WeChat users complained on Monday about not being able to send text and picture messages, unaware of the technical malfunction encountered by the company's Shanghai-based servers.
Before Monday evening, numerous WeChat users started to grumble that their short message service (SMS) texts and even picture attachments on the instant messaging application were not coming through. Users experienced the problem even though their internet connection was working.
According to a WeChat user from Shanghai named Xia, she would receive a notification that the message that she was trying to deliver had failed to send.
"It recovered for a while, but then malfunctioned again from time to time," said Xia.
However, voice messages and audio attachments, along with the "Moments" feature, were unaffected by the technical malfunction with WeChat's servers. Users could still exchange and send these messages.
An announcement from WeChat was published on Weibo's microblog, saying that the technical malfunction at the Shanghai-based servers happened at 4:50 p.m., making logging in to the application and sending messages virtually impossible for many users.
The problems seemed to have only lasted for an hour. Before 7 p.m., the technical malfunction had been taken care of, according to the operators.
WeChat was established by one of China's internet giants, Tencent, in January 2011 and has garnered over 600 million users worldwide, 100 million of which are foreign users.
In January 2013, WeChat experienced a system glitch that blocked and filtered certain words in outgoing and incoming messages in both China and foreign countries. The problem was resolved within the week, with the company issuing an apology to users and saying that it would create a Chinese-only platform and one for international users.