Instagram could be a buggy mess for those unfortunate enough to get its latest update.
Many Instagram users have recently gone to the internet reporting a bug on the social media app that causes problems with its zooming while recording stories.
Instagram and its parent company, Meta, have yet to address the bug as of press time; there is a workaround for it in the meantime.
Instagram's Incessant Zooming
Instagram has had some problems with its zooming capabilities in the past. According to Alphr, users previously experienced problems with Instagram resizing their Stories after being posted on their profiles.
While there were workarounds and solutions for this problem when it came out, the same cannot be said with Instagram's latest zooming issue. A report from 9to5Mac said that Reddit users frequenting the r/Instagram subreddit and its own forums had sounded the alarm about Instagram's iOS app excessively zooming while users record their Stories.
According to the people that reported the problem, the bug causes a slight swipe up to zoom in at the maximum level while users record their Instagram Stories, ruining the process. Typically, users can swipe up or down while holding the record button to zoom in and out, respectively.
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As such, the bug makes the app interpret the slight swipe-up Instagram users do as an order to zoom in to its maximum level. Unfortunately, the bug also doesn't allow users to zoom out once it zooms in.
While it's unclear if the issue is present in all Instagram iOS users, 9to5Mac managed to reproduce the issue on multiple iPhone models running iOS 16 and iOS 17 beta. The problem couldn't be reproduced on Android phones, which suggests that the issue is related to Instagram's iOS app.
Unfortunately, Instagram and Meta have yet to address the bug and provide a solution. As of press time, it has been around five days since people started to sound the alarm about the bug in question.
Solutions And Workarounds
Reddit users on r/Instagram reported they tried uninstalling and re-installing the Instagram app on their iPhones, while some tried changing the app's camera settings for recording Stories. None of them worked; many are frustrated enough to consider going "off the grid."
While Instagram and Meta have yet to solve the bug, there is a workaround people can use in the meantime. Users can manually zoom in using the pinch gesture instead of swiping up or down; zooming using this gesture works as expected.
To simplify things, users can enable "Hands-Free Mode" on Instagram's camera so they won't need to hold down the record button while dealing with its zoom feature. This method prevents users from accidentally swiping up on their phone's screen while recording.
Since the bug came from Instagram's latest update, users will need to wait for Instagram to release its next update on the Apple App Store to (hopefully) fix the bug in question.
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