Not having much luck with Facebook today? Well you are not alone as people around the world can left unable to update their status.

The social media giant has been hit by a worldwide crash stretching across Europe, and from North to South America.

The problem has hit Facebook Messenger and Instagram too so it could be a quiet day for those who are hooked to their phones.

Issues range from a total blackout to difficulties with logging in, posting comments and not being able to see News Feeds.

The situation is complicated because some users are not affected at all and some say their apps are working fine, reports the Mirror.

Problems were reported to be getting bad in the UK from about 6pm on Thursday, but it's clear something is still wrong, with UK users logging problems on Friday morning, January 26.

Problems with Facebook and Instagram

One user claimed to know what the problem was, suggesting Facebook teams have been doing maintenance on databases.

"The profiles which have gone down are the profiles that are in those certain databases," said Beth on DownDetector .

People are complaining on Twitter - which is not owned by Facebook - that they are having trouble posting anything on their own pages or liking, commenting or sharing other users' posts.

On Instagram there appears to be be an issue with refreshing chats or feeds - and some are getting an error message when they try to like something.

Independent monitoring service DownDetector reports that half of the Facebook complaints are from users experiencing a "total blackout".

More than a third of those complaining are simply unable to log in.

Over on Facebook Messenger, more than 80 per cent of the complaints are about being unable to log in.

Meanwhile, over on Instagram, half of the complaints are about the News Feed loading.

Facebook is having problems this morning

Again, more than a third are saying that they can't log in either.

One user, Joel, complained to DownDetector that Instagram was "not letting me refresh my chats or feeds".

Meanwhile, Nivag Drof said Instagram "won't let me add stories".

Facebook user David Henderson posted on the DownDetector website: "Glad it's not just me who's found his account unable to do anything at all, thought I'd been banned!"

While Karan Gurung complained of "not being able to post anything on my business pages".

User Debbie Rowe posted: "It's coming up with an error, can't log in, says it will be sorted soon."

Entertainment streaming service Netflix also had problems, as thousands of users reported issues from 7pm on Thursday across devices.