Users in Asia, India and other parts of the world went into a frenzy after WhatsApp went down puncturing their plans to wish their friends a "prosperous 2018" at the stroke of midnight. It was restored two hours later though.
At midnight, a large spike was seen in the number of reports that the messaging service was suffering outages in India, Japan, Britain, Barbados, Panama, South Africa, Spain and Qatar. According to downdetector.co.uk, it received 2,012 reports that WhatsApp was not working at its peak.
Thousands of people took to Twitter and Facebook social media platforms to express anger for not able to connect with their dear ones. The Facebook-owned instant messenger WhatsApp remained dormant for almost two hours on Sunday.
Several people used other social media platforms to vent their frustrations using the handle #whatsappdown.
One Twitter user wrote: "Nothing could've been better than whatsapp servers crashing on new year's eve #whatsappdown #WhatsApp"
Another user tweeted, "WhatsApp wale Aadhaar link karna shayad bhool gye (forgot)," playing around the new requirement to link Aadhaar card number to mobile phones in India.
Another user tweeted, "WhatsApp can't be down. I don't remember how to send SMS".
A user also tweeted, "How single are you? WhatsApp was down and I didn't even notice it."
Another said: "Open Whatsapp. Send message. Nothing. Airplane mode on. Airplane mode off. Nothing. Open twitter. See £whatsappDown. Find relief that it's not just me. #HappyNewYear2018."
The app appeared to display a permanent loading wheel with messages failing to deliver. Whatsapp later apologized.
"WhatsApp users around the world experienced a brief outage today that has now been resolved. We apologize for the inconvenience," a spokeswoman for the messaging service was quoted as saying.
Meanwhile, some smartphones could have faced the problem as WhatsApp has cut support for some operating systems. The company confirmed last week that the mobile messaging app will stop working on a number of platforms effective from December 31.
The mobile OS support was withdrawn for 'BlackBerry OS', 'BlackBerry 10', 'Windows Phone 8.0' and older platforms, from December 31, said the company.
"We will no longer actively develop for these platforms, some features may stop functioning at any time," WhatsApp had announced earlier.
