Instagram down: App stops working as users unable to post or upload stories

Instagram has stopped working, leaving users unable to post.

The outage came at the same time as issues at Instagram's owner Facebook, where users were also unable to post photos, comment or use a variety of other parts of the site.

Problems were particularly focused in the UK and US, according to the tracking website Downdetector. But they were being reported across the world, with thousands of users complaining about the issues.

Many users reported that the app might load as normal, with photos showing. But trying to upload a picture or update stories would fail.

Instagram – and Facebook – have been hit by a series of problems in recent months. The services have repeatedly gone down, with some of those outages lasting for many hours.

The company has not tweeted from its official page, which it occasionally does to apologise for widespread outages.

In a tweet in early July, for instance – when Instagram and Facebook stopped working in one of their biggest ever issues – it acknowledged the problems and apologised for any problems.

"We’re aware that some people are having trouble uploading or sending images and videos on Instagram," it said. "We're sorry for the trouble and are working to get things back to normal as quickly as possible."

It then posted another update making clear that the service was back online.

Instagram does not maintain an official server status page for checking whether pages are down and if it is aware of issues.