Instagram is down for thousands of users right now, and not for the first time this month. Users are reporting issues with the app on other social platforms.

In these kinds of situations, Twitter is usually the go-to source for updates. The live nature of the platform makes it the easiest way to get updated on things that are happening in real-time. Members of both Instagram and Twitter have flocked to the latter for the past three hours to voice their frustrations trying to open Instagram today. The hashtag #InstagramDown shows multiple reports every half hour or so, but neither the main Instagram Twitter page nor pages like @instagramdownn (which posts about exactly that you'd think) have commented on the issue.

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Of course, the easiest way to see if your Instagram is working would be to fire up the mobile app. The browser version of the service seems to be unaffected by any issues, which means you can use that option if Instagram is a necessity at the moment. As of this writing, reports using Twitter hashtag #InstagramDown outline a variety of user experiences. For some people, the app is consistently crashing upon opening it. For others, it works until they try clicking their profile image. Some people are reporting that, upon deleting and reinstalling the app, it won't allow them to log in. For others still, there don't appear to be any issues at all. The popular service interruption tracking site Downdetector shows hundreds of reports about Instagram being down per hour, peaking at about 1,200 reports as of two hours ago, so clearly something has gone wrong. Those reporting problems say it affects iPhone, iPad, and Android.

For now, the best option appears to be using the browser version of Instagram if your app isn't working. With no word from Instagram so far, we're left to draw one of two conclusions. The first possibility is this is a small enough thing that it isn't worth a comment from Instagram and it'll all be fixed within a matter of hours. An official statement would likely put people in a panic and create negative press. The second possibility is that the seemingly non-repeatable nature of the issue has the team testing possible causes and assessing how widespread the issue is. There's a chance Instagram is still gathering all the details, trying to figure the issue out itself before deciding to say anything. Hopefully, it's the former and this is all solved before many people realize it was ever a problem, as was the case when outages were reported last week.

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Source: Downdetector