Encrypted messaging app Signal that has seen a surge in new users was up and running and a massive 24- hour-long outage but some users were still experiencing error messages.
The outage was reported late on Friday and the company first acknowledged it may be due to technical difficulties. Signal allows for secure and encrypted video, voice, and text communication, but users were unable to send any messages.
The encrypted messaging service has climbed to the top spot in the free apps category of the App Store in multiple countries, including India.
On just January 12, the number of downloads on Google Play skyrocketed from over 10 million to over 50 million downloads.
Signal said it had restored its services a day after the application faced technical difficulties as it dealt with a flood of new users after rival messaging app WhatsApp announced a controversial change in privacy terms.
Its users might see errors in some chats as a side effect of the outage, but will be resolved in the next update of the app, the company said in a tweet
The Signal didn’t explain what caused the outage.
“As an unfortunate side effect of this outage, users might see errors in some of their chats,” the company admitted.
“Signal is back! Like an underdog going through a training montage, we’ve learned a lot since yesterday — and we did it together. Thanks to the millions of new Signal users around the world for your patience. Your capacity for understanding inspired us while we expanded capacity,” the company said in a tweet on Sunday.
This does “not” affect chat’s security, but you may have missed a message from that contact.
“The next Signal app updates will fix this automatically”
Signal has offered two fixes to clear the error messages manually.
- On Android, if you see “Bad encrypted message,” tap the menu in the top-right & tap “Reset secure session.”
- On iOS tap, the “Reset Session” button below “Received message was out of sync.”
Signal confronted a world outage that started on January 15. Although customers may open the app and ship messages, nothing was really delivered.
The non-profit Signal Foundation based mostly in Silicon Valley, which at present oversees the app, was launched in February 2018 with Brian Acton, who co-founded WhatsApp earlier than promoting it to Facebook, offering preliminary funding of $50 million (roughly Rs. 365 crores).
Signal later despatched a message with the next assertion from its COO Aruna Harder: “We have been adding new servers and extra capacity at a record pace every single day this week, but today exceeded even our most optimistic projections. Millions upon millions of new users are sending a message that privacy matters, and we are working hard to restore service for them as quickly as possible.”
Facebook’s poor privacy track record and the fact that WhatsApp has over time turned its sights on monetising the platform for its large international user base.
