Instagram users have reported a whole host of issues, including the app crashing, getting locked out of their accounts and losing loads of followers. Sorry, but how am I supposed to look at everyone I vaguely know from high school’s wedding pictures now? Don’t say Facebook.
On Monday and Tuesday, people around the world said they’d been unable to access their Insta accounts while others reported that their app kept crashing.
Is your Instagram app also crashing like 30 seconds after opening it or is it just mine?🤔🤔
— Travie Tech (@TechTravie) November 1, 2022
My mom can’t access her @facebook account since last night. We have changed her password multiple times already. She was just watching a livestream video and suddenly her account got locked. Meanwhile my sister and my boss can’t access their @instagram account. WHAT IS HAPPENING? pic.twitter.com/ILKTg41qjQ
— Denise Ang (@deniseang_) November 1, 2022
Me trying to figure out why my Instagram keeps crashing every 30 seconds pic.twitter.com/0qzZg6kJhQ
— ✰Julí💓 ✰ (@asiajuliaa) October 30, 2022
me on my way to twitter after instagram randomly decides to suspend my account pic.twitter.com/g1Sa6GReVu
— mia.🌝 (@voilamia) October 31, 2022
Me trying to recover my Instagram account #instagramdown pic.twitter.com/3cOPNCBX2w
— sparsh kanak (@kanak_sparsh) October 31, 2022
anyone else’s instagram just randomly crash after 30 seconds of using the app?? #instagram #instagramdown #instagramcrash
— Josh Goates (@josh_goates) October 30, 2022
me figuring it out why i lost some followers on my ig account #instagramdown pic.twitter.com/IcYd60S26r
— soob (@doieeee_) October 31, 2022
According to 7News, people have experienced a range of different glitches.
“Some simply have a ‘user-account-not-found-style’ message,” reporter Tim Lester said on Sunrise.
“But more curious is many thousands have received a message that their account was suspended on October 31 2022 and that they have 30 days in which to explain their apparent offence against community standards.
“For many thousands this is completely unexpected and out of the blue.”
Insta acknowledged the bug via Twitter — oh, the irony — and said on Tuesday at 9am AEST that it had been fixed.
“We’ve resolved this bug now — it was causing people in different parts of the world to have issues accessing their accounts and caused a temporary change for some in numbers of followers,” Instagram said.
“Sorry!”
We’ve resolved this bug now – it was causing people in different parts of the world to have issues accessing their accounts and caused a temporary change for some in number of followers. Sorry! 😵💫https://t.co/Q1FBOEI97D
— Instagram Comms (@InstagramComms) October 31, 2022
But in the replies to that tweet today, people have said they were still locked out of their accounts.
Very mysterious indeed. Look, maybe a bit of forced time off of Insta isn’t a bad thing at all. But if I’m in the mood to scroll, I’m in the mood to scroll goddamnit!
On Down Detector, an app which tracks complaints about website crashes, complaints spiked between about 11.45pm and 3am in Australia. Complaints here peaked at around 759 — though Down Detector’s chart shows a handful of users are still publishing problem reports. In the US, more than 7000 complaints were reported at the peak of the crash.
At the moment, Instagram hasn’t revealed what exactly triggered the bug. Maybe Mark Zuckerberg could pour like 10 per cent less time into the Metaverse and instead make Instagram good again.
Fundamentally, this is why I’ll always be a We Heart It loyalist. It may not have fancy-schmancy Reels or Stories, but it has some lovely wee pictures.
That app lives in 2013 and therefore has never let me down.