The WhatsApp messenger experienced a glitch on Saturday, February 22, reports the Associated Press . WhatsApp, which has about 450 million active users, was unavailable to users around the world for about 2.5 hours.

A message appeared on the official WhatsApp Twitter account about certain “server problems,” which the messenger’s technical service promised to fix as soon as possible. At the same time, the essence of the problems that arose was not explained, and the company’s headquarters refrained from making any comments.

A number of experts interviewed by the agency, in turn, said that WhatsApp servers could not cope with the load that had increased “due to a sharp increase in subscriber activity” associated with messages about the sale of this messenger to the social network Facebook.

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The WhatsApp outage occurred three days after it became known that it was being sold to Facebook. The deal, which totaled $16 billion, generated widespread coverage in the press and on social media. In particular, many experts then called the amount paid by Facebook for WhatsApp overpriced.

WhatsApp, which allows mobile device owners to exchange messages, pictures, videos and sound files, is one of the most popular instant messengers in the world.

WhatsApp messenger has crashed