Instagram has apologised for an outage caused by a 'technical issue' that plagued users around the world throughout Thursday. 

According to DownDetector, more than 7,000 Instagram users reported problems with the app as of midday UK time on Thursday, but this rose to more than 8,000 at around 10pm. 

MailOnline contacted Facebook, which owns the photo-sharing app, for comment. 

'We're aware that some people are having trouble accessing their Instagram,' a company spokesperson said. 

'We're working to get things back to normal as quickly as possible and we apologise for any inconvenience.' 

Problems started just after 8am on Thursday. About 18 hours later, at 2am on Friday, Instagram announced the problem had been fixed – but the firm is yet to disclose its specific cause. 

Hours after the problems started, Instagram tweeted at 3:42pm Thursday: 'Is #instagramdown for you? We're on it! We know some people are having issues accessing Instagram and are working to fix things ASAP.' 

When it finally fixed the issue at 2am it tweeted: 'This issue has been fully resolved – we're sorry for the inconvenience.' 

A Facebook company spokesperson told MailOnline on Friday: 'A technical issue caused some people to have trouble accessing Instagram.

'We resolved the issue for everyone who was impacted, and we apologise for any inconvenience.'