Instagram Permanently Erased Some Users’ Photos
Some Instagram users discovered that their photos had been permanently deleted this week and the images were unable to be recovered.
According to a report by CNN, some Instagram users were shocked to find that certain photos had been erased forever from the app’s Stories archives.
The publication reports that certain Instagram users saw a message on certain photos and videos in their Stories that said: “This story is no longer available.”
Other users found a note that stated that: “Due to a technical issue, this story is no longer available”
While some individuals discovered a message that read: “While we’ve since fixed this issue, your story can’t be restored.”
‘Unfortunately, We are Unable to Restore These Stories’
Instagram’s parent company Meta told CNN that it had since fixed the issues. Meta declined to share how many users had been affected by the “bug” but said that only individuals who had received the notice on their stories would be affected.
However, Meta said they were unable to restore any of the photos and videos in the Stories lost as a result of the bug.
“We found and fixed a bug that caused some people’s Story highlights and archives to be deleted,” a Meta spokesperson told CNN on Wednesday.
“Unfortunately, we are unable to restore these Stories and we’re letting people know in the app if they’re impacted.”
Instagram Stories are a popular feature where users can share photos, videos, or text posts that disappear after 24 hours.
Many users view their Story Archives as a type of photo diary. Instagram enhances this experience by showing “memories” in the archives tab, which brings up an old story from the same day in previous years. Additionally, some people use Story Archives to store their pictures and videos.
As the news outlet notes, Instagram does not automatically save Stories to a user’s camera roll unless they switch on a setting to do so. Instead, Instagram auto-uploads any photos or videos on Stories to the Story Archives, which is what the bug affected along with the Story Highlights.
This bug shows just how important it is to back up photos instead of relying on an app to do so.
Image credits: Header photo licensed via Depositphotos.
