WhatsApp back up and running after major outage left app out of action for millions

WhatsApp has millions of users worldwide
Justin Sullivan/Getty Images

WhatsApp is back up after suffering a major outage that affected millions of users around the world for hours.

The Facebook-owned app went offline at about 9pm on Wednesday, mostly affecting users in the UK and Europe, as well as the United States.

The messaging service confirmed in a statement that it was back up and running, but did not say what had caused he problem.

A spokesman said: “Earlier today, WhatsApp users in all parts of the world were unable to access WhatsApp for a few hours.

“We have now fixed the issue and apologise for the inconvenience.”

The problem saw the app refuse to properly start for some users, who were left with a ‘connecting…’ message.

It previously crashed on New Year's Eve, leaving millions of users unable to send or receive messages.

WhatsApp, which was bought by Facebook in 2014 for almost $20 billion, is estimated to have over one billion users worldwide.

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