Meta restores global outages after WhatsApp, Instagram go down, ChatGPT goes offline

Meta announced that they are “99 per cent of the way there” in solving a blackout they were facing because of which people were not able to accessInstagram, Facebook and WhatsApp.

Monitoring website Downdetector at around 10 pm GMT on Wednesday (Dec 11) said that 23,445 reports emerged regarding Facebook outages, 11,466 for Instagram outages and 18,646 complaints forWhatsAppcame from Britain. However, all three social media platforms remained largely unaffected in the United States.

Meta issued an update on the situation on microblogging siteX and said that the problem has been almost resolved.

“Thanks for bearing with us! We’re 99% of the way there – just doing some last checks. We apologise to those who’ve been affected by the outage," said a spokesperson.

The global outages were not as severe as the 2021 outage on Facebook when the company had deleted its own address by making a configuration error in a protocol. Even though the error was noticed immediately, it took them several hours to fix the problem.

In a statement issued on Threads during the outage, Meta said, “Earlier today, a technical issue caused people to have difficulty accessing some of our services. We resolved the issue as quickly as possible and we apologise for any inconvenience.”

After the services were restored, WhatsApp wrote on X, "And we're back, happy chatting!" Meanwhile, Instagram said, "Andddd we're back - sorry for the wait, and thanks for bearing with us."

ChatGPT goes down for several users

Popular AI-powered chatbot ChatGPT also went offline because of a technical issue and left users across the world struggling to access the service.

The outage started shortly before 7 PM ET, also impactingAPI andSoraservices of OpenAI.

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OpenAI, the company which supported ChatGPT, spoke about the outage and said that they have identified the issue and are working to fix it.

"We're experiencing an outage right now. We have identified the issue and are working to roll out a fix. Sorry and we'll keep you updated" said the company in a post on X (formerly Twitter).

As per the DownDetector, the complaints about ChatGPT being offline saw a significant spike after the outage was reported.

"We have reports of API calls returning errors, and difficulties logging in to platform dot openai dot com and ChatGPT. We have identified the issue and are working to roll out a fix. We have identified the issue and are rolling out a remediation. We are working as fast as we can to return service to normal and apologize for the downtime," said an OpenAI on social media.

(With inputs from agencies)