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Why Snapchat is stopped?

Why Snapchat is stopped?

Snapchat, the popular social media app known for its disappearing messages and fun filters, has recently been experiencing major outages and disruptions to its service. Users have reported being unable to send or receive snaps, stories not loading, and login issues. So what’s causing Snapchat to stop working and what’s being done to fix it?

What’s Causing the Outages?

While Snapchat hasn’t provided an official explanation for the outages, they appear to be related to server capacity and demand issues. Some key factors likely contributing to the problems include:

  • Rapid user growth – Snapchat has seen massive growth in users over the past year, putting strain on its systems.
  • Feature expansions – Features like Snap Map and augmented reality lenses demand more bandwidth and resources.
  • Technical glitches – Bugs or configuration issues with Snapchat’s servers could cause temporary crashes or instabilities.
  • Network congestion – With so many users concentrated in urban areas, network congestion may prevent smooth operation.
  • Maintenance downtime – Snapchat’s engineering team may intentionally take servers offline to upgrade infrastructure.

Essentially, Snapchat’s backend technology is struggling to efficiently handle the hundreds of millions of snaps being sent by users every day. The demand is outpacing capacity, leading to periodic outages.

When Did Outages Start Occurring?

Minor blips and downtime for Snapchat began occurring as early as late 2014, as the app started rapidly expanding its user base. But major, widespread outages started happening much more frequently in 2018 and 2019.

Some notable major outage events include:

  • March 2018 – A morning outage prevented snaps from sending for several hours.
  • April 2019 – An outage across the Eastern and Central US prevented snaps, chats, and stories from working.
  • July 2019 – A widespread outage lasted over 8 hours and prevented users from using core app features.
  • October 2019 – A major outage affected users globally for several hours during peak usage times.

While Snapchat had experienced growth and scaling challenges since launch, it’s only within the past 2 years that prolonged, massive outages have occurred with greater frequency and affected a broader portion of users.

How Many Users Are Affected?

Snapchat officially has over 200 million daily active users worldwide. But it’s hard to tell exactly how many users are affected during an outage, as problems are often intermittent or isolated to specific regions.

Some estimates based on outage reports include:

  • March 2018 – Around 1 million users affected
  • July 2019 – Over 90 million users affected in the US and Europe
  • October 2019 – Nearly 15 million users affected globally

While the total number changes depending on the nature and scale of each outage, it’s not uncommon for millions of users to be left unable to use Snapchat for hours at a time during significant disruptions. The widespread nature of recent outages points to systemic capacity and demand issues.

What Locations Are Most Impacted?

Outages can affect Snapchat users in any location, but certain regions seem to be most prone to frequent disruptions and downtime.

Common outage hotspots include:

  • United States – Particularly the Eastern and Central timezones
  • Western Europe – Countries like the UK, France, and Germany
  • Southeast Asia – India, Singapore, Malaysia
  • Australia and New Zealand

Notably, these are all areas with very high concentrations of Snapchat users and activity. So when demand spikes in these regions, Snapchat’s systems take a hit. Less populated areas tend to have fewer outages.

When Do Outages Usually Happen?

Timing and frequency of Snapchat outages:

Time of Day Frequency
Mornings (7 AM – 12 PM) Moderate
Afternoons (12 PM – 4 PM) Low
Evenings (4 PM – midnight) High
Overnight (midnight – 7 AM) Moderate

In general, Snapchat outages occur most frequently during peak usage periods like mornings when people are commuting and waking up, and evenings when people are unwinding after work or school. Weekends, especially Saturday nights, also see more frequent outages.

Outages are less common during afternoon and late night/early morning when engagement on Snapchat tends to decline. But no time is truly immune to the possibility of downtime.

What Features Are Impacted?

During outages, Snapchat users may find that these core features are unstable or completely unavailable:

  • Sending/receiving snaps
  • Viewing stories
  • Making video/voice calls
  • Using lenses and filters
  • Updating memories and stories
  • Using Chat and Group Chat
  • Browsing Snap Map
  • Accessing Discover content

So all aspects of the app – messaging, stories, calling, lenses, chat, content – can potentially be impacted. This points to backend problems that disrupt Snapchat’s entire infrastructure versus issues with isolated features.

How Long Do Outages Last?

Duration of recent Snapchat outages:

Outage Date Duration
March 2018 6 hours
April 2019 3 hours
July 2019 8+ hours
October 2019 4 hours

On average, major Snapchat outages tend to last between 3-6 hours. But they can sometimes drag on for 8+ hours before service is fully restored. Even relatively brief one hour disruptions are frustrating for the millions of users constantly on the app.

