Canva, the popular online graphic design platform, announced on Tuesday that it had resolved issues related to uploading images, which had disrupted user activity earlier in the day.
As of early 2024, Canva, which offers both free and premium subscription options, had more than 170 million users who rely on the platform to create social media content, presentations, videos, and more.
According to Canvastatus.com, a website that tracks real-time system performance, two issues were reported on the platform today. The first issue was identified at 9:54 am (Pakistan time), when Canva shared an update: "We are aware of an issue where users are unable to upload images and are currently investigating."
A follow-up update at 11:19 am (Pakistan time) confirmed that the issue had been resolved: "The issue affecting image uploads on Canva has been resolved." Staff members at Dawn.com, who had also been unable to upload images, were able to do so once the problem was fixed.
Earlier in the day, users encountered an error message when attempting to upload images, stating: "You might be logged out, offline, or Canva’s servers are unreachable." When users began reporting the issue, Canva's official X account responded at 10:00 am with troubleshooting advice: "Can you try clearing your cache, cookies, and browser history, then refresh the page? You can also try accessing our platform from a different browser."
Shortly thereafter, Canva confirmed it was actively working to resolve the issue.
Another problem related to premium subscriptions surfaced at 10:16 am (Pakistan time), causing partial outages in downloading designs and issues with billing and subscriptions. Canva acknowledged the problem: “We’re aware of issues affecting PayPal payments, as well as publishing designs with premium elements — including for Canva Pro and Teams users subscribed via PayPal, even when no payment is required.”
The company assured users that its team was working on a fix and promised further updates.
In a similar instance last year, Microsoft faced backlash after thousands of users worldwide reported problems with its services, including Outlook email and Minecraft. These issues came less than two weeks after a major global IT outage, which left over 8 million computers using Microsoft systems inaccessible. The outage, caused by a flaw in a cybersecurity firm’s test software, disrupted operations across multiple industries, including healthcare, travel, and brokerage firms.