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Are your Instagram Stories repeating? Here’s how to fix it

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Instagram Stories are repeating over and over again, giving users a severe case of deja vu. Under normal circumstances, whenever users post a new Story, their friends see that photo or video before moving on to the next person’s Story or backing out. However, due to numerous complaints on social media on June 14, users are reporting a bug that causes Instagram to show them the same Stories every time their friends post a new one — resulting in a lot of repeating content.

What went wrong with Instagram Stories

Here’s my example: A friend of mine, let’s call him Joel, posted 17 stories within the last 23 hours and has posted another one. When I tap on Joel’s Story icon, I should see only the most recent story. However, his story replays the first 17 stories I already swiped through between this morning and the time that I’m writing this.

Closeup of the Instagram app icon.
Brett Jordan/Unsplash

Users have taken to Twitter to complain about Instagram Stories playing in an endless loop. Even fast-food restaurant Carl’s Jr. contributed to the discourse with a picture of its mascot kicking, screaming, and crying over rewatching everyone’s Stories from the beginning.

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anyone elses instagram stories being weird?? i keep having to view the same ones i ALREADY VIEWED!!! its pissing me off omfg

— logan (@hwreligion) June 13, 2022

INSTAGRAM WHY DO U KEEP SHOWING ME THE SAME GOD DAMN INSTAGRAM STORIES IVE ALREADY SEEN AND WATCHED!!!! @instagram

— Caity Babs (@CiBabs) June 14, 2022

Me having to rewatch everyone’s Instagram stories from the beginning each time they post a new one because of this glitch pic.twitter.com/bcmj9N5Q4z

— Carl’s Jr. (@CarlsJr) June 14, 2022

According to an Instagram subreddit, the root cause of Instagram Stories playing on repeat is a glitch that came with a new update. The bug is causing the Instagram app to not remember where users left off in their friends’ Stories, so they start from square one every time they post new content. Some users said they were able to fix the problem by deleting the app and reinstalling it, while others were unsuccessful in their attempts.

The Story loop bug coincides with Meta introducing new parental control features for Instagram to regulate teens’ time on Instagram and protect their digital well-being. Whether or not the Stories repeating bug is tied to those new controls is unclear, but it’s obvious that something isn’t working as intended.

How to fix the repeating Stories glitch

The good news? It appears that Instagram has already rolled out a fix for its repeating Stories issue. An app update released on June 15 takes the iOS Instagram app to version 239.1 and says that this new version “contains bug fixes and performance improvements.” While it doesn’t specifically mention the repeating Stories bug, The Verge reports that the update fixes it. We can also confirm this after testing the update on our end.

In other words, if your Instagram Stories are still repeating, it’s worth heading to the App Store and downloading the latest app update. Once you do that, your Stories should be back to normal.

Update: Added mention of the Instagram update released on June 15, which appears to fix the repeating Stories bug.

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Cristina Alexander
Cristina Alexander
Gaming/Mobile Writer
Cristina Alexander has been writing since 2014, from opining about pop culture on her personal blog in college to reporting…
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