SNAPCHAT has gone down for thousands of users in a mystery outage.
Technical issues on October 13, 2021, meant users could not login to the app or access core features.
This is the third time a social media giants has been hit in recent days.
The Snapchat team have acknowledged that there is a problem, writing: “hang tight, we’re looking into it!”
Snapchat outage comes after similar failure at Facebook
The social media apps were down for millions of users for hours on 4th October in its worst global outage since 2008, while Twitter users were briefly affected, reports said.
Problems with the services, which are all owned by Facebook, began around 4.45pm BST (11.45am ET), according to online outage trackers, while, the Twitter situation emerged a few hours later.
At around 11.15pm BST Facebook and Instagram were back up and running for many users.
Facebook said in a statement on Twitter: “To the huge community of people and businesses around the world who depend on us: we’re sorry.
“We’ve been working hard to restore access to our apps and services and are happy to report they are coming back online now. Thank you for bearing with us.”
What should you do if your Snapchat goes down?
The Snapchat Support Twitter firstly suggests manually update your app in the App Store following the crash.
Once you’ve updated, make sure to quit and restart the app.
If this failed then users should visit the website and go to the section labelled “My Snapchats have disappeared”.
By pressing “yes” next to “still need help” you can fill out a form with more assistance.
Explained: How Evan Spiegel became one of the world’s youngest billionaires
Evan Spiegel became a multi-billionaire after his company Snap Inc went public in March 2017 with 200 million shares being flogged for £13.90 ($17) each.
Co-founder Murphy, 28, joined Spiegel in the billionaire’s club.
The pair retain controlling power over all matters at Snap.
‘Unlike`ly to be a cyber attack’
According to Jake Moore, a Cybersecurity Specialist at ESET, the Snapchat outage for many users is likely not be a cyber attack.
The specialist went on to say that this sort of problem is increasing in volume due to the size of the sites.
“Large infrastructure struggles to simulate changes at scale, which can seemingly wipe them offline for hours at a time with eye watering financial impact.
“Unlikely to be a cyberattack, although that is never completely off limits, this sort of problem is increasing in volume and scale due to the sheer size of some of these sites, and urgently needs to be addressed with better protection methods.
“Spreading infrastructural measures across different internal platforms can help mitigate the impact and risk, but unfortunately hindsight is a virtue with these platforms that have become so enormous.”
Spiegel turned down a £2.4 billion ($3 billion) cash acquisition offer from Facebook in 2013.
The deal alone would have netted him £611 million ($750 million) personally.
Who is Snapchat’s co-creator Thomas Spiegel?
The American businessman is the co-founder and CEO of the social media company Snap Inc.
He created this company alongside Bobby Murphy and Reggie Brown while they were students at Stanford University.
He was also named the youngest billionaire in the world back in 2015, which is some achievement.
What should you do if your Snapchat goes down?
The Snapchat Support Twitter firstly suggests manually update your app in the App Store following the crash.
Once you’ve updated, make sure to quit and restart the app.
If this failed then users should visit the website and go to the section labelled “My Snapchats have disappeared”.
By pressing “yes” next to “still need help” you can fill out a form with more assistance.
What happened to Snapchat?
According to online outage tracker DownDetector, issues Snapchat began around 11:43am UK time on Wednesday.
More than 13,000 people have reported problems with the iOS and Android apps so far.
While the app is working for some, others are having difficulty accessing core features such as loading and sending pictures.
Some users are also experiencing problems logging in.
The official @snapchatsupport Twitter account hasn’t posted anything about the downtime.
The Sun has reached out to Snapchat for comment.
Snapchat back up and running for many
Many Snapchat accounts are back up and running, with messages now being able to be received.
Snapchat Support twitter handle are yet to confirm the issue has been resolved.
Users have taken to twitter to express frustration
The issues began at around 11:45am today. Many users have expressed their difficulties in logging in to the app.
Users are also complaining of not being able to send messages to other users.
One users replied to Snapchat’s tweet saying “let me log back in.”
Whilst another commented “It’ll let me log in. however , snaps won’t send , chats will . also , bitmojis don’t show up.”
