WhatsApp back online after mysterious global outage

 

Popular messaging service WhatsApp was back online for its 1 billion daily users in the wee hours of Friday morning, the company stated, after the app experienced an unexplained outage for a brief period.

Reports of the access issue — reported by various media outlets, as well as users from around the world — started coming in on Thursday night around 11:37 PM PST.

As per The Independent, the app "was not sending or receiving messages according to multiple users, many of whom have taken to social media to highlight the issue".

“WhatsApp users around the world are unable to access the service. We apologize for the inconvenience and are working to fix the issue as soon as possible," a spokesperson for the app said, according to the publication.

The California-based chatting platform — which Facebook Inc purchased for $19 billion in 2014 — is among the most popular messaging services in the world, with few issues reported compared to other similar apps.

 

At least 2,552 reports were filed at Down Detector — an independent app-monitoring website — as of 12:30 AM PST, Friday.

 

The worst-hit regions in the world include western Europe and east side of South America.

The outage was most acute in northern Europe and Brazil but lasted less than an hour, according to downdetector.com, which tracks disruptions across telecommunications services.

Thousands of WhatsApp loyalists took to Twitter to highlight the issue.