Is Instagram Down Right Now? That Could Explain the Widespread "Try Again Later" Message

Social media can be an addictive beast. Constantly scrolling through endless feeds of content where celebrities, influencers, artists, meme pages, businesses, and whatnot are constantly vying for your eyes, comments, and double taps can be exhausting. If you find yourself constantly glued to your phone and reaching for your device subconsciously, then you know that only a few things will stop you from scrolling.

An urgent responsibility might stop you from being glued to your screen, and so might an extreme amount of self-control and sheer will. The third thing has less to do with you and more with a type of hiccup on the application itself. Take Instagram's dreaded "Try Again Later" message, which users have encountered from time to time. Ever wonder why the app keeps saying that no matter how many times you try to fix it?

There are a few reasons that could be happening. The first might be a widespread glitch that has happened in the past and that as of this writing, is affecting many users all across the United States. While this error could be taking place for a bunch of different reasons, the most likely one is a server timeout or general issue.

Localized servers that house, send, and receive data might be malfunctioning or could be in need of maintenance. Since Instagram is a massive online undertaking, specific types of content can be "blacked out" for users, and other features may be restricted if just one of the servers goes down.

This is where things get a bit tricky. Again, as of this writing, there are tons of reports of Instagram being down for people across the country, but when the application is running smoothly on the backend, it has a few safeguards in place in order to combat bots and spam accounts from populating the platform.

The first reason you might be receiving the "We limit how often" and "Try again later" messages could be because you're using third-party add-on apps with Instagram that violate the end-user agreement. Your account might be banned as a result, but these bans usually only last anywhere from 24 to 48 hours.

If you want to continue using Instagram, then it's probably in your best interest not to use these third-party resources. While some of them may be perfectly innocuous, others are used to mass-follow accounts in the hopes of gaining more followers. Then, after two months or so, the apps automatically unfollow those accounts and hope to retain a percentage to boost the number of people who see their content.

Instagram has been pretty good at putting the kibosh on these kinds of applications, but even if you aren't using these kinds of pieces of tech, you might still receive error messages.

If you're the world's fastest commenter, for example, Instagram may try to slow your roll and stop you from spamming content on its platform.

You may also notice that this error typically occurs after you update your Instagram application. So if you notice that happens a lot, that's the the culprit right there.

Many users reported that one of the most fool-proof ways to get back on Instagram is to log out of your account and log back in. If that doesn't work, then changing your password usually does the trick.

If you don't want to go through all that rigmarole, then you should just wait anywhere from 24 to 48 hours. You should still be able to browse the app and DM people during that time, you just may not be able to post or comment.

However, if there's a widespread server issue, then all of that jazz won't help you. So in some instances, you really do just have to wait it out.