WhatsApp faces brief service outage; issue 'fixed'

Facebook-owned messaging platform WhatsApp today said its users globally faced trouble while accessing the service and that the issue has now been fixed.
"Earlier today, WhatsApp users globally had trouble accessing the app for about an hour. This issue has been fixed and we apologise for the inconvenience," a WhatsApp spokesperson said in an emailed statement.
A section of WhatsApp users complained of an outage in service for a brief period this afternoon and were unable to send or receive messages, according to posts on various social media platforms like Twitter and Facebook.
India is home to over 200 million WhatsApp users. The Facebook-owned messaging platform has more than one billion users globally.

In August this year, there was a similar outage with services being affected in different parts of the world.
Users turned to platforms like Facebook and Twitter to vent out their frustration at not being able to use the service with '#WhatsAppDown' beginning to trend.

A popular tweet read: "2 mins of silence for those who uninstalled and then installed WhatsApp again #WhatsAppDown".
Another trending tweet was "WhatsApp msg not sent: Step 1: Restart Mobile Data Step 2: Restart phone Step 3: Check #Twitter #WhatsAppDown trending".
A number of memes brought out the creative side of users. A netizen shared a GIF (graphics interchange format) of cartoon character, Homer Simpson carrying a board saying 'The End is Near'.

Another user put up a post with pictures of Pakistani politician and former cricketer, Imran Khan smiling with the message, "When you use blackberry messenger and aren't affected by whatsapp being down".