Stories have given Instagram a fresh and revitalizing look since its launch in 2017. With over 500 million daily active users creating at least one Story every day, the site’s traffic volume is growing tremendously every day. Not only useful for personal use, Instagram Stories are also a modern way for brands and business owners to connect with customers. Stories now account for more than a third of Instagram’s sponsored content. So if you want to get more reach and engagement, maybe it’s time you experiment with using Instagram Stories.
Although the feature was primarily based on Snapchat, Instagram has successfully integrated it into its platform. The way it works is simple: you take a video or image (or a series of videos or images), add a title, include some filters, and publish it. Your Stories will be active for 24 hours and then they will automatically disappear and be saved to your archive.
Most users have a seamless experience using Instagram Stories; Many have even been so creative with it! However, some users have reported issues with Stories, specifically, not being able to upload the videos or images, with a perpetual “Publishing” or “Upload Failed” message.
In this article, we will show several different methods to resolve this situation and get your Stories working perfectly again.
Why Instagram Stories Won’t Load
There are several potential reasons why your Instagram Story may not be uploading correctly to Instagram servers. The combination of hardware and software that operates on a global scale and makes an app/site like Instagram work is staggeringly complicated. These are some of the common culprits for Instagram Stories not loading.
Server software failure
Instagram is continually updated, with new patches and hotfixes applied almost daily. Generally, these revisions test pretty well on a set of parallel hardware running a kind of fake Instagram. If a software change doesn’t break the dummy site, then it’s probably safe to apply it to the main site. This is usually a safe bet, but there are times when the safe bet doesn’t pay off and a tested piece of software hits production servers and the entire product grinds to a halt.
Application software failure
What users consider “Instagram” is the application they run on their smartphone or tablet. That application, although an essential part of Instagram’s architecture, does only a small part of the work of the entire system. It is a much smaller and simpler piece of software than code that holds servers together and keeps applications running. The software running on your phone, called the “client,” is more convenient to test than sophisticated server-side software. However, it has one flaw: it is used by tens of millions of people, which means that many of the possible ways these random humans could try to do things simply won’t be represented in the testing process. A small glitch in the client could result in a situation where Stories could not load, especially as a result of some unusual user action.
Network problems
The network between your smartphone and Instagram’s servers located somewhere in a secret Facebook data center is complicated and tortuous. From your smartphone, data signals are transmitted to the nearest cell tower, which in turn is connected via a microwave relay or a physical cable to a local hub. From there, the signal moves up the network architecture to a spine. A huge pipeline of data travels long distances between cities before being downloaded back to another local hub and transited to Facebook’s data center. It’s where the Instagram server takes the signal and processes it, turning it into an entry in your Stories. As complicated as the process seems, it only takes a fraction of a second. This network is reliable, but also complicated. An outage in a hub or a failure in the routing software can cause sections of the system to lose contact with the rest of the network. These disturbances are usually short-lived.
Resolve loading errors
It has several solutions to help resolve, fix, or manage loading failures for your Stories.
Please try again in a moment.
Most of the time the problem will solve itself, you just have to be patient. You may be experiencing a poor network connection, which your network provider will probably simply fix.
You can go read a book or make a cup of coffee. Call your grandparents and tell them you love them. There are all kinds of short, productive breaks you can take that will give Instagram engineers time to hit the servers with a baseball bat or whatever they do to get everything working again. It’s not exactly a solution, but it prevents you from stressing yourself out trying to fix it.
see what happens
Remember, sometimes when Instagram Stories don’t load, it’s not the app, but the Instagram end of the network. Whether it’s server issues, network issues, errors, hardware failures, or whatever, issues like that will show up on the system as a whole. Instagram itself doesn’t keep a public record of your real-time status, but other people do. A good place to check is downdetector.com, which has pages for many popular sites, not just Instagram. You will be able to check the status of Instagram operation, and also read comments from other Instagram users. Maybe this will make you feel better knowing that you are not the only one experiencing these types of problems.
Change data network
Since uploading Instagram Stories depends on a data network, the first logical step is to switch from your WiFi network to your 4G cellular network or vice versa. Instagram will see the change and will try the connection again. If the issue is with bandwidth or network traffic, the way to upload should now be clear.
Use Airplane Mode Workaround
This is a strange little fix that made the rounds on Reddit and elsewhere when Instagram Stories had just been rolled out and was experiencing a lot of crashes. This solution is not very logical or intuitive but it has had positive results for many users who attest to it.
- Publish your instagram Story twice in a row (don’t worry, we’ll only keep one).
- Close Instagram and activate airplane mode on your phone.
- Open Instagram and delete the first story.
- Turn off airplane mode.
Many people who experienced the initial crashes of Instagram Stories have attested that this method works.
Restart Instagram
Restarting apps on Android or iOS updates that app’s temporary files and memory usage. That may be enough to get it working again. Most applications self-regulate memory or cache, but sometimes they get stuck. A reboot may get them working again. For Android, open the app drawer, find the Instagram app, and press the X in the top right corner to close the app. For iPhone, open recent apps on iOS and swipe up to close Instagram.
Update the application
Like most popular apps, Instagram usually makes regular updates. If there is a known issue within the app itself, an update usually arrives quickly. Updating it through the App Store or Google Play Store is the next logical step. Open your respective app store and check for available updates. Your Instagram app may need an update.
Restart your phone
As always, a quick restart can fix a multitude of problems, and this could be one of them. A reboot will delete all temporary files, files stored in memory, and cached application files. The phone will reload everything from the saved copies and start again. Once your phone has restarted, open Instagram and try posting your Story again. It could work.
Reinstall the app
If you’ve changed data networks, tried updating Instagram, checked to see if others are having the same issue, and tried the workaround, and things still aren’t working as they should, you have two options. You can wait and see if this is an Instagram issue, or you can reinstall the app to see if that fixes anything. If it is a corruption of the installation files, a reinstall could fix it.
Select Instagram in your app drawer and long press the icon. On Android, drag the icon to the trash at the top of the screen. On iOS, select the small X that appears in the top corner of the icon. Both actions will remove Instagram from your phone. Then, go to your respective app store and download a fresh copy. You’ll have to log in and recreate your Instagram Story to post it, but it may work again.
Why are my Instagram stories blurry?
If the problem is not necessarily that your Instagram story is not working, but that the photos or videos are blurry. It’s most likely an issue with your camera and not the app itself, but if you’re sure it’s the app, we can try restarting it. If that doesn’t work, you may need to update the app.
If you think it is the camera itself, try updating your phone or check the camera. Sometimes the inside of the camera can crack when you drop your phone, but most likely the lens is dirty. Use some Windex to clean it up and try taking another photo. If none of this works, you may need to repair it.
How do I delete an Instagram story that isn’t posting?
You can delete a story that isn’t posted the same way you delete an Instagram story that is posted. Go to the story you want to post and select the three dots in the bottom right corner of the screen. You will see a drop-down menu. Click on the “delete” option and that post will be deleted.
Here are some other articles on Instagram Stories that you may find useful.
Are you watching an Instagram story and it goes by too fast to keep up? We will show you how pause an Instagram story.
We have a tutorial on how Instagram chooses the order of the Stories.
For the curious, our guide to what does that heart icon mean on Instagram.
