WhatsApp suffered global outage for 'a few hours,' now back online

WhatsApp experienced a worldwide outage after midnight for several hours in some countries including India, causing disconnected used to resort to alternative messaging services and even SMS.

DownDetector.com, which provides realtime overview of online outage, reported WhatsApp had been experiencing problems since 1:30am IST today.

WhatsApp users in countries including India, Canada, the United States and Brazil experienced the outage for 'a few hours'

"Earlier today, WhatsApp users in all parts of the world were unable to access WhatsApp for a few hours,” WhatsApp told Reuters.

It took hours for the popular Facebook-owned messaging service WhatsApp to resolve the outages around the world that began after midnight.

Just after the acknowledgement of the issue, disconnected users responded to the outage on social media platforms with the hashtag ‘WhatsAppDown,’ trending in affected areas.

At 3:00 am, Reuters tweeted citing a WhatsApp person that the firm is “aware of [the] outage issue and [is] working to fix it.”

“We have now fixed the issue and apologize for the inconvenience,” WhatsApp told Reuters.

However, this is not the first time users experienced such outage. Before this, a major WhatsApp outage happened on NewYear’s Eve in 2015 when the service broke down for a brief period in a number of locations worldwide. At that time WhatsApp responded with a statement saying, “Some people have had trouble accessing WhatsApp for a short period today. We're working to restore service back to 100 per cent for everyone and we apologize for the inconvenience.”