If you’ve been using the Instagram Android app in the last hour or so, you may have noticed that a bug caused it to crash seconds after launching, rendering it nearly unusable. You were not alone: users from multiple regions flooded Twitter with complaints about this phenomenon. According to Downdetector, this error first appeared around 12:44 p.m. At the time of writing this article, there were still new tweets complaining about this issue.
A Meta representative confirmed to famed software engineer Jane Wong that the company is aware of the outage and is working to restore service “as quickly as possible.” While this bug appeared to be unique to Instagram’s Android app, Wong told Engadget that the iOS counterpart was also loading very slowly for her, indicating a back-end issue.
Currently, users who are able to open the app have noted limited functionality, including an inability to access Reels or DMs. We will be monitoring the situation as service gradually resumes and will update you if Meta provides additional details on what went wrong.
Update 9/22/22 2:29pm EDT: Meta says Instagram was back to normal as of 2:25 p.m. EDT, though it stopped short of sharing what went wrong. We will share more if we receive a response.
All products recommended by Engadget are selected by our editorial team, independent of our parent company. Some of our stories include affiliate links. If you buy something through one of these links, we may earn an affiliate commission. All prices are correct at time of publication.