/acastro_210119_1777_whatsapp_0003.jpg)
WhatsApp went down in a major outage affecting the communications app for two hours today. The service started experiencing issues at around 3AM ET, with users greeted with a “connecting” message. WhatsApp web also showed a “make sure your computer has an active internet connection” error. The issues affected users globally, and were resolved around 5AM ET.
“We’re aware that some people are currently having trouble sending messages and we’re working to restore WhatsApp for everyone as quickly as possible,” said Meta spokesperson Joshua Breckman in an initial statement to The Verge.
This was the first major WhatsApp outage since the service went down as part of a massive outage that also took down Instagram, Messenger, Oculus, and Facebook last year. That outage took nearly six hours before it was resolved and WhatsApp was back online. Meta, known as Facebook at the time, said that major outage was due to a configuration change to its routers.
WhatsApp outages are still relatively rare, but they have major implications for communications worldwide as the service is used by more than two billion people each month. When WhatsApp went down last year, Brazilian workers’ jobs went with it.
Update, October 25th 10:05AM ET: WhatsApp is now back online.
wazup.