Messaging platform WhatsApp had begun to return online by 2:00pm and the company said the issue has been fixed after users across the world reported problems earlier on Tuesday.

A report by outage tracker Downdetector showed the app went down shortly before noon, with #WhatsApp the top trend on Twitter in Pakistan with more than 85,000 users talking about the outage.

Users reported being unable to send messages, with the app showing “connecting”. However, by 2pm some users reported being able to send and receive messages.

“We know people had trouble sending messages on WhatsApp today. We have fixed the issue and apologise for any inconvenience,” a spokesperson for WhatsApp parent company Meta Platforms said.

The company did not disclose the reason for the outage.

Earlier, Downdetector said more than 11,000 users across India had reported an outage, while the numbers for United Kingdom were at 68,000 and 19,000 for Singapore as of about 0750 GMT.

Downdetector tracks outages by collating status reports from a number of sources including user-submitted errors on its platform. The outage may have affected a larger number of users.

“We’re aware that some people are currently having trouble sending messages and we’re working to restore WhatsApp for everyone as quickly as possible,” a Meta spokesperson said.

In October 2021, major social media services including Facebook, Instagram and WhatsApp were hit by a massive outage, impacting potentially tens of millions of users.

Downdetector showed outages in heavily populated areas like Washington and Paris.