Social Media
Is Instagram Down? May 26 reports of feed posts not loading are a lot.

Instagram Users Began Reporting Major Issues With The App On May 26 — Here's What To Know

Um, where is my feed?

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If your IG account has been acting up, don’t worry — you’re not the only one. And if you’re wondering whether that means Instagram is down, you’re also in good company. On May 26, many users took to Twitter to report feed posts not loading or that their feeds were filled with old posts. According to Down Detector, as of 12:48 p.m. ET, there were 6,034 reports of issues with the Instagram app, as compared to the baseline of 39. Elite Daily reached out to Instagram about the reported issues, and a Meta spokesperson responded in an email, “We’re aware that some people are having trouble accessing Instagram. We’re working to get things back to normal as quickly as possible and we apologize for any inconvenience.”

Thankfully, many people aired their reported Instagram problems on Twitter, so with a little sleuthing, you can see just what issues you might expect on your own app. As of about 1 p.m. ET, there were a range of different issues plaguing the platform — some people were experiencing a glitch that shows you old posts from weeks ago, while others had trouble scrolling through more than a few posts. Some users have even reported not seeing feeds at all or being logged out of their account and haven’t been able to get back in, making them think they’ve been hacked. I mean seriously, what is going on???

Instagram famously ditched chronological feeds in 2016 (although there are new feed options for 2022 that allow you to view your feed in order), so it’s not totally uncommon to see a post a few days late, but that didn’t appear to be what was happening to users on May 26. Many people (including myself) are seeing posts they already saw and engaged with when they were originally posted.

Plus, with some many other glitches happening at the same time, it had people wondering if someone pushed the wrong button at Instagram HQ.

Whatever’s going on, it looks like Instagram may be catching up. As of 2:11 p.m. ET, Down Detector’s number of reported issues has decreased to 2,878. That’s still a lot more than the baseline of 46, but hey — it’s better than nothing. As of 2:41 p.m. ET, there was no post about the reported issues on the Instagram Comms Twitter account, aka where the company usually addresses app performance issues, so perhaps it wasn’t as widespread as Twitter would make you believe, although the reported issues still hovered at around 2,500 at 2:26 p.m. ET.

Until the issue is fully resolved, all there is to do is sit back and watch the memes roll in on Twitter.

Every. Two. Weeks.

It’s always fun on Twitter when Instagram is down.

Instagram is no stranger to outages, but this one seems extra bizarre.

OMG, the retrograde of it all.

I just want to see some new posts, is that too much to ask?

Ooof, not *actual* work.

When in doubt, you can always count on #InstagramDown to have the scoop.

TL;DR: If your Instagram is working flawlessly, congrats! If it’s not, you might want to try updating the app, logging out and logging back in, or even deleting and re-downloading the app altogether. It appears Meta is working on the issues, but as you wait, the best you can do is chalk it up to a glitch and hope it resolves itself soon.