Slack down: Major outage hits workplace messaging app

The popular messaging platform says it is investigating 'connectivity issues'

The workplace messaging platform Slack is down for millions of users around the world, though the cause of the outage it is not yet clear.

The company said on its website on Wednesday, 27 June, that it was experiencing connectivity issues across "all workspaces" and is investigating the reason behind it. It added on Twitter: "Deep breaths. We'll make it through this."

Users across the UK and US have reported issues with Slack for several hours, however connectivity appears to have returned for some.

Slack – which is an acronym for Searchable Log of All Conversation and Knowledge – boasts around 8 million daily active users, with 3 million of them paying for the service.

The messaging service first started experiencing minor issues on Wednesday morning, which it was able to fix. It is not clear whether the latest outage is related to the earlier problems.

"We've received word that all workspaces are having troubles connecting to Slack. We're currently investigating the issue, and will have updates shortly," Slack said in a statement on its website.

Slack has been keeping its users up-to-date with the outage with regular updates on Twitter, with the software firm's social media team working furiously to reply to people's complaints.

"Apologies – we're seeing reports of people not being able to connect to Slack and we're on the case investigating it," one update said.

Another stated: "So sorry for the trouble, we're working on getting you connected and we'll update status.slack.com as soon as we have more news."

Since launching in 2013, the company s it tool has helped streamline workplace communications and improve collaboration between employees.

It can be used across multiple devices and platforms, including Android, Windows, Mac and iOS on iPhone and iPad.