Archive for: outage
It looks like Skype is going through some growing pains (or acquisition pains for that matter) as of late with another outage coming just a couple weeks after the last. This time it appears to affect only European users, however.
On Skype’s heartbeat monitor they’ve acknowledged that “a small number of users may be affected by this ongoing problem and that the company is looking into it”. Hopefully things pick up for the better. Nothing kills a great service and loyal user base faster than instability and constant downtime.
Update: A message from Skype
A configuration problem has meant that some of you have been disconnected from Skype.
We’ve identified the cause of the problem, and have begun to address it. If you’ve been affected, you should start to see improvement in the next hour or so. You shouldn’t need to manually sign back in to Skype – it should reconnect automatically when it’s able to do so.
We apologise for the disruption to your conversations.
Looks like Verizon is having some growing pains once again. We’ve received a few tips that LTE coverage in the currently live markets across the country is rather spotty. No matter how many times you reboot your phone, that little “4G LTE” isn’t going to come back. Just give it up, man. We’ve reached out to Verizon for any information regarding the latest outage.
We’ve also received a few reports of previously down cities (from last night) now coming back up with data speeds reportedly being faster. We’re also hearing that data speeds are inconsistant and fluctuating. Obviously, your mileage will vary.
This is the second time now VZW’s LTE network has had large scale issues, potentially calling into question its resiliency. Hopefully after everything is ironed out we get some clue as to why it happened. Last time VZW never actually came forward and explained what took down their next-gen data network.
Let us know if you’re experiencing issues and what city you’re in.
- February 28, 2011 6:39 am
If you’re one of the hundreds of millions of Gmail users logging in this morning only to find missing items and/or being greeted as if it’s the first time you’ve logged in, you’re not alone. A check with Google’s apps status dashboard confirms that the email provider and search giant is in fact having some pretty serious issues. If you have offline copies of your email, consider yourself one step ahead of the game. Otherwise, it’s all in Google’s hands at this point should you find parts of your digital life missing. Stay tuned for continuing updates as they are posted…
Update
The latest update at 8am says…check back at 10.
Update 2
New update: Check back at 11…
Update 3
New Update: More of the same. Check back at 12…
Update 4
New Update: 12:30 is the new time to watch…
Update 5
Google Mail service has already been restored for some users, and we expect a resolution for all users within the next 10 hours. Please note this time frame is an estimate and may change.
The remaining 0.012% of accounts are being restored on an ongoing basis.
This out of a total of 0.02%-0.08% GMail userbase.
Have you been affected?
Your Berry not going off every 30 seconds bugging the hell out of you? Can’t figure out where Twitter or Google is soooooo slow today? Then take a second to stop by Netdowntime, the new one stop shop for all gadget/network related issues. Created by good friend Eric Calouro from Erictic, NetDowntime has the ability to help everyone, not just geeks. Really, I’m surprised no one has brought something like this to market yet. The concept is simple but incredibly useful.
So the next time your updates stop, that web page crawls, or your text message fails to send, stop by NetDowntime first to see if anything is up.
And of course, end users are the only way bloggers such as us know about network related problems like the ones NetDowntime caters to. Whenever an issue arises, don’t hesitate to shoot Eric an email. Help yourself out. Help us all out.
Press Release:
FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE:
Erictric Media Group Launches Online Services Outage Blog
Boston, Massachusetts – April 2, 2010 – Erictric Media Group (EMG), the company behind popular technology-based blog Erictric, has launched a new website today named NetDowntime – a service aimed at providing breaking news updates on internet-related outages with the assistance of end users everywhere, who are able to report outages of various online services as they see them through various means.
“We’re really quite excited about launching NetDowntime simply for the reason that many around the world will really find it useful,” said Eric, founder of EMG.
“There really isn’t a centralized hub on the Internet that is primarily dedicated to informing users as to what popular services are down and why. This makes NetDowntime incredibly useful,” he continued.
NetDowntime (much like Erictric.com) is set up in a blog format, consisting of an incredible simply user interface, and straight-to-the-point visuals. The website allows users to subscribe to updates via RSS, E-Mail, and by Twitter. The service eventually plans to include more means of subscription in the near future.
Media Contact:
James McCarthy
[email protected]
Ph: 1-508-318-8742
###
See the related post here: http://erictric.com/2010/04/02/erictric-proudly-presents-netdowntime-the-outage-blog/
To many people, bitching about a video game’s DRM that resorts to requiring a constant internet connection seems stupid and like a waste of time. In the grander scheme of things — it is. But, if you focus on the core technological aspect of it, DRM is not a solution but a “fuel” to the piracy fire, only driving scores more towards paying less and less for products and services. Ubisoft as of late has found out just how much the tech crowd hates DRM with extremely vocal outcries thanks to the nonsense that encompasses Assassins Creed 2 and it’s “always on” requirement.
Ubisoft tries to hide this blatant misuse of technology as a help to consumers with cloud based game saves and backups. The real reality is that at any point, they can download, install, and run rouge apps in the background whenever they feel like they need to milk you for more money. The point….
Ubisoft’s grand DRM servers that power Assassins Creed 2 and other newer titles with always on restrictions have choked and died — hard. According to an Ubisoft rep:
…clearly the extended downtime and lengthy login issues are unacceptable, particularly as I’ve been told these servers are constantly monitored.” The representative added “I’ll do what I can to get more information on what the issue is here first thing tomorrow and push for a resolution and assurance this won’t happen in the future…
The only way we won’t see more of these happenings is to drop DRM altogether. It’s a simple, no-brainer decision. But sadly, it will never happen. Any Ubisoft gamers feeling a bit burned and murderous at the moment…?
