Instagram Down? Thousands across major US cities report issues, Downdetector shows

Thousands of users reported problems with Instagram late Wednesday, March 10, 2026, with many saying they were unable to send or receive direct messages on the popular social media platform. According to outage-tracking site Downdetector, the Meta-owned app appeared to experience a widespread disruption affecting its messaging feature, particularly across the United States. By around 11:30 p.m. EST, nearly 10,000 users had reported issues on the monitoring platform.

Data from Downdetector showed that the majority of complaints were related to the Instagram app itself (74%), followed by server connection problems (18%) and feed or timeline issues (4%).

Instagram down? Major cities report problems

The outage reports were concentrated in several major US cities, including Los Angeles, Phoenix and New York, according to Downdetector’s tracking data. Other cities such as Boston, Chicago and Atlanta also recorded a noticeable number of complaints.

Many users said they could still open conversations but were unable to send new messages, leaving chats stuck mid-conversation. The issue caused frustration among users who rely on Instagram for business communication, collaborations, or everyday messaging with friends.

Instagram users report issues on X

As the disruption spread, users took to X to check whether others were experiencing the same issue.

One user wrote, “is instagram down rn??? dms arent working for me is it just me.”


Another replied, “Is not working for me neither.”

Others described similar glitches affecting their message history and notifications. “My messages won’t send and it keeps showing me messages unread that I already try opening and replying too anyone else?” one user posted.

Another user said, “Keeps saying ‘failed to load earlier messages’ for me.”

The reports suggest that the disruption primarily affected Instagram direct messages, though some users also questioned whether posts and other features were impacted.

Despite the spike in user complaints, the official status page of Meta Platforms showed no known issues with Instagram at the time of the reports.

It remains unclear what caused the reported outage since Meta had not issued an official statement as of writing.