{"id":148491,"date":"2019-11-13T09:33:01","date_gmt":"2019-11-13T09:33:01","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/sftarticles.wpenginepowered.com\/en\/?p=148491"},"modified":"2025-07-01T21:28:12","modified_gmt":"2025-07-02T04:28:12","slug":"is-whatsapp-down","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/cms-articles.softonic.io\/en\/is-whatsapp-down\/","title":{"rendered":"How to know if WhatsApp is down and what to do"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"\"<\/p>\n

There is an old adage that goes something like, \u201cYou never know how much you need something until it\u2019s gone.\u201d This certainly rings true for the WhatsApp messaging app. It is oh so easy to take the Facebook-owned messaging service for granted. It is free, it is always on, and it makes talking to anybody anywhere incredibly easy. The trouble is though, sometimes it doesn\u2019t. In fact, WhatsApp goes down quite often just like other social media sites, like Facebook, Facebook Messenger, and Instagram. Furthermore, when it doesn\u2019t work you don\u2019t get a message explaining what is going on, it just doesn\u2019t work.<\/p>\n

If WhatsApp is not working on your smartphone, you\u2019re likely confused. Is the problem local to your mobile app, is it a wider WhatsApp\u00a0outage, or is it something to do with the service provider? These are the questions that\u2019ll usually send iPhone and Android users to Google but worry not because Softonic is here to help. This is how to figure out why WhatsApp isn\u2019t working on your iOS or Android device and how to fix it.<\/p>\n

“<\/p>\n

Why isn’t WhatsApp working?<\/h2>\n

Is WhatsApp\u00a0down?<\/h3>\n

WhatsApp is a ridiculously popular program. It has over 1.5 billion users, which means there are quite a few different sites you can visit to find out whether you have a local WhatsApp\u00a0problem or if WhatsApp itself is experiencing a more general problem. These sites include\u00a0Is The Service Down<\/a><\/strong>,\u00a0Is It Down Right Now<\/a><\/strong>,\u00a0Outage Report<\/a><\/strong>, and\u00a0Down Detector<\/a><\/strong>. If your WhatsApp isn\u2019t working, these sites should be your first ports of call. If the problem is affecting the network, then these sites will let you know. You’ll get outage\u00a0maps and up to date graphs showing reported problems.<\/p>\n

\"WhatsApp
Image via: Is The Service Down?<\/a><\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

Unfortunately, however, if the problem is a wider WhatsApp\u00a0outage, there is nothing you can do. You simply have to wait until WhatsApp is up and running again. Fortunately, however, when these massive issues arise the teams at WhatsApp HQ don\u2019t usually take too long to resolve them. You can check out a list of historical problems that have affected the WhatsApp network\u00a0here<\/a>.<\/p>\n

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What if WhatsApp isn\u2019t down?<\/h3>\n

If the above sites show that WhatsApp is working perfectly in your country or local area, then you\u2019ll need to start looking into potential local problems that could be stopping your WhatsApp\u00a0messages coming through. The first thing you should look into is your active internet\u00a0connection. You can do this by checking your Wi-Fi and mobile data connectivity using your phone\u2019s network and connectivity settings menu. If both of these are switched on but WhatsApp still isn\u2019t working, you should try and see if the internet works for another app like Google Chrome or YouTube.<\/p>\n

\"WhatsApp
Image via: Outage Report<\/a><\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

Switch it on and off again<\/h3>\n

If WhatsApp isn\u2019t working but other apps like YouTube or Google Chrome are then there is a problem within the app itself. The first step you should take, should this be the case, is stopping the app completely. To do this you need to go to the\u00a0Apps settings menu<\/strong>\u00a0on your Android or iPhone, select\u00a0WhatsApp<\/strong>, and then hit\u00a0Force Stop<\/strong>.<\/p>\n

Forcing WhatsApp to stop will then make it possible for you to clear the WhatsApp cache, which may contain the bug that is stopping WhatsApp from connecting to the internet. To clear the WhatsApp cache, scroll down to the\u00a0Storage & cache option<\/strong>\u00a0in the WhatsApp App info page. Once you click that, you\u2019ll see the option to\u00a0Clear cache<\/strong>. After you\u2019ve done that turn your phone off and then on again, and then launch WhatsApp to see if you\u2019ve resolved the issue.<\/p>\n

\"WhatsApp<\/p>\n

Update WhatsApp<\/h3>\n

If you\u2019ve got this far and WhatsApp still isn\u2019t working, you\u2019re going to have to start taking more drastic actions. First, though, you should check you are running the latest version of WhatsApp by going to the Apple App Store or the Google Play Store. You need to find the list of all the apps you’ve bought and installed on your phone. When you’ve found it, scroll down until you find WhatsApp, and then select it. You should then see the version you are running and whether there is an update available.<\/p>\n

If you are running the latest version of WhatsApp or if you update WhatsApp and it still doesn\u2019t work, the next thing you can try is uninstalling the app and then reinstalling it. To do this, go to the WhatsApp App info page on your phone, using the method outlined above, and hit\u00a0Uninstall<\/strong>. If you don\u2019t want to lose all your app data including your chats and downloaded images etc. tick the box that says\u00a0Keep app<\/strong>\u00a0data<\/strong> before confirming the uninstall. Then, head over to the Google Play Store or Apple App Store and reinstall WhatsApp. This should install a clean and up to date version of WhatsApp.<\/p>\n

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Wrapping up<\/h5>\n

When WhatsApp goes down it can feel like you\u2019re cut off from everyone and everything. We\u2019ve walked you through all the steps you need to follow, should it happen to you. The key is finding out whether the problem is on your phone or whether there are actual WhatsApp servers down causing problems for millions of WhatsApp\u00a0users at the same time. The sites listed above will show you about potential outages and will offer real-time maps showing all the different WhatsApp\u00a0problems being reported at the same time as well as historical data.<\/p>\n

If the problem is a local one, however, one of the other steps we\u2019ve laid out for you should see you have WhatsApp working normally again. Hopefully, you won\u2019t have to uninstall WhatsApp and reinstall it to resolve your issues, but you can always take the nuclear option should you need to. Just remember to save your app data, if you don’t want to lose all your chats.<\/p>\n

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If you’re WhatsApp isn’t working, try these steps to get it working properly again.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":9073,"featured_media":137504,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":"","wpcf-pageviews":1},"categories":[2441],"tags":[2333,1040,1126,1035,1043],"usertag":[790],"vertical":[],"content-category":[],"class_list":["post-148491","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-how-to","tag-app-subdomain-redirectionwhatsapp","tag-messaging-apps","tag-online","tag-social-media","tag-whatsapp","usertag-whatsapp"],"aioseo_notices":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/cms-articles.softonic.io\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/148491","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/cms-articles.softonic.io\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/cms-articles.softonic.io\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/cms-articles.softonic.io\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/9073"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/cms-articles.softonic.io\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=148491"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/cms-articles.softonic.io\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/148491\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":325434,"href":"https:\/\/cms-articles.softonic.io\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/148491\/revisions\/325434"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/cms-articles.softonic.io\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/137504"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/cms-articles.softonic.io\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=148491"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/cms-articles.softonic.io\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=148491"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/cms-articles.softonic.io\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=148491"},{"taxonomy":"usertag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/cms-articles.softonic.io\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/usertag?post=148491"},{"taxonomy":"vertical","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/cms-articles.softonic.io\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/vertical?post=148491"},{"taxonomy":"content-category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/cms-articles.softonic.io\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/content-category?post=148491"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}