Instagram down: App and site stops working as people can't refresh feeds

Grey error messages have replaced the normal flow of food and fashion

An attendee takes a photo of the instagram logo during a press event at Facebook headquarters on June 20, 2013 in Menlo Park, California (Justin Sullivan/Getty Images)

Instagram has stopped working, leaving people looking at grey error messages.

The site and app won't load – though stories will – leaving people's feeds filled with old images.

Attempts to refresh the feed itself just leads to the error message, which says that it can't refresh.

Old pictures appear to be sticking around – meaning that the app initially will look like it's working. But it's not possible to refresh it or to download new images.

Instagram stories appear to be working fine, suggesting that it is a specific problem with the company's servers.

The app is owned by Facebook and tends to be relatively stable. But it is used by 700 million people – including the world's biggest media organisations and other companies – meaning that any outage tends to cause ripples across the entire internet.