WhatsApp Web outage hits users worldwide, restoration underway

Thousands of WhatsApp users worldwide reported a service outage on Monday afternoon, with many saying the web version of the messaging platform failed to load chats. Problems began surfacing in the early afternoon in the United Kingdom and peaked in the mid-afternoon, affecting users across Europe, the Americas and elsewhere.

Complaints surged in a short period, with more than 400 reports logged in the UK within about 20 minutes and thousands of reports appearing globally, according to a real-time outage monitor. The same monitor indicated roughly 83 percent of UK reports and about 81 percent of global reports related specifically to the browser-based WhatsApp Web, while other users said the mobile app was intermittently affected.

Users posted screenshots and messages showing blank chat windows and missing conversations on desktop browsers. One user wrote on social media, "WhatsApp web is not working no chats showing up." Another said their phone app continued to operate while the desktop interface displayed no chats or status updates.

WhatsApp is owned by Meta and serves more than three billion monthly active users, making it the world’s largest messaging platform by that...