outages

Where were you when the lights went out?

Where was I when the lights went out?

I was at my post for the game in the CBS operations center inside the Superdome, sitting next to our head of NFL sales and our director of operations. As with every Super Bowl, we stayed in constant communication with the production truck to make sure all the commercials and promo spots played as scheduled. There are formats, rules, and procedures, and our job is to oversee them. We are there for quality control, and usually it all goes right.

Nothing prepared us for what we heard over the director's intercom: &… Read more

Twitter hit by overcapacity issues

Updated: Twitter has since reported that the issue was resolved.

The fail whale is alive and well at Twitter this morning.

"Some users may be experiencing issues accessing Twitter," the company reported on its status page today. "Our engineers are currently working to resolve the issue."

Downrightnow.com, which tracks the availability of Web sites, indicates that Twitter has been up and down for the past several hours. A similar site, Isitdownrightnow.com, shows that Twitter is currently up but notes that it was down earlier.

On my end, I've been able to access the … Read more

Facebook endures hours-long outage in the U.S.

Many Facebook users in the U.S. are apparently having a hard time getting onto the social network.

Twitter is abuzz with user comments that Facebook isn't working for them. And, the site downforeveryoneorjustme.com is also reporting the social network is down. According to The Next Web, users from Texas to New York have complained of intermittent access. Many users have not been affected by the outage, however.

While the site is down for many people, mobile notifications seem to be working, as is the mobile site m.facebook.com.

Facebook has had outages here and there over … Read more

PayPal hit by outages and other glitches today

PayPal is suffering from site issues today, according to its U.K. Twitter feed, and is striving to fix them:

We've been made aware of site issues today & are working to get this resolved. Apologies for any inconvenience. Will update asap. Tks, MW

Downrightnow.com, which tracks the online availability of different sites, has recorded a string of outages for PayPal today. As of around 8:30 a.m. PT, PayPal had been up for the previous 30 minutes or so. But the site had previously been down for one long stretch and several shorter stretches starting early … Read more

Twitter is loopy for Vine videos

Thursday's CNET Update is longer than six seconds:

Today's tech news roundup explains why Apple's latest earnings report of record revenue and sales has disappointed investors. Tim Cook also had little to say about an Apple television and fixes to the Maps app.

Netflix surprised analysts with reported profit and growth. Netflix will push out it's own TV series, "House of Cards," on Feb. 1, and new episodes of Arrested Development are arriving in May.

Hundreds of AT&T U-verse customers have had to live without TV, Internet or phone service for several days. … Read more

AT&T's U-verse blacks out for days in several U.S. states

Some AT&T U-verse customers are still without TV, Internet, or phone service after a days-long outage that knocked out access for hundreds of users throughout several Southern states.

"The issue impacting some U-verse subscribers has been tracked back to a software upgrade," the company wrote on its Facebook page earlier this afternoon. "We continue to work to determine when service will be completely restored. Our continued apologies for the inconvenience."

The outage began on Monday and was confirmed by AT&T on Tuesday. Hundreds of users have complained of no service on the … Read more

Vodafone's BlackBerry users endure outage

Research In Motion's BlackBerry service is experiencing problems in Europe, the Middle East and Africa, Vodafone has confirmed, with many unable to access data services on their devices.

Some BlackBerry customers are not able to receive their e-mail or communicate over instant messaging. According to Reuters, Vodafone is working "closely" with RIM to restore the service as quickly as possible.

The problem comes only a couple of weeks away from the long-awaited BlackBerry 10 launch, in which the Canadian smartphone maker will release the next-generation platform and smartphones on a bevy of networks.

It's not clear … Read more

Amazon apologizes for Netflix's Christmas Eve streaming outage

Amazon has posted an apology for a disruption in its cloud services that hobbled Netflix's streaming services on Christmas Eve and said it is taking steps to prevent future disruptions.

Although Amazon's explanation of the outage didn't identify Netflix by name, the streaming service blamed Amazon Web Services last week for an outage that affected "many but not all devices" across the Americas.

"We want to apologize," Seattle-based Amazon said in its statement. "We know how critical our services are to our customers' businesses, and we know this disruption came at an … Read more

Netflix outage mars Christmas Eve

Netflix's video streaming service suffered a Christmas Eve outage on "many but not all devices" across the Americas, according to the company.

The outage continued into Christmas morning for some customers. The company tweeted on its Netflix US account at 8:45 a.m. PT today that the service was "back to normal streaming levels."

Netflix first started responding to tweets about disrupted service before 1 p.m. PT yesterday. About three hours later, Netflix offered an apology on its main Twitter account.

"We're sorry for the Christmas Eve outage. Terrible timing! Engineers … Read more

Apple revamps services status tool amid recent outages

Apple has revamped its online status page to include more detailed information on what's working and what isn't, following a number of recent outages of its Web-powered services.

The new page (pictured above) breaks down Apple's services, online stores, and specific features within iCloud. Also included is a "detailed timeline" which shows you a full day's worth of activity, and a rundown of any outages or issues with specific services.

The system replaces one Apple used specifically for iCloud features, which showed checkboxes next to items that had been fixed. The newer system uses … Read more