It feels like every week brings news of another massive outage of some airline’s computer network, resulting in grounded flights and stranded passengers. However, a new report suggests that it’s not that these networks are failing more frequently, so much as it is that the outages are now affecting more people — and those people now have all new venues for airing their grievances publicly. [More]
outages
Comcast Apologizes For Early Morning Widespread Service Outage
By 10.11.16
You might not have been using the internet or trying to watch cable TV before sunrise this morning, but a lot of early-rising (and night owl) Comcast customers found themselves without TV, broadband, or phone service and complained that they were unable to contact the company. [More]
Hundreds Of Delta Flights Still Delayed Or Canceled Today, Following Yesterday’s Outage
By 8.9.16
Yesterday, a major technical outage caused Delta to ground all flights worldwide for about six hours. And though it’s been about a full day since Delta’s systems first came back online, it’s still slow going getting the airline back to where it’s supposed to be. [More]
Delta CEO Apologizes For Massive Outage, Travel “Challenges”
By 8.8.16
Delta Air Lines suffered a massive systems outage this morning that left all its flights worldwide grounded. After several hours, flights were slowly and in a limited way able to start taking off again, but passengers all over the map are still facing massive delays. [More]
Everyone Get Back To Work: Google Calendar Is Back, Or Will Be Soon
By 6.30.16
As a reminder of how much everyone has come to depend on a free (or work-supplied, if your workplace uses Google accounts) online service, today civilization may yet still collapse due to a morning outage of Google Calendar. There were no widespread reports of people wandering streets or office hallways with no idea of where they were supposed to be, but that may be because the outage only lasted a few hours. [More]
Who Kicked The Plug? Amazon.com Experienced Massive, Unexplained Outage
By 3.10.16
Update: Shortly after 2:40 p.m. ET, Amazon appeared to leap back to life, without any of the company’s media or social media accounts even acknowledging the outage. If we get any sort of explanation from the e-tailer, we’ll be sure to share it. [More]
Attention Comcast Customers: You Can Get A Bill Credit For Monday’s Cable TV Outage
By 2.18.16
If you’re a Comcast customer who experienced Monday’s nationwide TV service outage, you’re eligible to receive a bill credit from your cable provider. They aren’t going to issue one automatically, though: you have to call and ask for it. [More]
It’s Not Just You: Comcast Is Having A Nationwide Outage Today
By 2.15.16
This morning, some readers alerted us that they were having problems with their cable TV. Were they alone? Were they being punished by the entertainment gods on a federal holiday? No, as far as we know, that isn’t actually a thing. What we do know is that there are outages reported in cities across the country, and Comcast’s Twitter team is posting so rapidly that their wrists may be on fire. UPDATE: The outage is over. [More]
Widespread Skype Outage Prevents Some Users From Signing In, Making Voice Calls
By 9.21.15
If you’ve been having trouble with Skype today, you aren’t alone: after customers in the U.S., Japan and Europe reported difficulty signing in and making calls, Skype said that a technical issue with the app had caused some people’s online contacts to appear as if they were offline, even when they were signed into Microsoft’s Internet calling service. [More]
Instagram Is Down, People Forced To Look At Own Lunches
By 7.16.15
Time to brace ourselves, Internet: image-sharing site Instagram is down. While as of right now you can still view pictures and feeds directly, users can’t log in if they aren’t already logged in, and can’t like or comment on photos if they are logged in. Update: Instagram is working again: you’ll be able to browse your friends’ farmer’s market hauls with no problem. [More]
Comcast Says It Will Credit Bills Of Customers Affected By Outage
By 11.6.14
Twenty-four hours after Comcast’s X1 platform went down for the second time in three days, the company says that it will try to make it up to customers with credits to their cable bills. [More]
Comcast Apologizes For Week’s Second Large-Scale Outage
By 11.6.14
In the wake of its second high-profile TV service outage this week, Comcast is apologizing to affected customers, many of whom had to find out through social media that there was a widespread problem because they couldn’t get through to Kabletown over the phone or online. [More]
Comcast Hit With Second Pay-TV Outage In Three Days
By 11.5.14
Two days after Comcast experienced a widespread outage of its pay-TV service, the nation’s largest cable company has acknowledged that it is once again looking into complaints of no TV service for customers all over America. [More]
Tumblr Copies Facebook, Experiences Outage
By 9.3.14
UPDATE: Tumblr is back. That was a grueling half hour or so, wasn’t it? Tumblr’s official Twitter account announced the end of the outage, though they failed to explain what happened. There was no error message for many users: they simply couldn’t load the site. [More]
Everyone Stop What You’re Doing And Freak Out: Facebook Appears To Be Down
By 9.3.14
UPDATE: Facebook appears to be back. Continue breathing. In the meantime, we’ve reached out to the company to see what could’ve possibly prompted such a brief, yet panicked outage, and will let you know when we hear back. [More]
Hurray, Time Warner Customers Are Back Online After Internet Outage
By 8.27.14
If you’re a Time Warner Cable customer, welcome back! The Internet missed you. Many customers nationwide reported an outage this morning, though Time Warner claims that all customers are now back online. [More]
Adobe Creative Cloud Login Outage Takes Users’ Productivity With It
By 5.16.14
When Adobe announced that future releases of its Creative Suite software would only be released using a subscription-based model, it was completely unsurprising that 61.2% of Consumerist readers told us in a poll that they’ll switch to Creative Cloud when Adobe pulls CS6 out of their cold, dead hard drives. This week, Creative Cloud’s login outage validated our readers’ point of view. Users were unable to switch computers, log in, start new subscriptions, or add services. Some weren’t able to use their programs at all. [More]
