Facebook, Instagram, and WhatsApp are finally back online and working properly

After nearly 12 hours, Facebook has finally fixed the bugs and outages affecting Facebook, Instagram, and WhatsApp on Wednesday. If you’ve had trouble accessing pictures or uploading video on the platforms, the outage is the reason why. All three platforms should now be working properly.

Photos and videos on all three services were either broken, not viewable, or difficult to upload. Some people have also reported that mobile apps for each of the networks were crashing as well.

The problems began at 5:45 a.m. PT on Wednesday morning and continued well into the afternoon. Facebook said the issue was resolved and “we should be back at 100%” just after 5 p.m. PT.

Earlier today, some people and businesses experienced trouble uploading or sending images, videos and other files on our apps and platforms. The issue has since been resolved and we should be back at 100% for everyone. We're sorry for any inconvenience.

— Facebook (@facebook) July 4, 2019

Down Detector had been inundated with reports of Facebook, Instagram, and WhatsApp outages mainly affecting U.S. and European users, though people across the world have complained of issues with their images. More than 80% of users reported specific issues with photos on Facebook.

According to those reports, the vast majority of problems with Instagram involved the app’s news feed, as well as uploading and viewing photos.

We’re back! The issue has been resolved and we should be back at 100% for everyone. We're sorry for any inconvenience. pic.twitter.com/yKKtHfCYMA

— Instagram (@instagram) July 3, 2019

WhatsApp users are having issues with sending or receiving messages and with the app’s connection to servers. 

“We’re aware that some people are having trouble uploading or sending images, videos, and other files on our apps,” Facebook wrote in a statement on Twitter earlier Wednesday morning. “We’re sorry for the trouble and are working to get things back to normal as quickly as possible.”

“During one of our routine maintenance operations, we triggered an issue that is making it difficult for some people to upload or send photos and videos. We’re working to get things back to normal as quickly as possible and we apologize for any inconvenience,” a Facebook spokesperson told CNN Business.

We reached out to Facebook for additional details, but have yet to hear back.

Facebook is the parent company to both Instagram and WhatsApp. Combined, the three platforms have more than 4 billion users.

Twitter had its own issues Wednesday morning: some users were having problems sending and receiving direct messages, according to the Twitter Support account. By 3:30 p.m. PT, Twitter said the issue was “almost at 100% resolved” and that DM functionality should be restored.

We're almost at 100% resolved. There may be some residual effects for a small group of people, but overall your DMs should be working properly now. We appreciate your patience!

— Twitter Support (@TwitterSupport) July 3, 2019

Even with the DM problems, users took to Twitter to joke about the outage of the internet’s most popular social networks using the hashtag #facebookdown. As you might imagine, images (including GIFs) seemed to be working fine.

This is Twitter users when Facebook, Instagram, WhatsApp is Down #instagramdown #WhatsAppDown #facebookdown pic.twitter.com/XgVOF2hznv

— The Osas CRUZ (@OsasWrite) July 3, 2019

instagram, facebook and whatsapp users on their way to twitter #instagramdown #whatsappdown #facebookdown pic.twitter.com/Oy4n4TwISZ

— minkey shrinkus (@leeknow_yknow) July 3, 2019

In March, the three networks had an outage that lasted 15 hours, which was the worst outage in Facebook’s history. Facebook said in a tweet that the reason for that particular outage was a server configuration change. 

Cloudflare, a cloud computing company, also experienced a worldwide outage Tuesday that affected sites like Discord, FlightRadar, Coinbase Pro, and more.