WhatsApp goes down for some on New Year’s Eve (update: it’s back)

WhatsApp isn’t working today for some users. We first spotted the problems at 9:58 a.m. Pacific — we couldn’t send messages at all, and then they started to go through, but were always delayed. The outage seems to be impacting certain regions more than others. At first it appeared the problems were just a blip, but reports of problems continue to flood in.

Complaints about the outage have been ongoing for a few hours now, according to searches on Facebook and Twitter. Sites like Down Detector confirm the problem, while others aren’t registering anything, as again, not all users are affected.

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In fact, Down Detector shows just how the outage is hitting certain regions harder than others:

Indeed, our reporters in Europe are having more problems than our staff in North America, for example. But reports are coming in from all over the world.

At the time of publishing, the WhatsApp status account on Twitter has not confirmed any problems. But then again, it hasn’t tweeted since February 2014.

New Year’s Eve is not a good day for an outage, especially for a messaging service. Hopefully, WhatsApp will resolve the root cause of the problem before midnight arrives for all users around the globe.

We have reached out to Facebook, which owns WhatsApp, for more information. We will update you as we learn more about the issue.

Update at 10:42 a.m. Pacific: “Some people have had trouble accessing WhatsApp for a short period today,” a WhatsApp spokesperson told VentureBeat. “We’re working to restore service back to 100% for everyone and we apologize for the inconvenience.”

Update at 11:19 a.m. Pacific: Many are still seeing messages not being sent immediately, if they are ever delivered. Delayed messages appear to more widespread and not limited to just certain regions.

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Update at 5:56 p.m. Pacific: WhatsApp told us that it restored service this afternoon, saying: “Earlier today, some people had trouble accessing WhatsApp. We investigated the problem and have restored access for everyone. We apologize for the inconvenience and wish everyone a happy new year.”