A widespread technical problem within the Cloudflare global network has caused numerous popular websites and services to go offline. Several platforms, including X (the microblogging platform) and OpenAI’s ChatGPT, were inaccessible, displaying an error message pointing to an issue within Cloudflare’s data centres.
The outage began a short while ago and was promptly acknowledged by the infrastructure firm. It stated it is actively working to resolve the issues.
Services Affected by Internal Server Error
Around 5:15pm IST on Tuesday, many online platforms became inaccessible. Affected websites included X, ChatGPT, Claude, Perplexity, Canva, and several news portals. Services like Spotify, Uber, Zoom, and even games like Valorant and League of Legends were also experiencing problems during the outage.
Visitors trying to access these sites were shown an HTTP 500 error code, also known as an internal server error. This message informed users that the problem was impacting Cloudflare’s network, confirming that the origin hosts were operational but Cloudflare’s data centres were not accessible.
It is worth noting that downtime tracking websites, which also rely on Cloudflare’s network, were themselves affected. The security challenge domain used by Cloudflare to check if visitors are not bots was also inaccessible.
Company Investigating Issue
The company’s system status website confirmed it is investigating the widespread HTTP 500 errors, along with failures on the Cloudflare API and dashboard. The error messages on various websites showed that the outage impacted data centres in regions including Chennai, Mumbai, Frankfurt, and New Delhi.
While Cloudflare has reported that several services appear to be recovering, it warned that websites might still show “higher than normal error rates” as the company completes its efforts to fix the problem.
The disruption is not the first major incident of its kind this year. In October, a massive Amazon Web Services (AWS) outage caused by issues at its North Virginia data centre resulted in over 1,000 services being inaccessible for up to 12 hours. That time, the company attributed the issue to a “Domain Name System (DNS) resolution issue for the regional DynamoDB service endpoints”.
Also read: Viksit Workforce for a Viksit Bharat
Do Follow: The Mainstream formerly known as CIO News LinkedIn Account | The Mainstream formerly known as CIO News Facebook | The Mainstream formerly known as CIO News Youtube | The Mainstream formerly known as CIO News Twitter
About us:
The Mainstream formerly known as CIO News is a premier platform dedicated to delivering latest news, updates, and insights from the tech industry. With its strong foundation of intellectual property and thought leadership, the platform is well-positioned to stay ahead of the curve and lead conversations about how technology shapes our world. From its early days as CIO News to its rebranding as The Mainstream on November 28, 2024, it has been expanding its global reach, targeting key markets in the Middle East & Africa, ASEAN, the USA, and the UK. The Mainstream is a vision to put technology at the center of every conversation, inspiring professionals and organizations to embrace the future of tech.
