Several social media platforms owned by Meta, including WhatsApp, Facebook, and Instagram, faced disruptions on Wednesday afternoon.
The trouble began around 2:00 PM ET, with WhatsApp users worldwide encountering connection issues. Many users reported seeing the app stuck on “connecting.” While messages could still be composed, they couldn’t be delivered until service resumed.
A status update from Meta acknowledged an outage affecting APIs that connect users to WhatsApp, Messenger, and Instagram, starting at 2:10 PM ET.
By 4:00 PM ET, the situation seemed to improve for most users in the United States, although some WhatsApp connection issues persisted. Reports indicated problems viewing or creating new posts on Facebook and Instagram, but these platforms also appeared to be recovering.
This incident comes on the heels of a broader Meta outage in March that locked users out of Facebook, Instagram, Messenger, and Threads for about two hours. Notably, WhatsApp remained unaffected during that event. Outages specifically impacting WhatsApp are uncommon, with the last major disruption occurring in 2022 and lasting roughly two hours.