Instagram down: App and website break, showing only '5xx Server Error' rather than pictures of food

Update: Instagram is down again – get the latest updates here

Instagram is completely down, leaving people unable to use either its app or website.

Click here for all the latest updates on Instagram's 24 April 2017 outage

Visitors to the website see a message reading "5xx server error" and nothing else. App users will see a message saying that the app "couldn't refresh feed" – though the problem looks temporary, it isn't actually possible to get new pictures at all.

It isn't clear what the source of the problem is or if it will be fixed any time soon.

The outage follows a huge outage last week that took down many apps and websites including Twitter and Netflix. But it doesn't seem to be connected to those problems or springing from the same cause – no other services appear to have been hit by Instagram's outage, including its parent Facebook.

The website Down Detector saw a huge spike in reports for the usual fairly reliable service. Most of the issues were concentrated on the US East and West Coast and in Europe – though that might indicate that the problem was worldwide and is just a consequence of where peopl's phones are and where they are awake.