Resolution times depend on the nature of the technical issues, if engineers can quickly identify and fix root causes. More complex outages related to spikes in activity or cascading failures can prolong resolution.

How Does Snapchat Communicate About Outages?

When outages occur, Snapchat has several ways it keeps users in the loop about service status:

  • Snapchat Support Twitter – Primary channel for posting outage updates and timeframe estimates.
  • Snapchat Status Website – Shows a map of outage locations and technical status.
  • Blog – Rarely will do a detailed post-mortem after a major prolonged outage.
  • In-app messaging – Will sometimes show messages acknowledging an outage.

However, Snapchat has faced criticism for not communicating clearly or quickly enough during some outages. Their updates can often be vague or delayed by several hours.

What Are Users Saying on Social Media?

When Snapchat is down, Twitter erupts with complaints and jokes. Here’s a sample of social chatter during recent outages:

  • “Snapchat being down is the worst thing ever, now I have to talk to people face to face.”
  • “Me resetting my phone, deleting and redownloading snapchat, turning my phone off and on again to see if Snapchat works”#snapchatdown”
  • “When Snapchat goes down, productivity around the world goes up.”
  • “Snapchat servers every time I try to send my crush a selfie #snapchatdown”
  • “Outage timeline: Hour 1: Check Snapchat, it’s down. Hour 2: Keep checking, it’s still down. Hour 3: Check Twitter, see Snapchat is down for others too. Hour 4: Consider deleting Snapchat. Hour 5: Snapchat is back, abandon deleting.”

Beyond humorous commentary, massive spikes in tweets about Snapchat not working demonstrate the widespread reach of outages. Users have come to depend on consistent access to Snapchat.

What Steps is Snapchat Taking to Improve Reliability?

To combat outages, Snapchat says they are making ongoing infrastructure investments and scaling efforts, including:

  • Expanding server capacity
  • Optimizing stability of core systems
  • Doubling number of data centers
  • Rebalancing resource allocation
  • Reducing downtime during new releases
  • Improving outage response coordination

Snapchat is also diversifying providers to mitigate potential vendor-related disruptions. The company acknowledges significant work remains to achieve the level of uptime users expect.

Other Efforts to Improve Reliability

In addition to infrastructure upgrades, Snapchat is also focused on:

  • Load testing – Simulating real-world usage spikes to find weak points.
  • Failover preparation – Building redundancy into systems.
  • Incident management – Having robust processes for detecting, isolating, and resolving failures.
  • Employee training – Ensuring staff have skills to maintain reliability.

With user growth showing no signs of slowing, Snapchat has little choice but to urgently invest in stability. Frequent lengthy outages risk driving users to competing platforms.

Will Outages Continue in the Near Future?

Despite Snapchat’s efforts, experts say users should expect periodic outages to continue over the next 6-12 months. Reasons outages are likely to persist include:

  • Growth outpacing capacity – User growth is exceeding infrastructure scalability.
  • Technical debt – Old systems are straining under demand.
  • Feature velocity – New features increase instability.
  • Hiring challenges – Recruiting top infrastructure talent is ultra-competitive.
  • Low tolerance – Users have minimal patience for downtime.

While disruptions may become less frequent and shorter in duration, Snapchat probably needs another year before it can reliably keep service disruption-free at massive scale. Users may have to continue enduring intermittent outages in the meantime.

What Should Users Do During an Outage?

When Snapchat goes down, users have a few options to stay entertained and pass the time until it’s back up:

  • Check Twitter – For outage updates and comic relief from other users.
  • Text friends – Use old-fashioned SMS to stay connected.
  • Call someone – Yes, you can still use your phone to call people.
  • Find another app – Try Instagram Stories, WhatsApp Status, or Facebook Messenger.
  • Do something else – Read a book, exercise, make food, go outside.

While inconvenient, a Snapchat outage presents a rare opportunity to take a brief break from the app we all mindlessly use so much every day. The world won’t end without Snapchat access – for a few hours, at least.

Conclusion

Snapchat outages have become an increasingly regular frustration for its millions of dedicated users. While the company works to strengthen infrastructure and improve reliability, intermittent disruptions are likely to persist in the near term. By upgrading servers, optimizing performance, expanding capacity, and mitigating bottlenecks, Snapchat hopes to one day reach the point where downtime is a rare anomaly. But for now, the reality is that outages will continue happening as Snapchat struggles to keep up with massive growth. Users have little choice but to make light of the situation with funny memes and tweets as they anxiously await access being restored – even if just a few hours without their beloved Snapchat feels like an eternity.