Yesterday night, a few WhatsApp features got distorted and it lasted for hours. Namely, the 'last seen' and 'online status' were the two features that suffered. On top of this, users who installed the newer version of WhatsApp on their phones, took it to the Internet to complain about login and registration issues. On WhatsApp's official website, more than 2200 of its users reported the sudden problems.
Some suggest that this prompt disturbance might have had something to do with the person-to-person payment feature WhatsApp recently launched in Brazil, about 2 days ago. The same feature is expected to go live soon in India, the exact date and time for it remains behind the curtain.
Adding to the entire problem, some opportunists took advantage of the famous app's issues. They took it to social media to propagate false news, claiming that WhatsApp was either removing the said features, or experimenting with new ones anticipated to release soon. Neither of which was true. Also amidst the chaos, the hashtag #WhatsAppDown was seen trending on Twitter.
The troubleshooting report by WABetaInfo, WhatsApp's feature tracker, suggests that all WhatsApp platforms had experienced issues for hours last night. The published report suggested apparent problems on the server side. An outage track detector service called Downdetector, has generated data regarding the time all these issues started, which is near 8:30 pm IST, on 19 June, 2020.
Apparently for some users, the problem was even resolved after they had restarted their phones. The problems as well as their resolution went out for both iOS and Android. Thanks to the WABetaInfo and the outpour of complaints and reports, the issues were fixed for everyone in general, and things have now gone back to normal.
