Many Instagram users, primarily those on Android phones, are running into a frustrating bug that prevents them from viewing Reels from DMs. Irrespective of whether you’re the sender or the recipient of a Reel, tapping on it simply brings up a blank page saying “This reel is unavailable.”
Reports about the issue are doing rounds on Reddit with people complaining about being unable to watch Reels while chatting with friends. If you’re part of the affected crowd, don’t fret! I was also in the same situation on two separate Android devices with Instagram Beta installed. Here’s a screenshot of the error for reference:
Clearing the app’s cache doesn’t seem to fix the problem, as noted by some users. Luckily, not all hope is lost though. To fix the problem, you’ll simply have to install the latest Instagram version available. The issue was resolved on both of my Android smartphones after I installed Instagram Beta version 360.0.0.0.88.
Once you’ve installed the latest update, you should be able to view Reels in DMs without running into the “This reel is unavailable” error. That said, this isn’t the only problem Instagram users have been running into in the past few days. Some were even reporting seeing washed-out colors in posts and stories. But on the bright side (I guess), you can now assign nicknames to people.
Feel free to let me know if you managed to resolve the problem by installing the latest Instagram Beta in the comments below.