Joystiq
- December 15, 2009 9:18 pm
While Operation Chokehold may not be gaining the mass support the organizers would hope for, (so far fans on the Facebook Fan Page are only in the triple digits) it’s nice to see that it’s at least hitting home. AT&T has responded tonight with the typical cookie cutter response your typical uneducated PR team is use to pumping out…
We understand that fakesteve.net is primarily a satirical forum, but there is nothing amusing about advocating that customers attempt to deliberately degrade service on a network that provides critical communications services for more than 80 million customers. We know that the vast majority of customers will see this action for what it is: an irresponsible and pointless scheme to draw attention to a blog.
When end users try to use the network for any normal uses that they actually pay for it’s irresponsible and “uneducated” yet when someone tries to highlight the networks shortcomings, all of a sudden all of that precious voice and data communication suddenly becomes critical. Ok.
I’m optimistic and hoping for the best (read: I hope AT&T bites the big one) yet the low Facebook turnout points to a less favorable outcome. And to reiterate, the only childish and irresponsible people in the entire situation are those of the BIg Blue corporate machine.
Cult of Mac
[Image Source]
- December 15, 2009 8:04 am
Sick of AT&T’s wasted dollars spent on stupid advertisements, constant complaints on poor network performance being blamed on “faulty hardware”, and voicing attempts to “educate customers”? You’re not alone. Granted most of the iPhone toting crowd will never stumble upon any tech blog, those who do can at least take action. “Operation Chokehold” was coined by the “Fake Steve” (aka Dan Lyons) to highlight AT&T’s utter failure in the mobile sphere. The requirements are simple: This Friday, December 18th at 12pm (PST), all iPhone users are encouraged to fire up the most data intensive apps they have and start the download/streaming/data sucking away. AT&T CEO Ralph de la Vega is either incredibly naive or incredibly stupid judging by his choice of words late last week, claiming that he and his posse were going to “educate iPhone users as to the proper ways of using their smartphones”. Right. Bring the network to it’s knees guys.
Some may call out such attempts as childish, stupid, and juvenile. For that all I can say is you are missing the point. AT&T is a big corporate entity that doesn’t give a damn about end users. So often end users are told to stand up to corporate wrongdoings in any way that they can. Much like some groups march in protest for a particular belief, iPhone users can take the digital march of their own to the airwaves. Emails, posts on support forums and other traditional methods of customer outlets won’t dissuade AT&T in the slightest or get their attention. However, a massive customer revolt bringing down their fragile network to it’s knees should clearly get the message across — customers won’t be blamed for AT&T’s faults.
It is you Mr. de la Vega that needs an education. Fix your damn network!
Per Fake Steve:
Subject: Operation Chokehold
On Friday, December 18, at noon Pacific time, we will attempt to overwhelm the AT&T data network and bring it to its knees. The goal is to have every iPhone user (or as many as we can) turn on a data intensive app and run that app for one solid hour. Send the message to AT&T that we are sick of their substandard network and sick of their abusive comments. THe idea is we’ll create a digital flash mob. We’re calling it in Operation Chokehold. Join us and speak truth to power!
CrunchGear > Fake Steve
[Image Source]
- October 18, 2009 12:38 pm
Yes, the real time king is down yet again. Well, for some that is. According to Twitter’s Status Blog, some users located throughout the world are experiencing connection problems. It’s good to know I’m not going senile. Because of issues with the site, my full attention has been on fixing those problems, not scouring the internet for news goodies — hence the reason I didn’t know if Twitter was down or not. After finally taking a few minutes to check the web, it’s worth noting that the Twitter outage, or more appropriately connection issues aren’t a full blown outage. They aren’t limited to any one group or geographic location.
For now, the affected users don’t seem to share any commonalities. Unfortunately, I have been stricken in the group of down users as none of my Twitter apps on both my iPhone and Mac are doing anything except throwing up errors. Yet I’ll somehow manage to make it through the day. Who else is Tweet-less? Care to share what corner of the earth you dwell in as well as the total amount of time down so far? So far here in Northern Indiana I’m looking at almost 24 hours and counting. 
Fairing better or worse?
Mashable
**Update: Microsoft’s pet unicorn works wonders as they announce that “most, if not all” customer data lost during the great Sidekick slaying of ’09 is restored or soon to be. Whew! So, conspiracy or simply mechanical failure mixed with a pinch of human error?
**Update 2: A word from a TechCrunch via Microsoft:
We have determined that the outage was caused by a system failure that created data loss in the core database and the back-up. We rebuilt the system component by component, recovering data along the way. This careful process has taken a significant amount of time, but was necessary to preserve the integrity of the data.
So there you have it. No crazy sabotage plans (though they were highly believable) or world ending tales. Simple hardware failure. Remember however that this hardware failure was one of the worst to date for a major company such as Microsoft and will no doubt stay in the general publics’ minds for months possibly years to come. Move along folks…the excitement here is over.
Now before you go and discount the ‘ol “inside job” claim, stick with me for a minutes. There’s some real meat to this story. First, we’ll start off with be simply highlighting that over a week after Sidekick services went down, no one, not Microsoft nor T-Mobile have come forward giving us any explanation. Don’t you find that a bit strange? Usually they’ll say the simple “hardware failure”, “software glitch”, etc. Also, with the sheer number of users these companies support, you know they have back up servers and back up servers for the back up servers and then some. Everything has multiple copies. So why hasn’t at least one back server been launched or at least some functionality been brought back up? Could it really be sabotage and “dogfooding”.
