Instagrammers left in pain as 'Stories' crashed globally

With the Facebook-owned Instagram's popular 'Stories' feature going dark, the users almost broke into tears early on Tuesday, with some bombarding the micro-blogging website Twitter with outrageous posts.

"I thought World War 3 had finally come", "Almost a heart attack" and "Instagram Down will be the most frustrating part of my week" were some of the reactions that hapless Instagrammers tweeted after 'Stories' experienced a bug.

For the third time in 10 days, Instagram, which has 700 million users, experienced a problem that began late Monday night.

According to a report in CNET, the Facebook-owned photo and video sharing app tweeted that it was aware of the problem and was working to fix it.

There was no further official word from the company about whether the latest bug issue had finally been resolved.

This time, the bug prevented the 'Stories' users -- over 200 million -- from updating the feature that lets them post photos and videos that disappear after 24 hours.

#instgramdown started trending and users came out with numorous jokes and memes.

"#Instagram crashed this morning resulting in your breakfast going cold! :P," a user tweeted, referring to people's habit of posting a story before they eat anything.

Another user said: "#instagramdown was the best thing to happen on twitter."

Although people were unable to update posts, they could still view their previously uploaded images and other people's stories which had some time remaining to be 'expired'.

The last time a bug sent the users into a tizzy was on April 27 when people complained of the app having crashed, among other issues.

On April 24, users complained about app's news feed not loading, apparently because of an issue with its servers.

'Stories' was introduced in Instagram in 2016 after it became famous on its rival photo and video sharing platform Snapchat.

After watching the efforts pay off, Facebook later rolled out the same feature in Whatsapp and Facebook mobile app as well.

Last week, Instagram announced that it now has more than 700 million users, with the last 100 million joining the platform in only four months.

"We're thrilled to announce that our community has grown to more than 700 million Instagrammers. And the last 100 million of you joined faster than ever," the company wrote in a blog.

--IANS

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