THOUSANDS of people are reportedly having issues when using Facebook Messenger this afternoon.

The main problem relates to people sending and receiving messages friends and contacts when using the app on mobile and on desktop.

But some are having issues with pictures showing up.

One individual who the T&A spoke to said they tried to search for a contact on the desktop app for Messenger, but it would not load when they typed the name or clicked enter.

They then attempted a work around by going to that person's profile and then clicking the "message" option.

This loaded up the usual chatbox and allowed the individual to type out a message, but the message would not send, the profile of the person read as "Facebook user" instead of their name, and the chatbox had a "connecting" message at the top.

Another person said they could not see images that had been sent in a group chat, but that messages were coming through.

There have been more than 15,000 reports of an issue with the app since 3pm, according to technology outage tracker website, Downdetector.

At 3.20pm there were 241 reports, rising to 1,722 at 3.35pm and then shooting up to 4,203 at 3.50pm.

The latest update (4.20pm) shows 4,805 people had reported a problem with the app.

The data shows that 65 per cent of all these reports relate to issues with receiving message, with 34 per cent reported as being problems with logging in.